Shameless Plug: A Huge Success!

“In Communities Across America, Huge Crowds Protest Gun Violence,” read their follow-up press release headline.

I guess it all depends on the meaning of the word “huge.”

"A Huge Success" is my Rights Watch column for the January 2008 issue of GUNS Magazine, on sale now at hugely successful newsstands throughout the Republic.

Teach Your Children Well?

WOLLONGONG councillors are under pressure to reject a proposed gun shop located within walking distance of a Fairy Meadow primary school.

How could I possibly top that?

A Poorly Regulated Opinion

I recognize that I haven’t responded to the counterargument that more guns actually promote safety. While my understanding of the available evidence leads me to disagree with this assessment, I will say only that the debate about the purpose and role of weapons in contemporary America is best left to our elected bodies rather than our unelected courts.

Why is that your "understanding," Xan? If you have evidence, let's see it.

And "majority rule" should be the final arbiter of individual rights? Like when slavery was legal? Oh, but that's right--you maintain 2A is not an individual right. So if I have to take your word against, say, theirs, well why wouldn't I go with the student over the seasoned professors?

Besides, we all know "the people" referred to in the First Amendment also was intended to mean today's National Guard. No? (Nice little bit of sleight-of-mind there. Someone who didn't know better might not think to reference the Ninth and Tenth Amendments and see the deliberate distinction made between the states and the people. But good try.)

You Yalies are just as impressive as your Harvard counterparts.

From the Land of "Passive Bystanders"

The police-military assault on the Peninsula became an exclusively all-military conflict. In swiftly crushing the power grab attempt, troops loyal to the government made mass arrests not only of noncombatants from civil society but also journalists covering the event. Authorities imposed a curfew without a proclamation of national emergency by the President of the Republic. Shortcuts on civil liberties were decided and made solely by security authorities, reducing the civilian government to a passive bystander.

Hmmm...I think there's something someone once set up in our Constitution just in case something similar happened here. Good thing for us those experienced and mature voices at The Harvard Crimson (aka The Rich Reds) assure us the Second Amendment is obsolete in these modern times.

Rich Young Reds Say "Repeal the Second"

In the context of today’s society, the Second Amendment is outdated. Constitutional debates over its interpretation stand in the way of the implementation of pressing public policy. Instead of wasting time attempting to fix this anachronism, we should repeal this amendment and focus our efforts on legislation that will actually protect the “security of a free state”—a charge explicit in the Second Amendment. [More]

The thing is, you young fools think you'll be safe from the blow back. You might be in for a surprise there, especially if your side "wins." Didn't the Khmer Rouge execute students and intellectuals, including people with glasses, because the assumption was they could read, and thus posed a risk for discovering and spreading unsanctioned ideas? And I just love the "correction" about handgun purchase age and gun show background checks. Two major blunders in one short essay--that's some fact checking there, junior--gee, it sure makes me want to trust everything else you say. It ain't a matter of "regretting the error," you privileged little useless eaters, it's a matter of exposing your profound arrogance, sloppiness and laziness. Yep, you will all make fine "Authorized Journalists" some day.

Aussie Gun Control Working as Planned

A sex shop owner will spend six months in jail for lying to investigators about the source of illegal guns he sold to a Melbourne gangster, including semi-automatic weapons and a submachine gun.

So let me get this straight--when you make guns illegal, you create a powerful economic incentive to sell them on the black market, and the unintended consequences of "underworld" empowerment, including increased incentives for gangland killings over market share?

I mean, it's not like booze and drug prohibitions would have given anyone any reason to expect this...

This Day in History: December 3

On December 3, 1775, the flag of the 13 original Colonies is raised for the first time. Navy lieutenant John Paul Jones hoists the Continental Colors, also called the Grand Union Flag, aboard the warship Alfred anchored in the Delaware River. The Colonial banner, a combination of the British Union Jack and one stripe for each Colony, is adopted by the young Continental Army less than a month later, amid rising tensions between Colonists and Great Britain. In 1777, Congress orders the creation of a flag featuring "stars in a new constellation"—the Stars and Stripes.

Burma Shave X

This week's billboard campaign alongside the information superhighway focuses on an outrageously disturbing trend we've been following--government officials equating fidelity to the Constitution with terrorism.

Previous "Burma Shave" Signs:
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II
III
IV
V
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VII
VIII
IX

[For those not familiar with the Burma Shave roadside billboard campaign or the CCRA RKBA campaign]

What Do YOU Think?

During Thanksgiving week, the Judiciary Committee of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives held a dramatic session to vote on whether to let the whole House vote on several gun-control measures...

What do you think? Let us know by Tuesday, in 200 words or less, by e-mailing to chesterletters@phillynews.com.

Well, since they asked...

Go ahead and let them know--especially if you live in PA.

Making Sense of Ron

NOTE TO VISITORS FROM "THE HIGH ROAD": Despite what you have been led to believe, this post has nothing to do with Ron Paul--it is a response to an anti-gun editorial linked to in the title and written by columnist Ron DZWONKOWSKI. Since the thread appears to be closed, I trust the record on THR will be corrected?

It makes sense to me that police should have access to a national database of gun owners. If I'm rolling up to a house where there's a reported burglary in progress or some kind of assault going on, I'd want to know if guns are registered for the premises. Wouldn't that advance warning protect gun owners, too, from police reacting badly to the presence of a firearm? Seems as if it'd be safer for both.

Yeah, Ron, trust the guys who can't even get their search warrant addresses right. That's some real "safety first" you're giving us there, guaranteed to get more innocent people raided and killed. As we all know, nothing calms a cop down more than a report of a gun. And we need registration to better protect ourselves from dangerous gun criminals who don't register their guns--and as a point of law can't be required to. That's some logic there, Ron.

But perhaps you're right. Maybe if we can stop just one gun criminal, it will be worth it. Does that make sense?

We're the Only Ones Bordering on Useless Enough

Ottawa is facing a multimillion-dollar bill to find work for border guards who can't - or won't - carry guns, newly released documents show...an internal analysis indicates that between 25% and 30% of those guards will be unable or unwilling to carry sidearms - as many as 1,440 employees.

What do you mean you want us to physically guard the border in exchange for our salaries and benefits? You mean just showing up in uniform and squealing for help and letting somebody else assume the risks isn't enough?

[More from "The Only Ones" Files]

Glen Johnson: AP's Hillary Campaign Operative

When the hostages had been released and their alleged captor arrested, a regal-looking Hillary Rodham Clinton strolled out of her Washington home, the picture of calm in the face of crisis...

Her Serene Highness. Jeeze, Glen, do you think you could have stuck your nose up any further?

Another thing, since you've made your role as official campaign propagandist abundantly clear: After you help get her elected, will you and the rest of the "Authorized Journalists" at the AP refer to her as "Dear Leader" or "Our Beloved Führer"?

The Bourne Ultimatum

A man carrying a semiautomatic handgun approached a group of San Francisco police officers Saturday afternoon and, with a smile, handed over the pistol in exchange for $150 in gift cards.

"I used to fire it at bottles or do some plinking in the woods," said the gun's owner, 48-year-old Bruce Bourne. "But I have a 6-year-old daughter now and my wife was uncomfortable with it being in the house."

So your wife is going to protect the family Bruce? Evidently, because this guy didn't have a gun, and look what happened. Ditto this guy. And you've just announced to the world that:

A. You're defenseless; and

B. You're so henpecked you can't even make a case for home defense with your own wife. How much stronger of a case do you think you'd be able to make with these guys? Or with these?

But you'd just give them what they want, right, Bruce, and hope you could reason with them, or convince them not to hurt you? What if what they want involves doing terrible things to you and to the people you profess to love?

If I were you, I'd strap 'em on and tell my wife--not "ask"--that I was going to acquire the means and the knowledge to safely keep a gun in the home to defend my family with. If she's "uncomfortable" with that, I'd want to find out if she'd really rather have a $150 gift certificate than a man.

[Via SameNoKami]

The Liberal Case for Gun Ownership

What were our Founding Fathers thinking when they wrote the Second Amendment?

Well, they were not engaged in narrow partisan politics. They were not posturing for Fox News or trying to “make nice to soccer moms.”

These were serious men who came fresh from the white-hot forge of revolution. A war had just been fought to overthrow the yoke of an oppressive and unresponsive Government that invaded homes without warrant and which exposed the populace to "dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within."

This is as fine and concise a read as I have ever come across. While I don't quite get how someone who would give a constructionist interpretation to the Second Amendment could embrace (non-Jeffersonian) "liberal" ideology when it comes to other things we expect, demand or allow government to do to us, I think you'll enjoy it from a pure 2A perspective. If you do, share it with your friends.

This Day in History: December 2

On 02 December 1775, John Mayfield of Browns Creek, a Ninety-Six District militia captain serving under Colonel Thomas Fletchall, was captured along with several other officers at McLaurins Store in the Upper Saluda region. The commander of the Whig forces that captured Mayfield was Colonel Richard Richardson, who, shortly after the capture, wrote a letter to the ad hoc Whig Council or Committee of Public Safety in Charles Town (Charleston).

We're the Only Ones Looking Out for Child Welfare Enough

Atlanta police knew seven years ago that a police sergeant's husband may have been paying young girls for sex and producing child pornography, but failed to investigate the allegations, federal authorities said.

And the "Only One" wife actually destroyed some of the evidence. Not that she's been charged or anything...

More Proof That Total Gun Bans Work

One inmate was shot by a gun smuggled into the Crittenden County jail Friday morning...

I think the "Authorized Journalist" meant "with a gun," but that's hardly the main point of this story, is it?

This is Madness

A Virginia court found Cho to be dangerously mentally ill in 2005 and ordered him to receive outpatient treatment. But because Cho was not ordered into hospital treatment, the court's order was never provided to the FBI and incorporated in its database...

Now wait just a minute here: if he was "dangerously mentally ill," why didn't the court order him into a hospital, and why isn't he still there until deemed no longer a danger?

Isn't that the real issue?

And I love how "the FBI has more than doubled the number of people nationwide who are prohibited from buying guns," while Paul Helmke says it's not enough and the "list is missing four of every five Americans who have been ruled mentally dangerous to themselves or others."

Anybody see a trend emerging here, or wonder why "The Winning Team" is facilitating this...?

About Ron Paul and NRA's "Celebration of American Values"

A few people have pointed out to me that he was not there. My immediate thought was to find out if he'd been invited, so I begged off posting on this until I had time to do some checking around.

There's been a lot of buzz that he was excluded, but per an NRA email, Rep. Paul was invited and did not respond.

I've been trying to reach the Paul campaign on this for comment.

We're the Only Ones at a Loss Enough

POLICE in New South Wales have lost track of a wide range of equipment including handcuffs, bulletproof vests, capsicum spray, radios, uniforms and even a squad car.

Cryptic Subterranean shows us yet again that "Only Ones" are the same the world over.