The California state senate agrees with Charlie Rangel that they “deserve” to own guns but the citizens do not.
They voted 28-8 to exempt themselves from the gun-control laws that apply to the rest of the California.
You think maybe this will cause Californians to rise up? NOPE! It happened 5 years ago and since California has passed a plethora of other gun laws…that only apply to citizens.
Yes, you heard me right! The exemption was created in 2011 and the California legislature has passed a number of gun laws since. Pretty easy when you are passing bills that do not apply to you!
It is not the only special privileges California legislators provide themselves!
They do not pay red light camera bills or for gasoline!
The left always says that taking away your ability to defend yourself withe effective means is about YOUR safety and about stopping crime. How many crimes have been committed with YOUR guns? Exactly. It is like trying to stop drunk driving by taking cars away from people who don’t drink. Yet, some people are just plain foolish enough and historically ignorant enough to believe such Orwellian propaganda.
Australia elected a leftist government and it happened. In the name of “climate change” the Australian economy was trashed and the government confiscated most guns from civilians who never harmed anyone.
On Friday, the government of gun-controlled Australia admitted that hundreds of thousands of “illegal firearms” remain in criminal possession and launched a new amnesty in hopes of persuading said criminals to turn over the weapons.
In September, Breitbart News reported that Melbourne, Australia, had a gun problem; that they had witnessed more than one shooting a week on average since January 2015.
Known criminals were caught with firearms 755 times [in 2015], compared to 143 times in 2011
Criminals are using gunshot wounds to the arms and legs as warnings to pay debts
Assault rifles and handguns are being smuggled into Australia via shipments of electronics and metal parts
Now the government of Australia is admitting that hundreds of thousands of “illegal guns”–i.e., “illicit firearms”–are in the hands of criminals some 20 years after Australia’s gun ban was implemented. And Reuters reports an amnesty will be put in place in 2017 where those in possession of said weapons can turn them in with no questions asked.
Yes indeed, they will beg the criminals to hand over their guns……
An employee of a jewelry store in Conroe, Texas, pulled an AK-47 from behind the counter to stop four would-be armed robbers. One of the armed robbers opened fire and multiple employees returned fire, killing the suspect.
Jeffery Turner, Jr., owner of Jeff’s Jewelry Store in Conroe, told police that four men entered his store and demanded jewelry, purses and other items. At least one of the robbers displayed a firearm, according to Montgomery County Police Reporter’s Scott Engle. One of Turner’s employees responded by pulling an AK-47 semi-automatic rifle from behind the counter. The gunman fired at the store employees and a firefight ensued. At least three employees were said to have fired weapons at the robbery suspects.
Ridiculous and cowardly? Perhaps. Because of UK’s rather foolish gun laws militant Islamists will have guns and reporters will not. It is just that simple.
Missouri state Senator Jamilah Nasheed, a Democrat who was sponsored several “anti-gun” bills in her state, was arrested Monday night during a protest outside of the Ferguson Police Department. However, it’s what police officers found on her that is raising eyebrows.
Nasheed was carrying a loaded 9mm handgun and extra rounds of ammunition, according to Ferguson Police Chief Tom Jackson. She also refused to take a breathalyzer test after officers determined she “smelled strongly of intoxicants,” sources told KMOV-TV.
UPDATE II – So much for Grimes’ support for paying workers more than minimum wage. Her family business pays minimum:
This ad is a great example of how far politicians will go to lie to get elected.
One would think by this commercial that Alison Grimes is a conservative Democrat. She isn’t. This commercial is clearly designed to paint her as a conservative Democrat, much like the the “Sportsman for Obama” pro-gun television ad from 2008.
Alison Grimes’ earlier speeches and debates clearly demonstrate that she is a proud card carrying leftist. Her rhetoric is similar to what one finds from DNC Chairman Debbie Wasserman Schulz (1, 2, 3, 4), and like Schultz, is in solid standing with the Nancy Pelosi/Harry Reid wing of the Democratic Party.
Grimes would vote to place the same gun banning, eco-extremist, anti-affordable energy leaders in charge of the Senate, committees, and confirm into the executive branch as it has now, which is why anti-gun groups and most every other far left interest donate to her campaign.
The 2008 Obama “pro-gun” television ad has been pulled down from his YouTube channel which is a shame because we would like to show it to you for comparison, but remember this: [Editor’s Note: Interestingly enough, back in 2008 during my college days, I wrote a post calling out Obama’s pro-gun ads as a fraud when compared with his record. Even MSNBC called him out on the deception. You can read the post HERE.]
Today’s political communications are designed to target specific groups of voters with messages and images designed for “attitude implantation”. A pro-gun coal miner might look at the Grimes ad and think he has a champion in her, but the truth is she would vote for the same leaders and appointees sent by the party leadership.
Emails and home mailings are targeted to the each type of voter specifically. If enough data can be gleaned from your internet activity, political donations, and Facebook group memberships you will get political communications in your inbox telling you exactly what you want to hear. For example, this very writer donated to Rand Paul’s lawsuit against illegal NSA domestic spying. Afterwards I received “please donate” emails from the RNC, as well as the House and Senate Leadership PAC’s sounding as if the GOP establishment is the heartbeat of the TEA Party movement and in the corner of Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, and Rand Paul when reality is in fact very much the opposite.
The technology exists today to find out exactly what the hot button issues for most voters are and to tell them exactly what they want to hear in order to solicit votes and donations with no regard for intellectual honesty.
[Note: This article was quoted by Eric Bolling on The Five – fxn.ws/1kRPBlz ]
Continuing on with our attitude change propaganda series, put this one in the “how far will they go to lie to you” folder.
If one were to believe the graphic below put out by “Mom’s Demand Action” you would think that the United States is the most violent country in the world…
However, the hoops one must jump through to get to the 20x number is staggering. If one were to add Americans shot by police, drug gang vs drug gang violence, border violence from Mexico, and Americans killed in war we still could not get near the 20x number claimed.
Tricks such as counting the deaths of Americans by police, during war, or even on D-Day as “gun violence” (after all the Germans used 14 MG42 machine guns to defend Omaha Beach at Normandy) are commonplace when one examines the statistics put out by academics and pressure groups who are given grants to come up with such scarey numbers.
The rather long list at the bottom of this page is the number of intentional homicides per 100,000 as ranked by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. As you can see, the United States is far from the most dangerous country in the world. The United States is average when it comes to numbers that count, in this case intentional homicides. There are 104 countries that rank worse than the United States and 102 countries that rank better. It is important to point out that most of the safest countries are smaller and have a unified culture as opposed to the United States which is huge and is a “melting pot” culturally.
Tiny little Belgium has an intentional homicide rate of 1.7 per 100,000. If we were to take that number and multiply it 20x the United States allegedly should have an intentional homicide rate of 34.0 per 100,000 rather than the 4.9 we have now.
“More than 21 million applications were run through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System last year, marking nearly an 8 percent increase and the 11th straight year that the number has risen.”
Let’s put that 21 million number in context. Each time a firearm is purchased, unless the buyer is exempt, the buyer’s name is put through the FBI National Instant Check Service (NICS) database to perform a back ground check. There is one NICS check even if the sale is for multiple guns. Also, in states such as Indiana, buyers who have a permit to carry a concealed weapon are exempt from the check. While no one knows the exact number of guns sold to civilians last year, that number may well be over 30 million in a single year.
What does all this mean? It means that while violent crime and firearm related homicide has dropped dramatically, literally hundreds of millions of guns have been bought by American civilians during the same time period. It means that any claims that civilian gun ownership is the cause of “escalating violent crime” is not supportable by any genuine examination of available data. So much so that recent data tends to suggest the opposite.
Who Is Shannon Watts?
This writer, as a student of mass media theory, is impressed by the production value, top of the line graphics and slick emotional marketing appeals generated regularly by Mom’s Demand Action. The work is impressive even by standards of a billion dollar presidential campaign, but when one looks at Mom’s Demand Action’s FaceBook they tell you that it was started by a concerned home maker from Indiana named Shannon Watts and its leaders are just a few concerned mothers. Oh really?
So who is Shannon Watts and where is she getting funds for top of the line campaign materials as well as the public relations talent to produce it?
Upon doing some digging we learned that Shannon Watt’s real name is Shannon Troughton. Her LinkedIn page shows her long career as a high dollar East Coast corporate and government public relations executive including:
Director, Global Public and Corporate Affairs at Monsanto
Freelance Senior Consultant/Counselor at Fleishman-Hillard
Founder and President at VoxPop Public Relations
Vice President, Corporate Communications at WellPoint
Director, Global Communications at GE Healthcare
Vice President, Corporate and Public Affairs at Fleishman-Hillard
Public Affairs Officer at Missouri State Government
Monsanto stands out as it has been named on multiple occasions as the company with the worst ethics record in the world. Vanity Fair even did a large investigative piece on Monsanto called “Harvest of Fear” and our sweet little home maker Shannon “Watts” Troughton was their chief spin-doctor.
[Editor’s Note: We do not have the space to outline the ethical lapses of Monsanto and quite candidly, explain just how low Monsanto will go and the lengths they will go to destroy little people just because they can. Books, and lots of them, have been written about this. Being the most unethical is not just something that happens, it is a choice and being the worst offender of all takes effort.]
At Fleishman-Hillard she directed a crisis communications team who represented Monsanto, BP Amoco, Bayer Corporation, Firestone, McDonald’s, Applebee’s, Purdue Pharma, Osco, BASF, and Hallmark. She even has a listing in PR Newswire.
In short, Shannon “Watts” Troughton is a ruthless high dollar public relations hired gun.
One does not have to look far to find people Shannon “Mom’s Demand Action” Troughton has smeared. Television and radio star Dana Loesch has been a frequent target of Troughton’s. Among other things, Troughton has falsely accused Loesch of being on the payroll of the NRA and of a gun company called Magpul simply because Loesch has stated that women should be allowed to choose to use a firearm for self defense.
Follow The Money
Shannon “Watts” Troughton with Micheal Bloomberg
The New York Times, Buzzfeed and others have reported that “Mom’s Demand Action” is a front group for former New York Mayor Micheal Bloomberg’s “Mayors Against Illegal Guns”. Bloomberg has vowed to spend $50 million of his own money to battle the National Rifle Association. NRA certified instructors train both civilians and law enforcement, as well as teach hunter’s safety courses. The NRA also advocates for civilians who choose to use a firearm for self defense.
Dana Loesch attempted to interview Shannon “Watts” Troughton at the NRA Convention to see if she would be willing to correct the record or clarify her previous false statements. Armed guards working for Watts intervened and tried to push Loesch out of the way as Watts made her way to an up-armored SUV with a New York license plate. Erica Soto Lamb, a spokesman for Mom’s Demand Action, confirmed that they use armed guards at public events.
Erica Soto Lamb, a spokesman for Mom’s Demand Action, confirmed that they use armed guards at public events.
[Editor’s Note: Yours truly was banned from Shannon “Watts” Troughton’s Mom’s Demand Action FaceBook page within minutes of posting something challenging one of their claims. Like most hard propaganda outfits, they are not interested in any serious dialogue. Big money interests often create pressure groups designed to give the appearance of being grass roots organizations, but the decisions are always made where the money is, at the top. The creation of fake grass roots groups is often called “astroturfing“. ]
Just yesterday Shannon “Watts” Troughton told CNN Host Victor Blackwell that “a good guy with a gun has never stopped a bad guy with a gun”. Of course that statement doesn’t pass the snicker test, but it does cause one to ask why she needs armed guards if she believes her own talking points, of course the obvious answer is that she doesn’t, but Bloomberg money spends as well as any other.
UPDATE – Shannon “Watts” Troughton’s list of school shootings includes incidents that were not school shootings (she lied) – LINK.
Intentional homicides rate per 100,000 population via UNODC murder rates most recent year (full table here).
Honduras 91.6
Venezuela 79.0
El Salvador 69.2
Ivory Coast 56.9
Belize 41.4
Jamaica 40.9
US Virgin Isl 39.2
Guatemala 38.5
St. Kitts& Nevis 38.2
Zambia 38.0
Bahamas 36.6
Malawi 36.0
Lesotho 35.2
South Africa 31.8
Trinidad & Tobago 31.3
Congo 30.8
Colombia 30.8
Central African Republic 29.3
Puerto Rico 26.2
Ethiopia 25.5
Saint Lucia 25.2
Dom Republic 25.0
Tanzania 24.5
Sudan 24.2
Mexico 23.7
St Vincent & Grenadines 22.9
Guinea 22.5
Dominica 22.1
Brazil 21.8
Congo 21.7
Panama 21.6
Equatorial Guinea 20.7
Guinea-Bissau 20.2
Kenya 20.1
Cameroon 19.7
Montserrat 19.7
Greenland 19.2
Angola 19.0
Guyana 18.6
Ecuador 18.2
Burkina Faso 18.0
Eritrea 17.8
Namibia 17.2
Rwanda 17.1
Chad 15.8
Ghana 15.7
Myanmar 15.2
Benin 15.1
Sierra Leone 14.9
Mauritania 14.7
Botswana 14.5
Zimbabwe 14.3
Gabon 13.8
French Guiana 13.3
Papua New Guinea 13.0
Swaziland 12.9
Turkmenistan 12.8
Nicaragua 12.6
Bermuda 12.3
Comoros 12.2
Nigeria 12.2
Cape Verde 11.6
Grenada 11.5
Paraguay 11.5
Barbados 11.3
Togo 10.9
Gambia 10.8
Peru 10.3
Liberia 10.1
Nauru 9.8
Mongolia 9.7
Russia 9.7
Kyrgyzstan 9.1
Bolivia 8.9
Philippines 8.8
Senegal 8.7
Turks 7 Caicos Islands 8.7
Brit Virgin Isl 8.6
Costa Rica 8.5
Cayman Islands 8.4
Seychelles 8.3
Madagascar 8.1
Indonesia 8.1
Mali 8.0
Kazakhstan 7.8
Pakistan 7.8
Moldova 7.5
Kiribati 7.3
Guadeloupe 7.0
Haiti 6.9
Timor-Leste 6.9
Anguilla 6.8
Antigua & Barbuda 6.8
Lithuania 6.6
Cambodia 6.5
Uruguay 5.9
Argentina 5.5
North Korea 5.2
Ukraine 5.2
Estonia 5.2
Cuba 5.0
Belarus 4.9
USA 4.8
That’s the question Shawn Vincent, a spokesman for George Zimmerman, posed to The Daily Caller after news broke Monday that Zimmerman helped rescue a family of four from an overturned car.
“That’s the kind of guy George is,” Vincent said during a phone interview with TheDC.
The spokesman explained that when the defense team met with their client last Friday, the recently-acquitted Zimmerman didn’t mention the rescue, which occurred just days after he was acquitted of second-degree murder and manslaughter.
The car, a blue Ford Explorer SUV, overturned near an intersection outside of Sanford, Fla. last Wednesday, the Orlando Sentinel reported Monday.
Vincent says that Zimmerman thought that there might be a fire in the vehicle and he grabbed a fire extinguisher that he had inside his own truck.
Seminole County Sheriff spokesperson Heather Smith confirmed that account to TheDC, explaining that officers on the scene reported that Zimmerman was carrying a fire extinguisher.
Smith also told the Sentinel that Zimmerman was not a witness to the crash but that he drove up on the scene and, along with another person, helped the family escape.
The recent trial of George Zimmerman has been used as a tool among anti-Second Amendment advocates to attack the concept of self defense, gun ownership, and “Castle Doctrine” laws also known as “Stand Your Ground” laws. While neither the prosecution or the defense argued on the bases of such a law it was still a part of the jury instructions in the case. Those hostile to the human right of self defense such as Van Jones and Eric Holder are putting all of their chips of criticism on a section of law that was merely a footnote in this trial.
UPDATE – Obama co-sponsored a bill that strengthened Illinois Stand Your Ground law – LINK.
The Case Against Castle Doctrine Laws
Some believe that such laws give the person with the firearm “too much” benefit of the doubt in that, some people who might not have absolutely had to use deadly force would use deadly force knowing that the law was in effect. There will be cases, in the view of some prosecutors, where the circumstances did not justify the use of deadly force, but the way the statute is written does. In some cases fear that was not reasonable or immediate could be argued by slick lawyers to make it appear that the person with the gun had a reasonable fear.
In a worst case scenario there may be cases where someone who acted in a moment of rage would dress up that rage as “legitimate fear” of bodily injury and escape prosecution. The way such laws are written is overly vague and may invite disaster that is not completely warranted, thus making a mockery of the intent of the law.
Let us be clear, there have been and will be a small number of cases where this law is misapplied, but is that a case for repealing the law altogether or merely revisiting the law’s language and interpretation for improvement?
The Case For Castle Doctrine Laws
Twenty-one states have castle doctrine laws. The National Rifle Association (NRA) lobbied for such laws for some very good reasons.
“Must retreat” laws have resulted in unneeded deaths and bodily injury as well as a great many unjustified prosecutions of citizens who were defending themselves legitimately. This is not a “may” or a “could” and this is not a theory. There is a long, almost incalculable, list of examples and cases where such laws resulted in great bodily harm or death of innocents. There is an equally long list of prosecutions by overzealous and/or politically motivated prosecutions by prosecutors who are dead against citizens owning firearms or other political reasons that have no place in a court of law.
The George Zimmerman case was just such a prosecution. The chief of police and the local prosecutor refused to file charges against Zimmerman because the the evidence did not warrant it. The police chief was fired under the political pressure and a special prosecutor was appointed. The prosecution was caught breaking the law by illegally hiding exculpatory evidence from the defense about the state of mind and history of Trayvon Martin and it was a prosecution staffer who blew the whistle. The prosecutor lied to the judge, misled the court and was not forthcoming with the evidence. “Criminally perjurious“, “corrupt and politically motivated” is how (liberal) Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz described the prosecution.
“Must retreat” laws endanger the public. Victims of domestic violence and others who are required to make an attempt to retreat tactically give the aggressor more time to carry out their attacks. They require the victim to make snap legal judgments that can mean decades in prison while they should be focused on defending themselves and loved ones in chaotic and crisis situations.
Must retreat laws allow lawyers months to “Monday morning quarterback” someone who was in terrible danger and was forced into making a snap judgment; thus, in application, putting a burden of proof on the victim which is a violation of due process in the 5th and 14th Amendments.
Castle Doctrine laws require that prosecutors do what they have been constitutionally charged with doing since the founding of the republic; prove their case.
Fortunately concealed carry permit holders (which does not include those who merely keep a firearm in their home) have shown themselves to be very responsible gun owners with good judgment.
Since the George Zimmerman trial was in Florida, lets us look at the rate that people given a concealed carry permit have those permits revoked for inappropriate conduct. That rate in Florida is 1.4 revocations per thousand. One knows that the application of the law is never perfect, but a .0014% rate is as close to perfect as anyone could hope for.
The Ridiculous
Stand Your Ground laws must be repealed because George Zimmerman was a racist blah, blah, blah:
It is monumentally irrelevant who is morally guilty in a court of criminal law. If one thinks that George Zimmerman was observing Trayvon Martin for police because Martin is black or if one thinks that there is a 60% chance that George Zimmerman was guilty of some kind of ill will, than the responsible juror must return a verdict of not guilty. Such moral judgments have no place. Why? Because if they did people would get convicted because they were a fool or a jerk, not because they actually violated the law. In short, even a Klansman has the right to defend himself with deadly force against someone who is smashing his head against a four inch thick block of cement.
Stand Your Ground Laws must be repealed because they can be misapplied:
In the George Zimmerman case the law against second degree murder was misapplied, shall we repeal it?
Stand your ground laws are a license to kill any black person you see (you can thank Al Sharpton for this one) :
Black Floridians have made about a third of the state’s total “Stand Your Ground” claims in homicide cases, a rate nearly double the black percentage of Florida’s population. The majority of those claims have been successful, a success rate that exceeds that for Florida whites.
You will never see a case where “Stand Your Ground” protects a black person with a smoking gun is standing over a white person (you can thank a guest on the Sean Hannity show for this one):
Roderick Scott (2) says he acted in self defense when he confronted Christopher Cervini and two others saying they were stealing from neighbors cars. He told them he had a gun and ordered them to freeze and wait for police. Scott says he shot Cervini twice when the victim charged toward him yelling he was going to get Scott.
Stand Your Ground allows people with guns to shoot unarmed people:
If three men confront you in dark ally and say that they are going to rape you and cut you the prudent person would shoot them even if it was before they saw a knife and even if the three later proved to be unarmed.
John McNeil, 46, received a life sentence in November 2006 after killing a white man who was trespassing on his property. Police detectives investigating the case determined that McNeil acted in self-defense, but Cobb County District Attorney Pat Head decided a year later to try the case and won a conviction.
The incident took place Dec. 6, 2005, when McNeil arrived home after his teenage son had called him about an unfamiliar man lurking about their property.
Brian Epp, a hired contractor with whom McNeil had past difficulties, had already pulled a knife on the teenager.
Epp refused to leave, and McNeil, who had called 9-1-1, fired a warning shot into the ground. Epp then charged toward McNeil while reaching into his pocket. McNeil fatally shot him in the head at close range. Court documents state that a pocketknife was clipped inside Epp’s pants pocket. McNeil’s neighbors who witnessed the incident backed his story.
Kennesaw police detectives investigated the case, decided that McNeil had acted in self-defense and didn’t charge him.
In this case it certainly seems that McNeil was justified in using force to defend himself, but this incident happened a year before Georgia passed it’s Stand Your Ground law, so this prosecutor was able to score another conviction in his portfolio. Stand Your Ground would have protected McNeil, a black man, from what police concluded was an obvious case of self defense.
The McNeil case should be reviewed. If one would like to contact Governor Nathan Deal to ask that John McNeil be pardoned, or at least have his life sentence commuted, one can do so HERE.
UPDATE – Law Professor Eugene Volokh seems to have proposed several of the same points – LINK
New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg has not made a peep about gun control since news came out that firearms-related deaths were way down. President Obama has ignored it and continued to pursue more gun-control laws. Their reaction shows how this news screws up their agenda to keep the decline in gun-related homicides a secret from Americans so that they can pass restrictions on the Second Amendment.
The Justice Department released a study Tuesday that showed firearm-related homicides in the U.S. annually declined 39 percent from 18,253 in 1993 to 11,101 in 2011. Nonfatal firearm crimes declined 69 percent from 1.5 million to 467,300 in that time frame.
Emily Miller
Mr. Bloomberg, who is usually very vocal on any gun-related news, fell mute. Neither he, nor his usually very active organization Mayors Against Illegal Guns, has said anything gun related this week. A spokesman for Mr. Bloomberg’s group did not respond to a request for comment. If the news had been that a bunch of people were shot, you can be assured that Mr. Bloomberg would have been in front of the microphones.
The president has not celebrated the good news. Quite the opposite. After learning that Americans are safer now than ever from criminals with guns, Mr. Obama launched a campaign for more gun laws. He tweeted from his Barack Obama account: “This is big: @OFA volunteers are about to deliver 1.4 million signatures to Congress demanding expanded background checks for gun sales.” OFA stands for Organizing for America, which is Mr. Obama’s political campaign group.
Mr. Obama followed up to tell followers to watch OFA’s account for “more coverage of the gun violence petition delivery to Congress.” He used the hashtag #NotBackingDown. By that he means to keep pushing more restrictions on the Second Amendment. On Wednesday, he took House Democrats to dinner to plot how to pass gun-control laws.
The reason they are hiding now is because they don’t want the public know that crime has gone down at the same time that gun ownership and carry permits have increased. The have — until now — been effective in hiding these facts.
On the same day that Justice released its report, Pew Research Center released a new poll that found that 56 percent of Americans believe gun crimes is higher now than 20 years ago and 26 percent thought it was the same. Only 12 percent knew that it was lower. The most dramatic decline was in the mid-1999s, but has steadily decreased since. The survey showed the public wasn’t that much more knowledgeable on recent crime data. Asked about trends in firearms crimes “in recent years,” 45 percent thought the number had gone up, 39 percent thought it was the same. Just 10 percent were correct that it has gone down 13 percent in the most recent five years.
Gun crime has plunged in the United States since its peak in the middle of the 1990s, including gun killings, assaults, robberies and other crimes, two new studies of government data show.
Yet few Americans are aware of the dramatic drop, and more than half believe gun crime has risen, according to a newly released survey by the Pew Research Center.
In less than two decades, the gun murder rate has been nearly cut in half. Other gun crimes fell even more sharply, paralleling a broader drop in violent crimes committed with or without guns. Violent crime dropped steeply during the 1990s and has fallen less dramatically since the turn of the millennium.
The number of gun killings dropped 39% between 1993 and 2011, the Bureau of Justice Statistics reported in a separate report released Tuesday. Gun crimes that weren’t fatal fell by 69%. However, guns still remain the most common murder weapon in the United States, the report noted. Between 1993 and 2011, more than two out of three murders in the U.S. were carried out with guns, the Bureau of Justice Statistics found.
The bureau also looked into non-fatal violent crimes. Few victims of such crimes — less than 1% — reported using a firearm to defend themselves.
Despite the remarkable drop in gun crime, only 12% of Americans surveyed said gun crime had declined compared with two decades ago, according to Pew, which surveyed more than 900 adults this spring. Twenty-six percent said it had stayed the same, and 56% thought it had increased.
It’s unclear whether media coverage is driving the misconception that such violence is up. The mass shootings in Newtown, Conn., and Aurora, Colo., were among the news stories most closely watched by Americans last year, Pew found. Crime has also been a growing focus for national newscasts and morning network shows in the past five years but has become less common on local television news.
While some people may mock this or make light of it, this poll indicates that there is a growing discontent among voters who are weary of politicians who promise paradise and deliver misery. This loss of legitimacy is a serious problem. We believe that this loss of legitimacy is directly tied in to why more traditionally conservative voters did not show up at the polls.
If you doubt the veracity of this poll, go hang out at an auto parts store for a couple of days and bring up politics. You will get an earful.
What is stunning is that 29% were willing to say this to a pollster. On sensitive subjects it is known that people often do not trust that the poll is truly anonymous and they will lie or just hang up.
Twenty-nine percent of registered voters think that an armed revolution might be necessary in the next few years in order to protect liberties, according to a Public Mind poll by Fairleigh Dickinson University.
The poll, which surveyed 863 registered voters and had a margin of error of +/-3.4, focused on both gun control and the possibility of a need for an armed revolution in the United States to protect.
The survey asked whether respondents agreed, disagreed, neither agreed nor disagreed or did not know or refused respond to the statement: “In the next few years, an armed revolution might be necessary in order to protect our liberties”
Twenty-nine percent said they agreed, 47 percent said they disagreed, 18 percent said they neither agreed nor disagreed, 5 percent said they were unsure, and 1 percent refused to respond.
Results of the poll show that those who believe a revolution might be necessary differ greatly along party lines:
The founding document of the United States, the Declaration of Independence, states that governments derive “their just powers from the consent of the governed.” Today, however, just 21% of voters nationwide believe that the federal government enjoys the consent of the governed.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 61% disagree and say the government does not have the necessary consent. Eighteen percent (18%) of voters are not sure.
However, 63% of the Political Class think the government has the consent of the governed, but only six percent (6%) of those with Mainstream views agree.
Seventy-one percent (71%) of all voters now view the federal government as a special interest group, and 70% believe that the government and big business typically work together in ways that hurt consumers and investors.
Editor: There are only a few in Washington that we respect because they are men of integrity, good sense, and good character. Ted Cruz is among them and this short video reveals why.
As we and so many other have said so many times, the left passes gun laws often not in an effort to restrain crime, but to use as a trap to ensnare gun owners, who the left see as their political enemies. Lawyers call such legislation “flypaper laws”.
Colorado Democrats have control of the state Senate, House and governor’s office. So this year, under pressure from the White House, they launched into a war on guns, adopting one regulation, restriction and rule after another.
It was following public hearings on a series of gun-control bills last month that Michael Bane, executive producer for the Outdoor Channel, sent an email to Republican state Sen. Steve King saying that after seeking the advice of legal counsel, his company was pulling all production out of Colorado.
“This morning I met with my three producers, and we made the decision that if these anti-gun bills become law, we will be moving all of our production OUT of Colorado,” the email said. “We have already canceled a scheduled filming session for late this month.”
He explained his commitment to the Second Amendment and noted his legal advisers were alarmed by the state’s actions.
“Obviously, part of this is due to our own commitment to the right to keep and bear arms, but it also reflects three lawyers’ opinions that these laws are so poorly drafted and so designed to trap otherwise legal citizens into a crime (one of our attorneys referred to them as ‘flypaper laws’) that it is simply too dangerous for us to film here,” he wrote.
“I can give you chapter and verse on the legal implications if you need, but suffice to say that the first legal opinion was so scary we went out and got two others. All three attorneys agreed.”
WND previously reported management of the Boulder-based Magpul Industries warned Democrats the company would be closing its plant and moving out of the state if the laws, including the ban on all magazines capable of either holding or being modified to hold more than 15 rounds, were passed.
The company is in the process of following through on its promise to relocate and take several hundred jobs out of the state.
After Magpul’s announcement, Fort Collins-based HiViz Shooting systems announced it, too, would be moving to another state that respects the Second Amendment.
In announcing the move, HIvIZ President and CEO Philip Howe said the decision came down to maintaining a clear conscience regarding where it sends its tax revenue.
Today gun control bills failed on a vote of 54 to 46 with 60 votes needed to pass. Once again those who pioneered the vision of a super majority for certain votes in the Senate have shown their wisdom.
Why did the bills fail in a bipartisan vote? In a nutshell, they were just bad bills.
The Feinstein bill was drafted years ago and is targeted squarely at innocent citizens and not criminals. Of course Senator Feinstein had made it clear that disarming citizens was her intent. No one was surprised that her bill failed.
The Manchin-Toomey bill had many flaws. The most politically damaging was that it was drafted on Senator Manchin’s boat in secret. The American people are weary of ginormous bills that do not go through the regular hearings and mark-up process. Such a lack of transparency is inexcusable in a representative republic. After the Obamacare debacle, the American people were not willing to trust another bill drafted in such a way.
Manchin-Toomey had language that lead to data-mining of gun owners. The ACLU opposed the bill on privacy grounds and the language put into the bill to prevent the information collected to make a back door gun registry lacked teeth and did not deserve to be taken seriously. Some evidence suggests that the Obama Administration is already illegally using data-mining methods to make a secret gun owner registry:
Missouri Democrat political appointees illegally hand over all CCW information of citizens in the state to the Social Security Administration and the ATF and lied about it until caught – LINK
Manchin-Toomey was overly complex making technical compliance by civilians difficult:
In short, bills that are a bureaucratic nightmare for innocent citizens get lawmakers tossed out of office.
If the Democratic Leadership in the Senate and in the Administration weren’t so driven to decrease the power and stature of the National Rifle Association the American people could have gotten a common sense bill that is worthy of support, but as is too often the case the recent school shooting created a “crisis” that was used to try to push a political agenda rather than a common sense one.
The NRA is powerful because it has millions upon millions of members and because the NRA stays on the side of the law and our history. The NRA reached out to the Obama Administration and the Senate leadership to craft a bill that would tighten up the current background check system and remedy the lack of enforcement of those laws, but the Democrats simply were not interested.
President Obama’s angry speech after the vote was yet another empty display of political histrionics that is all too common in today’s neo-orwellian political world. Some of the reaction on Twitter was as follows:
The Tyranny of Exquisitely Apt Adjectives. – Jonah Goldberg
Laws are supposed to exist for the benefit, protection & security of our citizens–not to help those who violate them. – Laura Ingraham
Obama’s concern #4thechildren is touching. Where is that concern 4thekids under Kermit Gosnell’s care? – Yours Truly
Obama is carrying on as if he is the only one who cares #4thechildren. Really does anyone fall for such bombastic rhetoric any more? – Yours Truly
The father of a Connecticut child is furious after discovering that his son’s school is teaching students that Americans don’t have a Second Amendment right to bear arms.
“I am appalled,” said Steven Boibeaux, of Bristol. “It sounds to me like they are trying to indoctrinate our kids.”
Boibeaux’s son is an eighth grader at Northeast Middle School. On Monday his social studies teacher gave students a worksheet titled, ‘The Second Amendment Today.’
“The courts have consistently determined that the Second Amendment does not ensure each individual the right to bear arms,” the worksheet states. “The courts have never found a law regulating the private ownership of weapons unconstitutional.
The worksheet, published by Instructional Fair, goes on to say that the Second Amendment is not incorporated against the states.
“This means that the rights of this amendment are not extended to the individual citizens of the states,” the worksheet reads. “So a person has no right to complain about a Second Amendment violation by state laws.”
According to the document, the Second Amendment “only provides the right of a state to keep an armed National Guard.”
Boibeaux said he discovered the worksheet as he was going over his son’s homework assignments.
“I’m more than a little upset about this,” he told Fox News. “It’s not up to the teacher to determine what the Constitution means.”
Mat Staver, the founder and chairman of the Liberty Counsel, called the lesson propaganda – that is “absolutely false.”
“In fact, the US Supreme Court has affirmed that the Second Amendment ensures the individual the right to bear arms,” Staver told Fox News. “The progressive interpretation of the Second Amendment is that it doesn’t give you the right to bear arms – that it’s a corporate right of the government – but that has been rejected by the Courts.”
Boibeaux’s son’s teacher also told the students that the Constitution is a “living document.”
As noted in the worksheet provided to students – that means “the interpretation changes to meet the needs of the times.”
“The judges and courts of each generation provide the interpretation of the document,” the worksheet states.
Boibeaux called that concept mind-boggling.
It’s not up to the teacher to determine what the Constitution means,” he said. “If you want to learn about the Constitution, recite it word for word.”
Staver said the idea that the Constitution is a living document is another progressive tactic.
“This idea that this school is propagating that the Constitution can simply be changed at the whim of someone – or that the Second Amendment does not protect the individual right to bear arms is absolute propaganda and absolutely false,” Staver said.
This demonstration shows how limiting magazine sizes helps criminals and those intent on mass slaughter while endangering those who would use a firearm for self-defense.
1 – There are billions of high-capacity magazines already in circulation and the ability to manufacture them at home has become easy. Does anyone believe that a criminal is going to limit his magazine size to 7 or 10 rounds?
2 – Even if a person bent on mass slaughter did only use ten round magazines, he will just carry more magazines when he goes to the crime scene, but the person defending might carry only 1 extra magazine for convenience.
3 – But the most important point is that modern guns are designed to be reloaded almost instantly with moderate practice. Practice that criminals will now take the time to do because of all of the media hype on this issue.
In the demonstration below, the firearm used a 1911 Colt .45, a design that is 102 years old. The shooter demonstrates how fast and easy it is to change magazines. For the purposes of this demonstration each magazine is loaded with two with two rounds.
NOTE: Modern firearms are designed to be reloaded even faster than what is done with the 102 year old design shown below:
This is not unusual for the left. As has been demonstrated again and again, such laws are not designed to stop crime, they are designed to put gun owners in jail, who are most likely the political enemies of Democrats. yes their intentions are that bad.
S. 374 just passed the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday on a vote of 10-8. S. 374 bears the Orwellian title “Protecting Responsible Gun Sellers Act of 2013.” With all of the talk about “Universal Background Checks,” it is time to see what Congress has in mind for you. In short, the bill is designed to land you in federal prison.
The act bans the transfer of a firearm without running a criminal background check on a transferee through the federal NICS system. This is the same system that is used for retail purchases of firearms now, whether at a gun store or a gun show. The bill would apply the check to transfers that are currently private and expand the definition of “transfer” beyond any reasonable conception of the term. The definition of a “transfer” in the bill is very broad, and it includes loaning a firearm. There are some exceptions, but the exceptions are very narrowly drawn.
Under S. 374 as it passed the Judiciary Committee, all transfers would first require a transfer to a federally licensed firearms dealer, who would then transfer the firearm to the recipient, after running a check through NICS.
Exceptions would include gifts to a spouse, sibling, parent-child, or grandparent grandchild.
Transfers within the home, say to a live in girlfriend, would be legal, but only if the firearm does not leave the home (or “curtilage”) and the transfer lasts less than 7 days. A temporary transfer at a shooting range would also be legal, but only if the firearm does not leave the shooting range. A loan for hunting would also be legal. Other loans would result in imprisonment for a year unless the NICS check is performed.
The term “transfer” specifically includes the term “loan,” so loaning a firearm other than in the situations outlined above would be a crime.
What about the following situations:
You leave on a trip for 10 days, with the firearm at home in possession of a room mate, fiancee, or lover.
You have a few acres here in Georgia. You step away from the “curtilage” of your home and permit a friend or relative to use your firearm to shoot targets or pests on your own property.
Both situations would land you in prison under S. 374.
It gets worse. What is a shooting range? Under the bill, it is only a shooting range if it is owned or occupied by a “duly incorporated organization organized for conservation purposes or to foster proficiency in firearms.”
Is the shooting range owned by a natural person? Prison.
Is the shooting range owned by a corporation dedicated to turning a profit, rather than conservation or fostering the aims in the bill? Prison.
What about loaning a firearm for shooting at a Georgia DNR range? Prison.
While there is an exception for shooting competitions organized by the Georgia DNR, there is no exception for loaning a firearm just for recreational target shooting practice.
There is much more to the bill. For instance, it does away with the Georgia Weapons Carry License as an exception to the NICS check. It permits Eric Holder to set the cost of the transfer fee when you loan your weapon. It mandates reporting the theft or loss of a firearm within 24 hours, the failure of which will put you in prison, and this part of the bill is a felony punishable by 5 years imprisonment.
The bill claims Congressional power to make these laws under the Constitution’s Commerce Clause.
In March, PoliceOne conducted the most comprehensive survey ever of American law enforcement officers’ opinions on the topic gripping the nation’s attention in recent weeks: gun control.
More than 15,000 verified law enforcement professionals took part in the survey, which aimed to bring together the thoughts and opinions of the only professional group devoted to limiting and defeating gun violence as part of their sworn responsibility.
Totaling just shy of 30 questions, the survey allowed officers across the United States to share their perspectives on issues spanning from gun control and gun violence to gun rights.
Breaking down the results, it’s important to note that 70 percent of respondents are field-level law enforcers — those who are face-to-face in the fight against violent crime on a daily basis — not office-bound, non-sworn administrators or perpetually-campaigning elected officials.
1.) Virtually all respondents (95 percent) say that a federal ban on manufacture and sale of ammunition magazines that hold more than 10 rounds would not reduce violent crime.
2.) The majority of respondents — 71 percent — say a federal ban on the manufacture and sale of some semi-automatics would have no effect on reducing violent crime. However, more than 20 percent say any ban would actually have a negative effect on reducing violent crime. Just over 7 percent took the opposite stance, saying they believe a ban would have a moderate to significant effect.
3.) About 85 percent of officers say the passage of the White House’s currently proposed legislation would have a zero or negative effect on their safety, with just over 10 percent saying it would have a moderate or significantly positive effect.
4.) Seventy percent of respondents say they have a favorable or very favorable opinion of some law enforcement leaders’ public statements that they would not enforce more restrictive gun laws in their jurisdictions. Similarly, more than 61 percent said they would refuse to enforce such laws if they themselves were Chief or Sheriff.
5.) More than 28 percent of officers say having more permissive concealed carry policies for civilians would help most in preventing large scale shootings in public, followed by more aggressive institutionalization for mentally ill persons (about 19 percent) and more armed guards/paid security personnel (about 15 percent). See enlarged image
6.) The overwhelming majority (almost 90 percent) of officers believe that casualties would be decreased if armed citizens were present at the onset of an active-shooter incident.
7.) More than 80 percent of respondents support arming school teachers and administrators who willingly volunteer to train with firearms and carry one in the course of the job.
8.) More than four in five respondents (81 percent) say that gun-buyback programs are ineffective in reducing gun violence.
9.) More than half of respondents feel that increased punishment for obviously illegal gun sales could have a positive impact on reducing gun violence.
10.) When asked whether citizens should be required to complete a safety training class before being allowed to buy a gun, about 43 percent of officers say it should not be required. About 42 percent say it should be required for all weapons, with the remainder favoring training classes for certain weapons.
11.) While some officers say gun violence in the United States stems from violent movies and video games (14 percent), early release and short sentencing for violent offenders (14 percent) and poor identification/treatments of mentally-ill individuals (10 percent), the majority (38 percent) blame a decline in parenting and family values.
Bottom Line Conclusions
Quite clearly, the majority of officers polled oppose the theories brought forth by gun-control advocates who claim that proposed restrictions on weapon capabilities and production would reduce crime.
In fact, many officers responding to this survey seem to feel that those controls will negatively affect their ability to fight violent criminals.
Contrary to what the mainstream media and certain politicians would have us believe, police overwhelmingly favor an armed citizenry, would like to see more guns in the hands of responsible people, and are skeptical of any greater restrictions placed on gun purchase, ownership, or accessibility.
The officers patrolling America’s streets have a deeply-vested interest — and perhaps the most relevant interest — in making sure that decisions related to controlling, monitoring, restricting, as well as supporting and/or prohibiting an armed populace are wise and effective. With this survey, their voice has been heard.
“If you are not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.” – Malcolm X
Political Arena 