The Gun Blogs

Concealed handgun licensees here in the Great State of Texas have been fighting for the right to carry on campus for...quite some time now. As of right now, our best hope is that Governor Perry will attempt to change things during our 2009 legislative session. This is one of the rare times in which I think that meeting every other year is a very bad thing. We're trying to be patient, but...it's getting harder.

With the recent shooting on a college campus in Tyler, Texas, we have no choice but to acknowledge that this type of thing can happen anywhere. Even here in Texas, where more than a quarter million of us are legally licensed to carry our concealed handguns in many public places (except, of course, school).

And then, the University of Texas at Arlington reported that there was an armed robbery on campus. There was also an incident involving a pellet gun.

So: we need concealed carry at Texas schools. Right now, only the criminals have weapons at school. By definition, criminals break laws. You can post all the "No Gun" signs you want, and you can pass all the "No guns at school" laws you want. The criminals are going to ignore all of this. Those of us who follow laws will obey...and by doing so, put ourselves at risk.

This ticks me off because I'm a UT-Arlington student. (I'm taking off this semester, but I'm returning in August.) I have to walk, by myself, across several parking lots. The campus is wide open to anybody who wishes to show up. Cooper Street, which basically runs right down the middle of the school, is a large and public road open to anybody who'd like to drive down it.

And though many of the people who live in the numerous houses near the campus are wonderful, law-abiding citizens...some of them are not. Not every person in the surrounding neighborhood is a good guy or gal. The criminals who live right off campus have very easy, free access to the unarmed students who are in the parking lots and on the streets.

There aren't enough campus police officers to personally escort every student all over the campus. Until or unless we each have armed escorts, we're responsible for protecting ourselves. But right now, legislation and school policies make this difficult. Very difficult.

Because, quite frankly, I have no delusion about what would happen if I were confronted by a criminal armed with a handgun. I have...pepper spray and a folding knife. Oh, yes, those are highly effective against handgun-wielding purse snatchers, rapists, school shooters and other, miscellaneous thugs.

This is not fair. I haven't done anything wrong, but the law puts me at a distinct disadvantage re: my own protection. The State of Texas licensed me to carry a loaded .45 at church, in Wal-Mart, and at the hobby shop. But I cannot carry that same gun to classes. I'm the same law-abiding citizen no matter where I go, but for some reason, I am not worthy of self protection when I'm attempting to better myself through higher education.

The Brady Campaign's "Drop out of school" solution would be a fine idea if it weren't for the fact that I have just as much right to attend college as an anti-gunner's kid does. I earned my seat at UT-Arlington. Wishing to defend and protect myself while I'm occupying that seat does not make me any less worthy of what I worked to earn.

Besides: the anti-gunners still have the right to NOT carry guns. They have a choice. I do not.

The sooner we get campus carry, the happier I'll be.

Court Transcripts and Video of the Arguments can be found at:
WWW.FIREARMWATCH.COM

Today the handgun ban in Washington D.C. is argued before the Supreme Court. This is the first gun bill to be heard in the supreme court in 32 years. Several mainstream media outlets reported that if the court lifts the ban, the 2nd amendment right to bare arms includes all weapons at the time that our founding fathers signed the constitution which includes "Fully Automatic" machine guns ( No, not the ones that anti-gunners mistaken for. Those are so-called assault rifles but those are included too. ).
- John Birster

NRA Headline:
Joint Statement from Wayne LaPierre and Chris Cox Regarding Oral Arguments Before the Supreme Court Concerning the Second Amendment

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Washington, D.C.’s ban on keeping handguns and functional firearms in the home for self-defense is unreasonable and unconstitutional under any standard. We remain hopeful that the Supreme Court will agree with the overwhelming majority of the American people, more than 300 members of Congress, 31 state attorneys general and the NRA that the Second Amendment protects the fundamental, individual right to keep and bear arms, and that Washington, D.C.’s bans on handguns and functional firearms in the home for self-defense should be struck down.

What scares me the most is the total disregard of empirical evidence that abounds in our government, schools, places of business, and those whose opinions (for whatever reason) seem to matter to people. I cannot believe that the "data" can be misconstrued to point to more gun control as the answer; therefore it must be that the "data" is being purposely ignored or vilified so the average person can't morally defend what they know is right. I have run into this problem repeatedly, where I'm put into the emotional "evil" slot. People just don't want to hear that it is about a lot more than hunting. That it is a defining aspect of being American. They don't have the intellectual honesty or capacity to understand a abstract (to them) concept when a emotional travesty has occurred. It is sad to think that we, our society, is in decline and in not to many years from now we, all of us, will be as Rome or Athens......
Great....I just depressed myself. See ya'll.

Well, since Fred Thompson dropped out of the 2008 race it looks like we have to find an alternative.

I think Kevin, over at The Smallest Minority: has the right answer:

Through Insty comes these links to new Second Amendment research:

Stephen P. Halbrook, "St. George Tucker's Second Amendment: Deconstructing 'The True Palladium of Liberty,'"

The article also points out deficiencies in Saul Cornell's treatment of Tucker; Cornell has a tendency to quote Tucker's analysis of militia issues as if the analysis were about the Second Amendment, and to gloss over what Tucker actually wrote about the Second Amendment.

"What Does 'Bear Arms' Imply?" Working Paper by Clayton Cramer and Joseph Olson.

Cramer and Olson show that "bear arms" never had an exclusively military connotation, either before ratification of the Second Amendment, or in the following decades.

"Pistols, Crime, and Public Safety in Early America" is another Working Paper by Cramer and Olson.

The authors show that the governments of Founding Era were familiar with handguns, and never regulated them differently from long guns.

Good stuff, there.

Via Instapundit comes this report out of New Orleans:

The National Rifle Association has hired private investigators to find hundreds of people whose firearms were seized by city police in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, according to court papers filed this week.

The NRA is trying to locate gun owners for a federal lawsuit that the lobbying group filed against Mayor Ray Nagin and Police Superintendent Warren Riley over the city's seizure of firearms after the Aug. 29, 2005, hurricane.

Say what you want about the NRA on some issues, I don't see the more strident gun rights groups doing this. I doubt they have the resources.

Bryan Miller exclaims: You can't make this stuff up!.

Bryan, we don't have to make stuff up, but you do.

You'll see that pro-gunners place much of the blame for Westroads Mall and other mass shootings, including the Virginia Tech gun massacre, on so-called 'gun free zones.'

"So called"? That's what the signs say. Signs that are allowed by law. We didn't make that up.

It's extremely difficult to gain a license to carry concealed in the Garden State, so we don't have testosterone-challenged bozos legally packing heat at the mall. Whew!

I know a lot of women who would take exception to your statement. Then again, compared to you, they may be carrying higher levels of testosterone. Whew!

For pro-gunners it's about arming everyone to the teeth.

Liar. You made that up.

I, sadly, have a little more experience with overwhelming firepower than do the pro-gunners seeking to rationalize their petty personal fears and desires by pretending that they're seeking to defend the rest of us. My only brother, FBI Special Agent Mike Miller, was one of three law enforcement officers killed (a fourth was grievously wounded) by a lone gunman wielding a concealed assault pistol at Washington, DC Metropolitan Police Headquarters in November 1994.

Quite possibly the only true thing you've ever written about guns. I'm sorry for your loss. I'm sorry any time we lose good people to bad ones.

But

What's a concealed assault pistol? No such thing, liar. You made that up, too.

So, rather than blaming those who would hope to reduce gun violence by seeking to limit the presence of lethal weapons in public, we should applaud and encourage them. We should also enact a meaningful federal Assault Weapons Ban (unlike the AWB that expired in '04, which gun manufacturers figured out how to get around in no time), similar to New Jersey's state ban, that would actually ban the sale and possession of these outrageous weapons. The secret to societal safety is not more firepower in civilian hands. Quite the opposite.

I'll consider supporting a ban if you can tell me, without equivication, what an "assault weapon" is. You'll also have to provide proof as to the effectiveness of such a ban.

Of course, you'll have to do this without making anything up.

(BTW: I urge readers to check out some of the 'you can't make this up' nuttiness that will undoubtedly appear in the Comments section below and has followed each of my earlier entries. Craaaazy!)

You sure do use the word "crazy" a lot. You have facts presented to you, but you refuse to accept them. You belittle anyone who disagrees with you. Is that not crazy? Pro-gun people come to your site, hoping to shed some light on your stupidity. They stay above the fray, calmly pointing out your many inaccuracies, but it's wasted time.

Me? I'm done with that. You call names, get all over-the-top and I'll do the same, liar. I'm not afraid to sink to your level rhetorically. The one thing I won't do is lie, because I don't have to.

You go ahead and get all Carolyn McCarthy on us, I don't care. You honor no one with your antics. Or your lies.

www.shtfblog.com

Shit Hits The Fan blog.com

See us there.

- Ranger Man

Via Thirdpower comes this by Charley Reese:

The Ideal Self-Defense Weapon

It's about guns (duh), but this part stuck out to me:

In the South, there is a cultural rule: Never insult a man you are not prepared to fight, and never fight a man you are not prepared to kill. Southerners, unlike people in some parts of the country, all have lines they do not allow other people to cross.

I have been blessed to live with such people.

Amen

I'm nervous about all of this. I especially find the focus of the question going to the Supremes to be disturbing. (From SCOTUSblog)

Here is the way the Court phrased the granted issue:

“Whether the following provisions — D.C. Code secs. 7-2502.02(a)(4), 22-4504(a), and 7-2507.02 — violate the Second Amendment rights of individuals who are not affiliated with any state-regulated militia, but who wish to keep handguns and other firearms for private use in their homes?”

The first listed section bars registration of pistols if not registered before Sept. 24, 1976; the second bars carrying an unlicensed pistol, and the third requires that any gun kept at home must be unloaded and disassembled or bound by a lock, such as one that prevents the trigger from operating.

The Court did not mention any other issues that it might address as questions of its jurisdiction to reach the ultimate question: did the one individual who was found to have a right to sue have a right to challenge all three of the sections of the local law cited in the Court’s order, and, is the District of Columbia, as a federal enclave, even covered by the Second Amendment. While neither of those issues is posed in the grant order, the Court may have to be satisfied that the answer to both is affirmative before it would move on to the substantive question about the scope of any right protected by the Amendment.

It's enough that this bit at SCOTUSblog appears to focus on the "militia" or more accurately the non-militia status looks to me to be concentrating on a minor point of the Amendment and ignoring the "right of the people" part that appears to be so much more important.

Lyle Denniston has a SCOTUSwiki page on the case that is worth reviewing.

David Hardy at Of Arms and the Law shows the variations on how the questions were placed.

Court rephrased the question presented as:

"Whether the following provisions, D.C. Code §§ 7-2502.02(a)(4), 22-4504(a), and 7-2507.02, violate the Second Amendment rights of individuals who are not affiliated with any state-regulated militia, but who wish to keep handguns and other firearms for private use in their homes? "

DC had phrased it as:

"Whether the Second Amendment forbids the District of Columbia from banning private possession of handguns while allowing possession of rifles and shotguns."

Parker/Heller had phrased it as:

" Whether the Second Amendment guarantees law-abiding, adult individuals a right to keep ordinary, functional firearms, including handguns, in their homes."

As you may know by now, firearms maker STI has decided to quit selling their product in the state of California.

Good for them, Ruger, S&W, Remington, and the rest of you take notice.

(hat tip to just about everybody)

UPDATE: Found a better link courtesy of KdT.

Well guess who is acting like they know how to write again? Yes, Jayne Lyn Stahl is at it again and just like last time, we are "graced" by her stunning lack of facts and reason. I tried. I really did try to understand her point or at least find some vestige of logic in her statements but alas, there was none to be found. I will leave you with a exerpt of this poorly researched drivel and let you see for your selfs what a......I think you know where I was going.
I'm off to find a aspirin. she made my head hurt.

Indeed, the gun lobby has never been in better shape in Washington than it has been under the tutelage of President George W. Bush, so not a peep has been heard from those whose custom it is to speak out against guns, and the rash of violence in our nation's public schools; schools like Columbine, Virginia Tech, in our nation's inner cities, cities like Compton, East Los Angeles, in our nation's workplaces. We've not heard a peep from the usual suspects who would be active in speaking up for more stringent laws to keep weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of our youngsters.

Increasingly, in a world in which the American flag has become synonymous with another four letter word "duck," and yet another "bomb," this is not time to mince words. These folks who equate what they think of as their constitutional empowerment have, for the past several years, had a free ride, but now that a changing of the guard is in sight, they cling to their illusions of entitlement like a leper clings to what little skin he has left. And, to parody the Dylan Thomas poem, it's as if every gun-toting Tom, Dick, and Harry decided not to go "gentle into that night," but to "rage, rage, against the dying of the might."

SO they come out with a new gun and they tout how it is so safe and one of those "safe" features is a loaded chamber indicator. This really annoys me, I mean what really does this do? Have we all forgoten that all guns are to be treated as loaded? If someone (IE not a "gun" person") picks up this gun that does not know the "All guns are loaded" rule, do you really expect them to know what a loaded chamber inticator is, and how to use it?
As for the gun savey population, they should know that the gun is loaded, or at least how to properly check the weapon. Now If you where to say to me that it is for "operators" to be able to feel instantly if their weapons are loaded, well missy let me tell you that I an't gonna belive some little tab to tell me if I have a weapon ready to go into leathel combat. First off those little things can get a little grit on them and then they stay "loaded" all the time. So if the indicator says that there is a round in the chamber does that mean I still have to check it before going out to check something going bumb in the night>?
I belive that it was said that somethings are brilant soultions to non-exitent proplem. This fits in that cadogery. Some Airforces did something simular, in that they painted a false cockpit on the underside of the aircraft. well it seemed like a great idea, until people had an ephiny and said "hey if they are close enough to see it, then they are close enough to not be fooled by it.
As far as gun safety, its really easy. Most Americans memorize many many numbers, phrases, and such in their lives. How had then is it for a persom to learn a few very simplE rules about gun handeling,
1 EVERY GUN IS LOADED!!!!!
2 DO NOT POINT A GUN AT ANYTHING YOU DO NOT WISH TO KILL/DESTROY!!
3 WHEN BEING HANDED A FIRARM FROM SOMEONE ELSE, YOU FIRST CHECK THAT THE WEAPON IS UNLOADED.
So I belive that if a person cannot learn, and abide by those rules, they should be taken to a group home where they help those with limited mental assets.

East Tennessee State University campus leader Jay Adkins reports that ETSU has conceded to allow students to carry empty holsters on campus during the Empty Holster Protest.

Info Here

UPDATE - Got a better link. Go thee hence, and read thereon.

This should be interesting:

Empty Holster Protests Coming to a College Campus Near You

Organized by Students for Concealed Carry on Campus (SCCC), a nation-wide "empty holster" protest is planned for the week of October 22-26.

Details here
.

Click on the banner at the top of that page for even more info.

Looks like some schools are already threatening disciplinary action for any students who participate. FIRE better get ready.

Well, the Governator just did it. He signed the microstamping and lead ammo bans in California.

More details here, courtesy of Calguns.net.

More freedom bites the dust.

According to the National Rifle Association (NRA), each year in the United
States guns are used three to five times as often for defense purpose then
criminal purposes. If the criminal use of guns is low then why do we need
to dwell on a problem that only so called "solution" is violating the
second amendment of the Constitution? The Department of Education released
a survey that stated school violence is more then twenty three times more
likely to be unrelated to guns. Why, isn't the government trying to
control that other causes of school violence? Gun control is the tip of
the iceberg. Instead the government should be focussed on what causes the
students to be violent and lash out at others. The National Center of
Health Statistics released this quote to the NRA; the annual number of
accidental gun deaths among children has declined eighty nine percent
since 1975. Today a gun accident is a one in a million. Where motor
vehicle accidents, suffocation, drowning and falls are seventy eight more
times likely to happen then dying from a gun shot wound. Maybe our
government should focus more preventing extremely possible ways of dying.

Back here I pointed to a post by Tam and noted how a de facto gun registry existed on form 4473.

What followed was a spirited discussion where Tam said (in a nutshell) that it wasn't feasible. Tons of paperwork to sift through, etc. True enough.

Now, from Red's Trading Post comes this news on how the ATF is pushing gun dealers to adopt an automated system for their 4473's.

Looking a bit more feasible now.

Read 'em and weep.

This according to Andy Wise at WREG.com.

MEMPHIS, TN -- With a legal handgun carry permit and a clean criminal history, there is no limit to how and where you can kill someone in self-defense in Tennessee, according to a Shelby County judge.

Shelby County Criminal Court Judge Chris Craft says the state's new 'Stand Your Ground' law, which went into effect May 22, not only gives "persons (with gun carry licenses) who are not engaged in criminal activity" limitless power to kill in self-defense, but it also strips criminals of their rights to self-defense, even against other criminals.

The funny thing is, outside of this inflammitory verbage, and the "Stand Your Ground" misnomer, the rest of the article is fairly balanced.

Guess 'ol Andy had to dress it up a bit for the editors, eh?

From Common Folk Using Common Sense, commenting on the line below, comes the Quote of the Day:

There are too many people who are just evil and mean-spirited. They will hurt you for no reason. If more people were packing guns, it might serve as a deterrent.

To which Shamalama replies:

I wish people didn’t have to have a gun pushed into their face to understand this simple concept.

Amen, brother.