This is embarrassing, really, but it is important to correct one’s errors. I apologize in advance if I’ve misled anyone.
For a long time I’ve been countering hysterical, communist gun control lies with a set of statistics. Chief among them was the claim that guns save roughly 1 million American lives each year. That’s simply not true.
They save 2 MILLION. Every. Single. Year.
The CDC said so (or would have, if they didn’t have an agenda):
An unpublished Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) study confirms Florida State University criminologist Gary Kleck’s findings of more than two million defensive handgun uses (DGUs) per year.
Since the early 1990s, Kleck has maintained that there is a minimum of 760,000 DGUs annually. That is his low estimate; Kleck and research partner Marc Gertz have contended the actual number is closer to 2.5 million.
Kleck reaffirmed his numbers on February 17, 2015, explaining that while plenty of naysayers have criticized his findings, none have been able to offer empirical evidence to counter them.
Now, a CDC study conducted on data from 1996, 1997, and 1998 has been uncovered. The study, which was never released to the public, shows approximately 2.46 million DGUs per year.
Or it is 2.5 Million? Regardless, this was a government study so it cannot be questioned. The failure to publish can’t really be criticized either – the agenda and all.
In my defense I settled on the erroneous 1 million out of an abundance of statistical caution. It seemed a safe round off point. Now that I know better, it’s 2 million from now on. That’s about one life saved, one defensive usage, every 15 seconds. I wonder if Young Hogg will mention that in his forthcoming book? Guessing, and I could be wrong, that’s a big “no.”
Hold on to your ARs! Superstar Survivor David Hogg (rhymes with “slog,” as in the tiring noun usage) readies a new and sure-to-be trendy book on how you need to surrender your lives to communism. It’s anterior title is #NeverAgain.
One hopes, given the title, it may be the last time we have to hear from the spaghetti-armed bully who is totally not a crisis actor. More likely it’ll be the long-awaited sequel to the utter fairy tale bullshit that was Michael Bellesiles’s (pronounced: “l-i-a-r”) Arming America.
Captain Boogie Board is probably out hawking it at one of today’s marches for Marx. Good luck, kid.
If you’re into truth, then seriously consider Tom Wood’s new work, Wrong About Guns.
There’s an Epidemic of Low-IQ Arguments Against Guns
Supporters of gun rights are being accused of child murder, and liking their guns more than their children. Time to fight back.
Inside this free eBook:
* Why civilians have a much better record than police at stopping mass shootings — the numbers will shock you
* Don’t countries with tougher gun laws have fewer gun fatalities? Here’s the real truth
* How concealed-carry laws reduce violent crime
* The truth about “assault weapons”
* The bogus constitutional arguments of the anti-gun lobby
* The only reasonable approach to school shootings
They still call this country-shaped place “America” though the shenanigans sometimes cause doubt.
Take the NFL (please!). The F is supposed to stand for “football.” Once upon a time that was a manly American sport. The post-American NFL seems to shun all things: manly, American, decent, normal, noncriminal, and free. Oh, they also shun Christian virgins too.
A former Miami Dolphins cheerleader claims that she was discriminated against by the team and the NFL for talking about her Christian faith — and mocked after she admitted that she was a virgin.
Kristan Ann Ware, who cheered on the Dolphins for three years, charged in a complaint filed with the Florida Commission on Human Relations that the workplace turned hostile after she told some of her fellow cheerleaders that she was waiting until she was married to have sex.
It got even worse, Ware charged, when she posted an image of her baptism along with a Bible verse on social media.
“Let’s talk about your virginity,” cheerleader director Dorie Grogan allegedly said when Ware arrived for an interview for returning dancers in April 2016, according to the complaint. “As far as we are concerned you have taken something that was once upon a time pure and beautiful and you’ve made it dirty.”
Ware, who is no longer with the Dolphins, is now seeking arbitration from the Florida commission and a meeting with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. She said female cheerleaders should be allowed to express their faith publicly the way the male players do.
Even if she misses the job she must look much better without those gaudy anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-Western rags. Getty/CBS.
According to the Dolphins, stating the fact of one’s virginity makes it dirty? Really? Was it that, or the Baptism, or both? I’m sure that had Ware identified as a gun controlling, Hindu, Hobbit, non-binary, sodomite, she would have received some sort of award. “Three cheers for our new captain!” Any arbitrator worth his salt will order Badell, Kraft, Peter King, the freaks, and the thugs on the first boat out. And why haven’t we heard from the DOJ Office on Violence Against Women, the UN Commission on Human Rights, the NOW gang, and the #metoo brigade? Odd.
Those Americans, over forty, proud, and sane, might also find it odd that assorted lowlifes willfully attack another beautiful young woman for expressing her faith and pride in the Second Amendment.
A University of Tennessee Chattanooga senior’s graduation photo has generated controversy on social media. In the photo, Brenna Spencer is seen wearing a bright pink “Women for Trump” T-shirt with white jeans. A black handgun is tucked into her waistband.
Spencer shared the photo on Twitter Saturday and captioned the post: “I don’t take normal college graduation photos.”
I, for one, haven’t the faintest idea what’s controversial about any of this, except that I also don’t see anything about the photo as abnormal. Oh, wait. We’re in post-America now… Some non-Americans chimed in. I bet that had the shirt been a “F*ck Trump!” model they might have been more accepting. Anyway, their drivel:
@DadForChange:
Using a gun to make a political point is irresponsible gun ownership.
@Jasminleroy1:
Hmm..heres a question, what point are you trying to make by sticking a gun in your pants, I would think you want to irritate others and enhance your political point.. Are you going to use the gun( because that’s why they were made). I’m sorry but I’m confused by your ignorance.
@Eldergothfather:
If you had chosen to brandish your most valuable asset we’d be looking at your brain, we’d be seeing you accomplish something for humanity. Instead you chose a an extension which you think makes you who you are. It does not.
@keithboykin:
I don’t know anything about Brenna Spencer and don’t care if she wears a “Women for Trump” t-shirt while strapped with a gun. What bothers me is the reflexive racism that allows people to see Spencer as a “patriot” but to see an armed black woman or man as a criminal threat.
I’m not sure if the lovely Ms. Spencer or her followers wasted time replying to these wastes of oxygen. I happen to have a few seconds to spare, so:
Dad: There’s a lot of exciting change in North Korea, Sudan, Iran, etc. Why not go be happy somewhere else?
Jasmine: You’re confused and irritated but something stinks, little flower, and I think it’s you.
Goth Boy: I’m sure her pistol has done more for humanity than all the black-clad, sad-face freaks in all of history. And certainly more than yours.
Keith (kudos for using what seems like a real name): It’s not 1850 anymore. No one cares. Maybe, as he heads to his own greener pasture, Dad could drop you off in Mugabe Land or somewhere.
All: Great! As the NFL hates Christians, so you hate free, armed, attractive young women. Got it. I note that, the First Amendment being a relic of the 18th Century, you have absolutely no right to express your opinions like this. Kindly cease and desist. Furthermore: Go to Hell!
I find this normal and more than a little alluring. Watch out, Dana Loesch! Twitter.
If this “highly respected web log” hadn’t blown the budget on cigars and hydrazine, then I would heartily offer these young ladies employment here. As is, I offer them the most sincere respect for being who they are. I accept them. If you can’t, if you can’t abide beautiful women, American, Christian, and free, then you are worse than a bigot. Literally worse than Hitler. Knock it off.
John Paul Stevens is a different man than John Paul Jones. Both were born around the same time. But Stevens has hung in there longer. His faculties may not have lasted so well however.
Let’s see what the old bow tie had to say (entirety):
Rarely in my lifetime have I seen the type of civic engagement schoolchildren and their supporters demonstrated in Washington and other major cities throughout the country this past Saturday. These demonstrations demand our respect. They reveal the broad public support for legislation to minimize the risk of mass killings of schoolchildren and others in our society.
That support is a clear sign to lawmakers to enact legislation prohibiting civilian ownership of semiautomatic weapons, increasing the minimum age to buy a gun from 18 to 21 years old, and establishing more comprehensive background checks on all purchasers of firearms. But the demonstrators should seek more effective and more lasting reform. They should demand a repeal of the Second Amendment.
Concern that a national standing army might pose a threat to the security of the separate states led to the adoption of that amendment, which provides that “a well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” Today that concern is a relic of the 18th century.
For over 200 years after the adoption of the Second Amendment, it was uniformly understood as not placing any limit on either federal or state authority to enact gun control legislation. In 1939 the Supreme Court unanimously held that Congress could prohibit the possession of a sawed-off shotgun because that weapon had no reasonable relation to the preservation or efficiency of a “well regulated militia.”
During the years when Warren Burger was our chief justice, from 1969 to 1986, no judge, federal or state, as far as I am aware, expressed any doubt as to the limited coverage of that amendment. When organizations like the National Rifle Association disagreed with that position and began their campaign claiming that federal regulation of firearms curtailed Second Amendment rights, Chief Justice Burger publicly characterized the N.R.A. as perpetrating “one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word fraud, on the American public by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime.”
In 2008, the Supreme Court overturned Chief Justice Burger’s and others’ long-settled understanding of the Second Amendment’s limited reach by ruling, in District of Columbia v. Heller, that there was an individual right to bear arms. I was among the four dissenters.
That decision — which I remain convinced was wrong and certainly was debatable — has provided the N.R.A. with a propaganda weapon of immense power. Overturning that decision via a constitutional amendment to get rid of the Second Amendment would be simple and would do more to weaken the N.R.A.’s ability to stymie legislative debate and block constructive gun control legislation than any other available option.
That simple but dramatic action would move Saturday’s marchers closer to their objective than any other possible reform. It would eliminate the only legal rule that protects sellers of firearms in the United States — unlike every other market in the world. It would make our schoolchildren safer than they have been since 2008 and honor the memories of the many, indeed far too many, victims of recent gun violence.
Come on, Stevens! In your lifetime? The man has seen a lot. He surely remembers the Civil Rights Movement, the Civil War, and the Children’s Crusade of 1212. Like that latter episode, the current hubbub is as misguided, nefarious, and sure to be as ill-fated.
I’ve covered gun control previously and the kids’ march especially. While not backing off the issue I’ve urged restraint towards the young, uninformed, and naive children. However, I’ve said that those behind the mania should be held to account. Stevens falls into that category. I actually welcomed his editorial position as I figured, aged or not, he is among the very best the grabbers could offer.
I am sorely disappointed.
There’s nothing there. At all.
A sufficient counter argument to this tripe is: BULLSHIT!
Now we have that all settled…
It’s funny, almost. First, Stevens ran his editorial on a digital system – see that above link. This is 21st Century news. It’s different from older newspapers, say, from the 18th century. It’s kind of like the difference highlighted by the Times’s feature picture:
NYT. Yes, as corrected, that’s a musket up top….
Their point, his idiotic point, is that the one weapon was available when the 2A was enacted. The other, being a modern creation, was not and, thus, is not protected. Funny.
By the same illogic, the Times’s website, to say nothing of what you’re reading here and now, is not protected by the First Amendment. It’s not free speech nor free press. The only real, legal newsprint is print. If you don’t get news on low quality paper with blotchy ink from some young boy on the street corner, then you’re as bad as the NRA killing all those kids they never kill.
It’s also almost funny that the left wants to repeal something that, for an age, they denied existed. I appreciate their newfound honesty but it’s a little late in coming. They literally used to say the 2A wasn’t really part of the Constitution – despite it’s being right there in black and white. Conversely, they had no problem seeing Abortion floating in some nebulous prenumbra. Maybe one needs a bow tie to see it all clearly.
Prior to 2010 or so most Con Law textbooks were utterly devoid of any mention of the 2A. A few, like Lawrence Friedman’s, may scant mention, usually with a bare citation to Miller v. US (1939).
Why repeal something that’s not even real? My guess is a case of bad losering.
Stevens rests much of his “argument” on Miller. Liberals love to pretend that was the only court decision on the 2A prior to the 21st century. It was not. But it was perhaps the worst decided and most misinterpreted. So the Nine said civilians had no right to non-military quality arms. What does that mean? They didn’t say but one could easily extrapolate that, under their reasoning, only military-grade weapons qualify for legal protection against infringement. Probably not what the left had in mind. Of course, what the Court had in mind in 1939 later fell apart factually. In Vietnam soldiers made copious use of short-barreled shotguns. Hmmm.
At any rate, Heller and MacDonald cured the question of “does the Second Amendment really say what it plainly says?” It does.
Stevens dissented in Heller … and lost. They say, “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.” He says, now, “if we can’t beat it, repeal it.” Good luck with that.
And, again maybe it’s the age thing – dunno, but here Stevens violates his own canons of legal interpretation. His approach, as detailed in The Shakespeare Canon of Statutory Interpretation, J. P. Stevens, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, April, 1992:
Read the Statute
Read the Whole Statute
Read the Text in Contemporary Context
Look into Legislative History
Use Some Common Sense
Taking the 2A as what it is, a Super Statute, and applying those rules, one reaches an incontrovertible conclusion: the thing is what it is and means what it says. 1) the language is unambiguous. That should be the end of it. But: 2) it fits with the rest of the Bill of Rights. 3) Temporizing the thought, either then or now, it fits with the idea of individual liberty. 4) the Founders demanded an armed citizenry as deterrent of tyranny. 5) What do the various facts tell us?
No question should remain after the first four steps are utilized. If, however, one needs more proof to affirm the meaning and intent by number five, then one should analyze what’s going on with guns in America. Here, as with most logic, the left fails completely.
The facts tell us: armed citizens still stand in the way of tyrants; guns save lives; the innocent lives lost to guns are: few, offset by the many saved, only part of the greater number of regrettable homicides annually, tiny in comparison to lives lost to other means/things, etc.; having the highest number and percentage of private guns in the world, the US still has one of the lowest gun murder rates on the planet, and; even with all those guns, and with all the hideous social, economic, and legal changes in the country, there has been no great or noticeable change in gun usage of late.
But why look at the law and the facts? Heck, that’s what judges do. Maybe it’s better to listen to young know-nothings scream about anecdotes. Maybe it’s better to blame the NRA for things it had nothing to do with. Promote a little fear. A little hysteria. Some lies.
And, for what? The Second Amendment will not be repealed any time soon. Good luck assembling a Convention of the States. Better luck getting super majorities in Congress and the State Houses. They can’t even get more “meaningful” gun control through in regular statutory form – though they try.
What would the Stevens’s Amendment say? A plain repeal? How would that work or be worded? “The rights of the people are hereby infringed.” That’s what he’s suggesting. The natural right to arms is independent of any amendment or law. It’s just that in some places it is infringed upon, violated. Simply repealing the 2A would not necessarily ban guns from private hands.
Maybe he means to include that ban explicitly in the new language. “The right is infringed and the people are barred from keeping and bearing arms.” Perhaps there could be a specific exemption for 18th century antiques or the swords and slings of Stevens’s youth…
I’m glad Stevens spoke up. It’s good to know what the enemy is thinking, what they want. They want to disarm you and leave you utterly helpless before their other plans and actions. Once more, see the thoughts, words, and acts of [pick your favorite murderous dictator from history].
In his final decade on the Court Stevens voted to extend at least some basic rights to Americans declared and held as enemy combatants, enemies of the government and the people. That might work out well for him. Some, like Vox Day, suggest Stevens has, via his First-Amendment-unprotected speech, committed treason and should be arrested for it. Debbie Gun Control-Schultz (and any co-signers) too. It’s a strange new world we’ve entered. I’ll leave that alone except to say: 1) enemy combatants do not have to be arrested..., and; 2) hey, Stevens is old, 97 going on 1,000; why bother?
If this was their best, then their best won’t do. A rock group told me so. However, now that they’re being honest about the thoughts and desires, we had best keep an eye on these anti-freedom types. Freedom: defend it or lose it.
*This subject shall be the focus of a video retort for FP tomorrow, likely to be linked and reposted here. Stay tuned.
They came to the National Mall by the hundreds of thousands. Kids more accustomed to the mall where the Hollister and Aeropostale stores are, descended on the Yankee Capital to make their voices heard. They brought many of the usual suspects with them. They chanted, ranted, held aloft signs, and expressed their First Amendment rights – in this case, about denying you your Second Amendment rights.
The people in power are actually laughing. The dream of the tyrants the past 6,000 years or so has been to disarm the people thus making them easier to control. Here, we see a mass representation of a few generations – all clamoring to be made helpless before whatever those in power have in mind.
Some of them say they want a discussion about guns in America. They do not. They want to scream and yell about their narrow, inaccurate portrayal of the one side while completely ignoring the other, demonizing it even. You really can’t have a discussion with a mob anyway.
If you could, then you could point out the statistics, the science, the history, and the truth. None of which would interest this crowd. “Tantrum” comes to mind.
They’re not even coherent in their demands for their own special rights (made while demanding you lose yours). The other day, Young Hogg, acting as the agent for the mob, told the sad tale of the first day back at Parkland High. Officials searched book bags. Hogg and other students were incensed.
You see, Hogg, you and your crowd are screaming about guns being bad, especially at schools. Guns, hand guns at least, can easily be concealed in book bags. So concealed they can be toted into schools. The searches were probably geared towards preventing that and in effect giving you part of what you demanded. Be careful what you wish for.
He said it was a violation of the kids’ First Amendment rights. (They claim to be very big on that). Not sure how that works out, Constitutionally speaking. Maybe the backpacks sport logos the kids wish to express: Nike, Pink, The Packers, etc. Freedom of speech, of expression! An NRA pack would likely not qualify.
It could be that those carrying the packs on their back do so as part of their peaceful assembly. Freedom of assembly! Certain Middle Easterners might extol the virtues of the bags for purposes of carrying the instruments of Jihad. Freedom of religion? That might play up the need for the searches though.
I think he was confused about his amendments. Number Four was the one violated. Of course, that’s an even number, like the Second. And that one is bad. A celebrity or someone from Soros’s outfit must have told Hogg so.
Here’s a picture of Hogg at the March for Madness:
Vox Day.
“The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subjugated races to possess arms. History shows that all conquerors who have allowed their subjugated races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by so doing. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that the supply of arms to the underdogs is a sine qua non for the overthrow of any sovereignty. So let’s not have any native militia or native police.”
–David Hogg Adolf Hitler
I’ve been referring to this affair as a “March for Marx.” I might continue to do so because it works rhetorically and sounds good. Factually, it’s a grey area. Marx, in 1848, was clamoring against gun control and actually spoke of actively arming the people. Of course, the guns would have been government property as there was to be NO private property. Mixed bag.
But that was a theory untested at that early time. When the bullet met the chamber, under men like Hitler, Mao, and Stalin, it turns out that in fact communists (leaders) do not want people armed. It was something about armed people being harder to rob, subjugate, herd into box cars, and slaughter. Or something.
Oops. Sorry to present the wrong part of that “discussion” and a part the mob seems utterly resistant to.
They, some of them, claim they want a mental health database for gun purchases, ownership, and carry. Yes, like laws against murder and disrupting schools (and unwarranted searches of back packs), we already have that. Like most laws it works so well.
I wonder… Would Hogg and his crew want prerequisite mental health checks for all things weaponry? If so, would they like to start with brain scans – MRI’s, etc. – aimed at say, the Amygdala? You know, looking for deformation, shrinkage, abnormality? Such a program might make it impossible for emotional basket cases who March for Marx to obtain firearms.
Oops. There I go again.
The honest kids are right to be concerned about violence. One innocent life lost to guns or anything else is one too many. But, by order of magnitude, should not they perhaps focus first on the heavier causes? There are many of those and most, that I am aware of, tend not to be useful in fighting tyranny. Search whatever record you like and I’m confident you’ll find nothing from Hitler, Lenin, Pot, or any other thug railing against cars, sugar, or doctors. I could be wrong but I think not.
Oh, heck. Started again…
Okay, I’ll just wrap this one up with another, fitting quote, one that sums up this Saturday scene perfectly. From Tiberius, via Tacitus: “Nisti Servitus!” You?
With the highest gun ownership per capita in the world – by far – the US is only number 111 (of around 200 nations) in per capita murders. The left’s assertion that over-armed America is the murder capital of the world is a ridiculous lie. And, dear God, let’s NOT get into the statistics of who commits the largest measurable percentage of murders in America (hint: it’s not the Amish).
Gun murders and deaths, including those related to rifles (including “assault-style” rifles) are but a near microscopic fraction of total “unnatural” or “preventable” deaths in the US. From 2014:
248 people killed with rifles (all types including … assault rifles);
435 people killed with baseball bats and hammers;
660 people killed with punches and kicks;
8,124 people killed with guns of all kinds (offset by 1,000,000+ lives saved by all guns);
14,249 murders of/by all weapons sources (and unarmed murders);
32,744 killed by automobiles;
Approximately 200,000 killed by doctors and medical professionals;
Approximately 365,000 killed by obesity and fat-related causes;
652,639 killed by “legal” abortions.
One, if one is blind, deluded, and perhaps mentally deficient, or possibly evil, can easily see the way to best save lives in America is to ban the scary AR-15. (Better raise taxes while we’re at it).
And no one ever uses an assault rifle to prevent crime or save lives … except that they do.
Yesterday I ran a rather incomplete, but illustrative, list of current and historic gun control proponents. Show me a tyrant, a dictator, a mass murderer, a genocidal maniac, or an active war-monger, and I’ll show you a loud and proud supporter of disarming the locals.
All of this figures largely into today’s Prepper News Weekly, which you should watch on a regular basis:
Perrin Lovett/FPTV/YouTube.
Yet and still, otherwise decent people, whether they be “average”or “ordinary” or powerful celebrities, continue to mindlessly (no thought, just emotions) clamor to be disarmed. To disarm you. It’s as infuriating as it is embarrassing.
The impressionable youth, students who will walk out of classes to support gun control, are almost understandable. Some (very few) of them are subject to being killed, in schools or without, by bad people armed with guns. Sure, they’re more likely to be killed by bees, lightning, and swimming pools, but those facts are … facts and not really governed by easily manipulated feelings. (Ever hear someone decry “assault-style” ionized plasmatic electricity from the sky?) No.
The kids are far more likely to be killed by incompetent doctors, sugary drinks and starchy carbs, and autos. And many millions of their cohorts never even made it to the schools thanks to Planned Parenthood (aka, Rehashed Nazi Eugenics, Inc.). On that last note, an interesting, telling political cartoon:
Andy Marlette, Pensacola News Journal (via the Tampa Bay Times).
That’s good and bad rhetoric all in one, Mr. Marlette. There’s a vague truth behind it: “conservative” Republicans types, like Rick “Make it 21!” Scott, will claim to be anti-abortion. They’re not. For all the claims, there’s been remarkably little (read: NO) action since 1973 to curtail abortions. The slight numerical decline is more attributable to contraception, lifestyle changes, and the antics of the … um … Junior Anti-Sex League.
The young cartoon lady is well-instructed that the well-dressed, well-fed elephant does not care about her in or out of the womb. His only concerns are: appeasing his corporate overlords, and; getting reelected. (Yes, these are most similar to the real desires of his goofy-looking jackass “opponent”). The rhetorical truth evaporates. Then, mathematically considering the 80:1 and 2,600:1 ratios from 2014, above, the real truth interrupts with force.
For the politicians, especially the currently-in-charge GOPers, there can be no understanding, no sympathy. “Mindless shits” comes descriptively to mind.
“The schools are terrible because the teachers are incompetent, but arm the teachers.”
“No, don’t arm the teachers. Raise the gun-buying age and put a SWAT team in every school. Metal detectors! More drugs!”
“Okay. Let’s ban bump stocks (unnecessary to bump fire anyway)”.
“Take the guns first, due process second.”
Gibber. Gibber. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Stupidity to make Democrats look sane by comparison. (One notices that, largely, the Dems are silently hanging back now, allowing the fat, stupid elephants, the kids, and the corporations to fight this one – a wise strategy).
The due process thing is really alarming. Not many of ye old Rights of Englishmen still exist in dying America. DP is kind of important. And it’s kind of under siege. And not just from The Trump. He says a lot of things, many of them unwise sounding:
President Trump on Wednesday voiced support for confiscating guns from certain individuals deemed to be dangerous, even if it violates due process rights.
“I like taking the guns early, like in this crazy man’s case that just took place in Florida … to go to court would have taken a long time,” Trump said at a meeting with lawmakers on school safety and gun violence.
“Take the guns first, go through due process second,” Trump said.
Trump was responding to comments from Vice President Pence that families and local law enforcement should have more tools to report potentially dangerous individuals with weapons.
Giving the orange man the benefit of the doubt, which I tire of doing, I’m sure he means what he says in limited, emergency circumstances. There are actually times when a situation sort of dictates dispensing with the technicalities of formal due process.
For instance, if a police officer sees someone committing (or about to start committing) what the officer reasonably believes to be a crime or dangerous activity, then the officer is lawfully authorized to use force, up to and including lethal force, to stop said crime or activity. No need to trouble a judge up-front. It happens all the time. And it many times doesn’t even involve the police; see the linked example of the armed citizen of Illinois, above.
And there is, in such emergency situations, a built-in due process anyway: people know or should know not to commit or attempt to commit crimes! At least not where others might see them. And with the expectation that they might be resisted if they proceed. It’s as much common sense as it used to be common law.
You know, the common law with the due process specter floating around?
“No person shall … be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law …” (5th Amend., U.S. Const., as amended, 1791)(See also: Amend. 14).
If there is to be formal legal action, then it needs to take place before any subsequent state taking action. Before, first, Donald, not second. And a gun would seem to fit the description of “property.” Of course, explaining this to a man who will use executive, administrative action, in defiance of Articles I and II, to ban superfluous rifle accessories, seems tenuous. Then again, the man says a lot of things; sometimes he rationally clarifies afterwards. Time will tell, time permitting.
It’s odd, given The Trump’s hasty pronouncements and the quasi-legal developments of the past 20 years, that he does not (yet) take a similar approach to the deep state, the treasonous lukers, the pizza-lovers, the banksters, and the Dreamers. Would not a delayed due process, say via Enemy Combatant proceedings, benefit the stabilization of whatever remains of this political mess? Dunno but, the fact that I, a anarcho-libertarian type, would even ask such a question speaks to where we really are in the here and now…
This article runs a little long but it is worth considering the whole of the fallen government and how it reacts to the law. Joe Bob Briggs considers the TeeVee-ification of the Third Branch:
The genius element of the English justice system is the invention in the Middle Ages of the state prosecutor, or, in its original incarnation, the king’s prosecutor. His purpose was to keep vengeance out of the courtroom. Before that you had the aggrieved-kinsman system. The suffering family brought charges against the alleged offender, so that if a Hatfield killed a McCoy, it was up to the McCoys to file charges, and if the Hatfield was found guilty, the McCoys were allowed to take vengeance in the form of executing the offender themselves. Eye for an eye, family member for family member, murder for murder, rape for rape. This is the system that, in various forms, still exists today in many Muslim cultures, and it’s the system that we supposedly got rid of 800 years ago after agreeing that eye-for-an-eye is not what we wanted. Henceforth the only person allowed to bring criminal charges was an unbiased public official representing the state and the people, and that person had to be emotionally uninvolved with either side of the case.
Then, as the court system developed in England and America, we became strict about excluding from trials anyone who had any kind of bias, even if he otherwise qualified as a witness. In fact, bias caused by friendship or blood relation is one of the principal ways that witnesses are impeached.
…
*Please read the whole original at Taki’s, via the above hyperlink.*
Our courts, judges, and prosecutors are every bit as out of control as their legislative and executive counterparts. It’s a very good article as are most that pass through that source. Still, I will note that there was a time and place for private prosecutions, ones involving really process and decorum. The Romans, for example, ran a system of private felony proceedings similar to those used in their major civil cases. The aggrieved party, usually of Patrician class, brought charges and prosecuted them before the whole Senate or before a large jury of the accused’s actual friends, his peers.
We don’t do that anymore … to our detriment. We still, to a degree, use the Roman system of magistrates to quickly resolve minor cases. But the felonies are now handled by self-serving government agents, before government judges, with government witnesses, all before a jury carefully selected so as to favor the government. In short: you are screwed.
Maybe the Romans, like the ancient English, were a little more civilized. More honest. More intelligent. “We” certainly tend to be none of those things.
Also, to partly answer Joe Bob, the changes (to due process, equal protection, etc.) may have started prior to the 1980’s. It might have come through the example of 1945-46 and the Nuremberg Trials, which essentially threw out hundreds, thousands even, of years of legal refinement. Threw them out for temporary expedience and feel-good-isms. And with ramifications for the future.
And so we are left with a system based on: ignoring facts, ignoring history, emotionally driven nonsense, collectivist actions, always geared towards taking the maximum amount of freedoms away from the maximum numbers of innocent or disconnected persons.
248 bad actors (calm down CNN, Google – not those actors) kill people with rifles, some of them surely “assault-ish,” while 100 Million good actors remain armed, responsible, peaceful, and vigilant. The solution is to disarm the many over the actions of the few?
That’s the “thought.” The thought of today’ do-good grabbers and of Hitler, Himmler, Mao, Stalin, Amin, Hussein, and Pot. A somewhat disconcerting truth and conundrum.
I don’t recall ever hearing so much about gun control as now. “Common sense” gun control. “Reasonable” gun control. “Hunters don’t need…” It’s coming from the usual sources: The Coalition to Stop Freedom, the Democrat Party, Tide Pod-eating millennial students, the American Pravda. And, now, we’re getting it from: Republicans, The Trump, DELTA, Dick’s Sports, and Walmart.
Some of the hysteria I could almost understand. I am solidly against gun violence, any violence, really. But I’m also against lies, tyranny, and communism.
So, here’s a reminder of who currently favors gun control along with some historical supporters (it’s all about the company one keeps/list in not all-inclusive):
Michael Bloomberg;
Diane Feinnstein;
Barry Obama;
Adolf Hitler;
Pol Pot;
Donald Trump;
Chuck Schumer;
Mao Zedong;
Adolf Eichmann;
Hillary Clinton;
Bill Clinton;
Chipper Jones;
Joseph Stalin;
Karl Marx;
Some actors paid millions to “kill” with guns on screen;
Saddam Hussein;
Vladimir Lenin;
Idi Amin;
Robert Mugabe;
Sarah Brady;
Benito Mussolini;
Nancy Pelosi;
Francisco Franco;
Matt Damon;
Abraham Lincoln;
Rick Scott;
Kim Jong-Il;
Kim Jong-Un;
Muammar Gaddafi;
Fidel Castro;
Slobodan Milosevic;
Chiang Kai-shek;
Kim Il-sung;
Ho Chi Minh;
Nikita Khrushchev; and
Hideki Tojo.
Sure, some of them murdered a few hundred million people but their hearts were (are) in the right place. It’s common sense, really.
The truth is part and parcel with common sense. Tomorrow I’m running a video and a list of gun/murder stats at FP which is intended to interject a little truth into the current mass hysteria. I’ll copy a link here, then.
It will also feature largely into Prepper News Weekly tomorrow.
Later next year. Maybe 2020. Some future announcements from the ever-so socially conscious retailer:
70% Off All (non assault rifle) Merchandise!
Everything Must Go! Including Fixtures!
All Stores Closing!
Good luck to our former employees!
Apologies to our Shareholders!
“This major economic divestment has nothing to do with our February 2018 decision to slap a large segment of our customers in the face and stop selling some of the most popular items on the market.”
Dick’s Sporting Goods, a major U.S. retailer, will immediately halt sales of assault-style rifles and high-capacity magazines at all of its stores and ban the sale of all guns to anyone under 21.
The announcement Wednesday comes as students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, return to class for the first time since a troubled teenager killed 17 students and educators with an AR-15 two weeks ago.
“When we saw what the kids were going through and the grief of the parents and the kids who were killed in Parkland, we felt we needed to do something,” Chairman and CEO Ed Stack said on “Good Morning America.”
Rumors that Dick’s will immediately institute a 10% discount for card-carrying members of NAMBLA and the Communist party USA are of yet unsubstantiated.
Some companies are standing with the NRA, others are breaking ties. Note: this all has to do with the NRA’s nonexistent role in last week’s school shooting. You remember? The shooting with the ever-changing narratives, heroes who milled about doing nothing, psychotropic meds, all those calls to the police and the FBI, and the coast to coast active drama club?
In what may be a pivotal moment for American gun law reform, the National Rifle Association has become the object of intense pushback from anti-gun activists and survivors of last week’s mass shooting at a Florida high school that left 17 dead.
All the attention prompted the gun-rights group to break from its usual strategy of keeping quiet after mass gun deaths. NRA officials have gone on the attack to rail against the “politicization” of a tragedy, and going so far as to suggest that members of the media “love mass shootings” because of the ratings they supposedly bring.
The uproar has once again presented companies affiliated with the NRA, and its powerful pro-gun lobby, with a question: to cut ties, or to continue a relationship with a large but controversial group?
The NRA partners with dozens of businesses to spread its pro-gun message and provide discounts to its members, who number 5 million, according to the group. But this week, some companies have begun to jump ship.
Read the lists – the names keep growing both ways. Any boycott is, of course, a matter of corporate right. It’s still a nominally free country-shaped place. And it’s good to know who irrationally dumps on the largest sporting organization in the country and its members. A little feel good press and cheap communism never hurt either.
Just remember, by this “logic:”
The next time there’s a plane crash, it’s Delta’s fault;
The next time your network gets hacked, Norton did it;
The next time your car breaks down, TrueCar did it.
PERRIN LOVETT 
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