Posts Tagged ‘anti-gun asshattery’

Multi-Agency Participation in Fast and Furious

Posted: December 25, 2014 by gamegetterII in anti-gun asshattery
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  • There is evidence of widespread knowledge of and participation by several federal agencies in the controversial Fast and Furious gunwalking case that let traffickers put thousands of weapons into the hands of Mexican drug cartels.
  • Agencies participating in Fast and Furious included the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement branch (ICE), the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Phoenix Police Department.
  • A January 2011 “Key Messages: Tasking Points” memo (p. 14) generated by the Public Affairs Division at ATF headquarters in Washington D.C. stated:

“The Fast and Furious investigation is just one of a number of firearms trafficking cases perfected by the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) Strike Force, a multi-agency team of investigators from ATF, DEA, ICE, IRS, and the Phoenix Police Department.”

http://sharylattkisson.com/belatedly-released-and-revealing-fast-furious-docs/

Refusal as a weapon

Posted: December 23, 2014 by gamegetterII in anti-gun asshattery, gun rights
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“Refusal as a weapon. There is NO unconstitutional law that Mike Bloomberg can buy that we cannot nullify with armed civil disobedience.”

They can jail us. They can shoot us. They can even conscript us. They can use us as cannon-fodder in the Somme. But… but, we have a weapon more powerful than any in the whole arsenal of their British Empire. And that weapon is our refusal. Our refusal to bow to any order but our own, any institutions but our own. — Liam Neeson portraying Michael Collins, 1996.

“Mike Bloomberg thought he was on a roll. In the wake of Sandy Hook, his money managed to buy unconstitutional legislation in Connecticut, Colorado, Maryland and New York. In the election just past, his money staved off defeat for two governors who did his bidding, although as Wellington said about Waterloo, it was “the nearest run thing you ever saw.” Most importantly — and the latest jewel in his anti-firearm crown — his money and that of Bill Gates, Paul Allen and other like-minded elitists “bought the mob” (in the parlance of the Founders) with the success of I-594 in Washington state.

Yes, Bloomberg was on a roll. The so-called “mainstream” gun rights organizations, from the NRA to Alan Gottlieb’s Second Amendment Foundation and all the smaller spin-offs in the affected states, had no answer to Bloomberg’s millions and refused to put their own rivalries and jealousies aside to find one. This is hardly a surprise, since almost all of these groups have always been more about raising money to “fight gun control” than actually FIGHTING gun control. Each has been more obsessed with their own reputation in the collectivist-dominated press and their obsession to “win friends and influence people” in the middle. So, following their long-established patterns and refusals to think and act outside the boxes they placed themselves in, they lost. They lost in Connecticut, they lost in Maryland, they lost in New York, they lost in Colorado and now they have lost in Washington state.

In each case, Bloomberg understood his enemies, their foibles and their failures far better than they understood him. So he won and they lost.

But then something happened that Bloomberg in his arrogance never expected, something that the “mainstream gun rights organizations” for their part never expected either — in every single state where Bloomberg had “won,” it turned out that the victims of his unconstitutional laws had other ideas. And they didn’t need “leaders” like Wayne LaPierre and Alan Gottlieb to lead them.

The “I Will Not Comply” movement in the various affected states began the instant Bloomberg’s Intolerable Acts were passed. Individual firearm owners, led here and there by some courageous activists of the smaller rights groups who were not so worried about raising money and preserving their press image than their “betters,” simply announced that they would not obey such unconstitutional laws. They refused to cooperate in their own disarmament. They refused to obey. If the government wanted to make them criminals, well, then, they would be criminals and they dared the authorities to do anything about it.

And the authorities did . . . nothing. When it became apparent that Connecticut was experiencing a stunning non-compliance rate approaching 85 percent, Mike Lawlor, the governor’s appointed “gun commissar” in that state made threatening noises. But the raids did not begin. And now, almost two years later, they still haven’t begun. In New York, the non-compliance rate is even higher, with county sheriffs even threatening to arrest state policemen who seek to enforce the SAFE Act in their jurisdictions. And Governor Cuomo has done . . . nothing.

In Colorado, on the day the magazine ban went into effect in July 2013, resisters gathered on the statehouse steps and broke the law. And the authorities did. . . nothing. After I announced on 20 April 2013 on the steps of the Connecticut state capitol that I had smuggled in forbidden magazines in violation of their diktat, Lawlor had the state police open a criminal investigation of me, but did . . . nothing. Since then my friends and I have smuggled in more such magazines to that state and the authorities have done . . . nothing. I even recently attended a gun show in CT simply to give the authorities a chance to arrest me if they felt froggy enough. And they did . . . nothing. The raids have not begun. The state and its newly felonized citizens have been looking at each other with firearms in their hands for almost two years now. Yet the other jackboot has not dropped. And the authorities, as with those in other states with Bloomberg Rules, don’t know whether to defecate or go blind. Consequently they have done . . . nothing.

This refusal, this armed civil disobedience, reached its highest expression to date with the “I Will Not Comply” rally at the state capitol in Olympia on the 13th of this month. Two thousand armed people met, without a permit, defied I-594, held a successful rally without incident, and the authorities did . . . nothing. I was privileged to speak at this historic event as well. I will go back to Yakima in June for a planned gun show that will refuse to conduct the 594-required background checks and we will give the authorities a chance to enforce their new Bloomberg Rules.

And where are the “mainstream gun rights groups” in this national campaign of armed civil disobedience which has negated the results of Bloomberg’s money, his so-called “victories”? Why, they’re nowhere to be found. They have either condemned them or ignored them. In a recent interview, Alan Gottlieb, — who was apparently vacationing in Hong Kong on the proceeds of his members’ dues while the brave men and women of his state were risking arrest defying I-594 — denied that the rally was in fact “armed civil disobedience” because, he ludicrously claimed, “most people there weren’t armed.”

And if you didn’t get the underlying message, he went on to say “I don’t think it helped us with the general public. It doesn’t help us with the public or the legislators.” And, he added, “I’m not a fan of armed civil disobedience.”

Coming from a guy who has never risked more than a paper cut opening fundraising envelopes . . . coming from a guy who was willing to trade away national background checks in the immediate aftermath of Sandy Hook . . . this was hardly surprising. He will do what he has always done when confronted with Bloomberg Rules. If he cannot sue it, if he cannot lobby a “compromise” that gives up a little more of other people’s essential liberties and property, he will do . . . nothing.

Yet such “leaders” risk exposure and irrelevance in the new shifting paradigm. Legal challenges on all these Intolerable Acts are working their way through the courts. All have, up to now, failed. Elections have been fought and lost. Lobbying has been redoubled. Indeed, in the same interview Gottlieb asserted that the emergency was so grave that they had hired another lobbyist!

But the practitioners of armed civil disobedience, the resistance behind enemy lines in Connecticut, New York, Maryland, Colorado and Washington state, have ALREADY NULLIFIED BLOOMBERG RULES. And Michael Bloomberg himself doesn’t seem to know whether to defecate or go blind.

The failures of the “mainstream gun rights groups” to protect liberty and property from Bloomberg’s assaults have forced the American people — an eminently practical people — to make their own arrangements. If this risks exposing the increasing irrelevance of such groups there is nothing we can do about it. (Although there is certainly something THEY can do about it — thinking and acting outside the boxes of their own comfort zones would be a good start.) But the fact of the matter is that, as demonstrated now by almost two years of experiences THERE IS NO UNCONSTITUTIONAL LAW THAT MIKE BLOOMBERG CAN BUY THAT WE CANNOT NULLIFY WITH ARMED CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE.

Refusal is a weapon. It is a weapon that has been used to good effect in this country since the time of the Founders. Michael Bloomberg’s Rules are negated by the Law of Unintended Consequences. And looking back on the past two years of expensive laws and craven legislators bought and sold that all of his “victories” required, Bloomberg must be wondering this Christmas why it is that someone crapped in his stocking. He should be celebrating. Instead he has been frustrated, as the Founders intended, by the refusal of the armed citizenry of the United States to bow down to him and his tyrannical kind.”

http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/2014/12/refusal-as-weapon-there-is-no.html

 

Daily Mail Fast and Furious report repeats unsubstantiated claim

Posted: December 21, 2014 by gamegetterII in anti-gun asshattery
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Curiously, in all his 'Gunwalker' testimony before Congress, Attorney General Eric Holder never detailed steps taken to "track" Fast and Furious guns. So why is the media so certain in telling the public that's what happened?
Curiously, in all his ‘Gunwalker’ testimony before Congress, Attorney General Eric Holder never detailed steps taken to “track” Fast and Furious guns. So why is the media so certain in telling the public that’s what happened?
Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images

In a Thursday report on a 2011 Phoenix “gang-style shooting” in which a gun from the Operation Fast and Furious “gunwalking” scheme was used, Mail Online repeats unsubstantiated claims that give cover to the administration and mask the government’s intentional uncontrolled release of guns into the criminal underworld. U.S. Political Editor David Martosko tells readers the purpose of the operation was to track the guns.

“[The] Phoenix gang-style shooting in 2013 was carried out with an AK-47 purposely sold to gun-runners under the watchful eye of the ATF,” a preface bullet reads. That much is true, with the reporting problem starting with the second point, claiming “[The] Obama administration tried to track 2,000 guns into Mexico to drug cartels.”

The latter claim is where the ubiquitous administration-serving media narrative falls apart. How does one track guns without making any attempt to do so? That, in turn, leads to the fraudulent, but often-repeated media claim that Fast and Furious was a “botched gun sting.”

That’s despite whistleblower sources claiming in early January, 2011, that guns were being walked “to pad statistics.” It was through these sources that the story was investigated and reported by citizen journalists while “legitimate news media” remained deliberately indifferent, until information coming to light could no longer be contained, prompting many “Authorized Journalists” to manage and spin it instead.

Undaunted by the facts, Martosko soldiers on with the wholly unsubstantiated “tracking claim.

“Fast and Furious was “an ill-fated Obama administration program that tried in vain to track firearms across the Mexican border to drug kingpins,” he asserts. “In vain” implies an exhaustive effort, does it not, as opposed to just letting guns go without even trying, and in fact, ordering agents to allow the guns to “walk” while intentionally keeping the Mexican government in the dark — in itself a violation of both U.S. and Mexican laws?

“’Operation Fast and Furious’ involved straw-buyers who sent 2,000 guns to Mexico (including these weapons) with help from the ATF, which hoped to track the firearms to drug cartels — but failed,” a photo caption accompanying the article reads. All evidence points to the hope being geared toward change — to U.S. gun laws. To date, the administration has had to content itself with requiring additional reporting of multiple rifle sales from Southwest border gun dealers, with the real goal, to justify banning misnamed ‘assault weapons,” thankfully still beyond their grasp.

How one ‘devises’ a program that completely omits the part where weapons are followed from gun stores to cartel leaders, and then expects any other result, is left unexplored by Mail Online and other “legitimate news media” apologists. How anyone can track guns without even attempting to, or botch a sting that has no mark, are questions those who spread such excuses never try to answer.

Perhaps the best analogy for challenging the “failed tracking/botched sting” theory was conceived by St. Louis Gun Rights Examiner Kurt Hofmann.

“We are … being asked to believe that the BATFE’s grand strategy for bringing down the drug cartels … resembled ‘South Park’s’ Underpants Gnomes’ business plan … with the BATFE adaptation going something like this: ‘Phase 1: Encourage gun dealers (and sometimes pay them, as confidential informants) to sell guns to known traffickers Phase 2: ? Phase 3: Humbly accept plaudits as Mexican drug cartel comes crashing down,’” he wrote.

To date, no one advancing the “failed/botched” apologia has even attempted to explain “Phase 2,” and provide documentation, or even a plausible hypothesis, on how the government — which according to all evidence kept their own attaché and Mexican law enforcement in the dark — intended to track any guns once they crossed the border.

Except, of course, to recover them at crime scenes after shootouts and deaths had occurred and then point fingers when serial numbers allowed them to be traced back to U.S. gun shops. Not that a public largely relying on “real reporters” from “mainstream” outlets would be likely to know.

http://www.examiner.com/article/daily-mail-fast-and-furious-report-repeats-unsubstantiated-claim?CID=examiner_alerts_article

Jihadist hostage-taker enabled by Australian gun laws

Posted: December 17, 2014 by gamegetterII in anti-gun asshattery
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A Sydney cafe hostage is taken out on a stretcher.
A Sydney cafe hostage is taken out on a stretcher.
Photo by Joosep Martinson/Getty Images

An Islamic gunman who took Sydney cafe employees and customers hostage is among the three people reported dead after automatic weapon-wielding police using flash grenades stormed the building early Tuesday morning Australian time, Fox News is reporting. Man Haron Monis, an Iranian immigrant charged with the murder of his wife and the sexual assault of another woman, and who waged a campaign against families of fallen soldiers by mailing them letters calling the deceased “murderers,” highlighted both the problems of a country welcoming hostile foreign nationals, as well as the ease with which one armed assailant can victimize multiple unarmed citizens.

Touted as a model for the U.S. to emulate after passing sweeping gun control legislation in 1996, Australia has adopted many of the laws currently existing in some states and being pushed for in the rest. Per GunPolicy.org, a project of the Sydney School of Public Health, which, while decidedly anti-gun, nonetheless provides instructive and useful compilations of gun laws from around the globe, Australian gun laws are “categorized as restrictive.

“In Australia, the right to private gun ownership is not guaranteed by law,” the analysis advises. “[C]ivilians are not allowed to possess automatic and semi-automatic firearms, self-loading and pump action shotguns [and] private possession of handguns (pistols and revolvers) is only permitted subject to stringent conditions.”

In addition to registration and regulation of sales for what is permitted, there are waiting periods, “safe storage” requirements for firearms and ammunition, and transport regulations. Carrying firearms openly or concealed, “in a public place is prohibited without genuine reason. In law, personal protection is not a genuine reason.”

The people with no “genuine reasons” Monis took captive were all unarmed and “law-abiding,” and thus helpless to do anything to protect themselves except wave an Islamic flag when ordered to, wait for men with guns to save them, and hope or pray they would survive. If domestic advocates of citizen disarmament have their way, petitioning U.S. cafes and other businesses to disallow guns on their premises, and further, demanding government pass laws prohibiting them, Americans obeying such edicts could find themselves in the same dilemma as the Sydney hostages.

http://www.examiner.com/article/jihadist-hostage-taker-enabled-by-australian-gun-laws?CID=examiner_alerts_article

Why Gun-Control Advocates Lie about Guns… The facts aren’t on their side.

Posted: December 17, 2014 by gamegetterII in anti-gun asshattery
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Angered by the news that American voters are now more supportive of the Second Amendment than they have been in two decades, the New York Daily News’s Mike Lupica used his weekend column to vent. Over the course of 900 words, Lupica lambasted the public for continuing “to protect gun nuts,” chided the “mouth-breathing” NRA for its murderous myopia, and contended emotively that “there are no words” available to describe the horror of “a recent poll that says a majority of Americans believe it is more important to protect the right to own guns than it is for the government to limit access to guns.”

And then, having established his moral bona fides for all to see, he tried to sneak a brazen lie past his audience:

The flyers on the table feature a picture of a beautiful, smiling girl with a pink bow in her hair, with Christmas and her whole life ahead of her until Adam Lanza walked into her school on a Friday morning with an automatic weapon — the kind of gun we are told must be protected or the Second Amendment is turned into a dishrag — and started shooting.

That Lupica would knowingly write these words should be of great concern to anybody who is concerned with the truth. There were no “automatic” weapons used at Sandy Hook. Rather, Adam Lanza used a standard semi-automatic rifle of the sort that millions upon millions of Americans have in their homes. Moreover, Mike Lupica knows this full well, for on every other occasion he has written about the AR-15, he has described it correctly. In March of 2013, Lupica called for the federal government to ban “a semiautomatic rifle called the AR-15.” A few months later, railing against the same weapon, he explained to his readers that AR-15s are “semi-automatic” — and explained not just once, but twice. Elsewhere, he has proven himself to be more than capable of identifying different gun types when it has suited him to do so. Why, then, the change?

The answer, I suspect, lies in this famously dishonest piece of advice from the Violence Policy Center’s radical founder, Josh Sugarmann:

Assault weapons – just like armor-piercing bullets, machine guns, and plastic firearms – are a new topic. The weapons’ menacing looks, coupled with the public’s confusion over fully automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons – anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun – can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons.

Bingo.

As you will see, “semi-automatic” does not mean “slightly weaker machine gun,” but is instead a technical term used to describe any firearm that requires its user to pull the trigger each and every time he wishes to expel a round. “Automatic,” by contrast, denotes something very different indeed: namely, any gun that keeps firing for as long as the trigger is depressed. “Automatics” have been heavily regulated since 1934 and are almost never used in crimes of any sort; “semi-automatics” have been available at almost every gun store in the country for almost a century. One can easily understand why Lupica hopes that the public will mix the two up: Their doing so is the only way he’s going to get anywhere with his crusade. But that he has elected to use his position as a “journalist” to help it along is little short of disgraceful.

Apparently, it is also somewhat typical. “So,” he sighed in yet another anti-AR-15 column last year, “it takes nine months and two days from Newtown, from 20 dead children and six adults, for someone else to carry the same kind of AR15 that Adam Lanza carried into Sandy Hook Elementary School into the Washington Navy Yard.” The cover line for his story? “Same Gun, Different Slay.”

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/394727/why-gun-control-advocates-lie-about-guns-charles-c-w-cooke

Virginia governor seeks to reinstate restrictions on handgun sales

Posted: December 16, 2014 by gamegetterII in anti-gun asshattery
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Virginia Gov McAuliffe attends National Governors Assoc discussion on Growth and Jobs in America during its Winter Meetings in Washington

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Democratic Governor Terry McAuliffe of Virginia makes remarks during a “Growth and Jobs in America…

RICHMOND, Va. (Reuters) – Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat, on Monday called to reinstate restrictions on the purchase of handguns, in a move that opponents described as unlikely to succeed with a Republican-dominated legislature.

McAuliffe asked lawmakers to reinstate a law allowing buyers to purchase only one handgun a month, which had been repealed during his Republican predecessor’s administration. He also wants to require private vendors at gun shows to run background checks on all prospective buyers.

“At gun shows, private vendors are not required to conduct criminal background checks, creating an easy avenue for criminals to illegally gain access to guns,” McAuliffe said. His call came the day after the second anniversary of a gunman’s rampage in Newtown, Connecticut, that killed 26 elementary school students and educators.

McAuliffe also aims to revoke concealed weapons permits for parents who are delinquent on child support payments and prohibit the possession of firearms for misdemeanor domestic violence offenders.

The head of a Virginia gun-rights group called the move political payback to former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, an ardent gun-control activist who was a major donor to McAuliffe’s 2013 gubernatorial campaign.

“I think this is all politically motivated,” said Philip Van Cleave, president of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, a gun rights group. “If anything, Virginia is more pro-gun than it was last year.”

The National Rifle Association, meanwhile, has said it financed $500,000 in ads on television and online striking out at McAuliffe’s views on firearms.

In 2013, gun sales in Virginia set a new high with nearly 480,000 transactions, according to state police statistics on the number of mandatory criminal background checks of gun purchasers.

Gun sales grew 10.8 percent over the previous record set just a year earlier.

Overall sales could be even higher, because state police don’t track private firearm transactions. Final sales numbers for 2014 aren’t in yet.

Thomas Baker, a criminologist and an assistant professor at Virginia Commonwealth University’s L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs, said McAuliffe’s gun control proposals could spur even more gun sales.

“Usually, when new policies restricting firearm purchases are proposed, we see a rise in firearm sales,” Baker said

http://news.yahoo.com/virginia-governor-seeks-reinstate-restrictions-handgun-sales-221451821.html

Wisconsin Police Chief Badgers Residents to Forego Second and Fourth Amendment Rights

Posted: December 13, 2014 by gamegetterII in anti-gun asshattery
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cop-lights-1500

Perhaps inspired by the recent introduction of surprise home inspections of gun licensees in the UK, Beloit, Wisc., Police Chief Norm Jacobs issued a press release on December 1, urging city residents to volunteer for warrantless police searches of their homes for firearms.  Jacobs framed the residential probes as a valuable “opportunity” his department was offering to the public.  Notably, the press release did not offer participants immunity from prosecution for any illegally-possessed firearms or other contraband police might find while “inspecting” the premises, suggesting the program was aimed squarely at law-abiding households.

In the press release, Jacobs made clear that he doesn’t have a very high opinion of the gun-owing residents in his community.  The concerns that prompted his initiative included his belief that residents are not able to account for guns within their own homes, fail to secure them adequately against theft or unauthorized access, or use them “in the fit of rage” to “settle scores.”  Jacobs even absurdly insisted, “We need to consider potential crime guns as if they were the Ebola Virus and deal with them similarly to a health care issue” (no word from the chief yet on whether he’ll offer a similar program to snoop for unhealthy snacks or those showing signs of infectious disease).

Beloit isn’t the first city to explore this type of “voluntary” rights relinquishment program.  In 2008, Boston and the District of Columbia launched so-called “Safe Homes” initiatives where a resident, or an informer, could alert police to the possibility of an illegally possessed firearm inside a residence.  Police would then be sent to the location and attempt to acquire consent for a search of the premises.  The initiatives were met with widespread opposition, prompting D.C. to abandon their program, while the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts expressed its displeasure with Boston’s.  Offering a further critique of the Boston program was Boston City Councilor Michael Flaherty.  A Boston Globe article described his opposition to the initiative, stating, “Flaherty argues that the Safe Homes Initiative has been a bust.  Obviously, not many people have been willing to turn in their weapons voluntarily.”

Fortunately, Beloit city officials have stepped in and put a halt to Jacobs’ scheme.  In a December 9 press release, the Beloit Office of City Manager stated, “At this time, the department is withdrawing its offer under this initiative, and will be submitting the program to the City’s legal office for further review.”  Officials admitted reaction to the program had been negative.

Chief Jacobs’s belief that firearms in the home of law-abiding residents pose enough of a public safety risk for police to search for and seize them serves as a chilling reminder of how important all of our constitutional rights are, including the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures.  It also suggests a need for the chief to rethink his policing priorities and focus on those actually committing crime, none of whom accepted his offer or would ever be likely to do so.  In the future, we suggest he leave the “health care issues” and house calls to local doctors and start brushing up on police tactics for dealing with actual bad guys.

http://www.nraila.org/news-issues/articles/2014/12/wisconsin-police-chief-badgers-residents-to-forego-second-and-fourth-amendment-rights.aspx

Pew poll confirms amnesty a danger to gun rights

Posted: December 13, 2014 by gamegetterII in anti-gun asshattery
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Amnesty will give a foreign culture demonstrably hostile to the right to keep and bear arms a significant say in legislation affecting it.
Amnesty will give a foreign culture demonstrably hostile to the right to keep and bear arms a significant say in legislation affecting it.
Photo by David McNew/Getty Images

Survey results made public Wednesday by Pew Research Center show public support for protecting gun rights on the rise across all demographics except for two notable categories, “liberal Democrats” and “Hispanics.” Significantly, the latest numbers also show the most dramatic increase in support for gun rights over gun control among African Americans, who registered a 25 percent gain to a majority position of acknowledging guns protect more than they put people at risk.

While the new survey may encourage gun rights activists to make inroads appealing to black voters to elect gun rights-supporting politicians instead of automatically giving power to anti-gun urban Democrats, attitudes expressed by Hispanics show overwhelming rejection of pro-gun political sentiment. With only 25 percent favoring laws protecting the right to own guns, 71 percent want government to “control ownership.”

That tracks with warnings issued by Gun Owners of America, curiously alone among national gun rights advocacy groups. GOA has warned that amnesty for illegal aliens, and a “pathway to citizenship,” will provide for millions of new anti-gun voters with the electoral clout to undo all hard-won legislative and judicial gains gun owners have enjoyed in recent years. That in turn has bearing on what Homeland Security Jeh Johnson, the official behind so-called “executive amnesty,” told the United Conference of Mayors in January, when he maintained that “the approximately 11 million people who are in the country illegally have ‘earned the right to be citizens.’”

With other gun groups justifying their inaction to take on amnesty under the “single issue” excuse that it’s not directly about guns, with establishment Republicans and their Chamber of Commerce patrons favoring labor that’s “cheap” for employers because true costs are borne by all and don’t appear on their books, and with Democrats and the mainstream media in lockstep with Barack Obama’s plan to “fundamentally transform America,” those opposing amnesty are becoming increasingly isolated.

If holdout gun organizations neither make politicians accountable for amnesty support, nor make the developing political gun rights threat known to their members, most gun owners may remain unaware, uninformed and unconvinced until it’s too late for them to seek political solutions. Indications are, such groups would not be motivated to alter a policy of deliberate indifference unless enough members to get their attention demanded it, and backed that up by loudly redirecting support to GOA.

That’s assuming it’s not already too late. Per CNS News, the spending bill passed Thursday by John Boehner “join[ing] forces” with Barack Obama “does not prohibit the president from using appropriated money to implement his plan to legalize illegal aliens, [meaning] the president may move forward–drawing taxed and borrowed money from the Treasury–to carry out this plan.”

All that’s left is what Gun Owners of America describes as a “a Hail Mary pass.” The group issued an alert Friday urging members to contact their senators “to say NO to the anti-gun funding bill.”

http://www.examiner.com/article/pew-poll-confirms-amnesty-a-danger-to-gun-rights?CID=examiner_alerts_article

Republicans leaving anti-rights restoration provision in appropriations bill

Posted: December 11, 2014 by gamegetterII in anti-gun asshattery
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Despite a big win in November, Republicans are ceding to the wishes of Barack Obama while alienating their conservative base, political commentator James Simpson noted in a Thursday American Thinker analysis of the 2015 spending bill being negotiated at this writing. Among the dangers he lists include a provision that will allow for changes after the vote, along with continued funding for executive amnesty and Obamacare, with a special notation that “Provisions supporting gun rights were removed.”

“[B]etween 40 and 50 Republican representatives have already jumped ship and are opposing the Republican leadership,” Gun Owners of America told members in a Tuesday alert describing rank and file push-back against what is being widely perceived as a GOP betrayal and sell-out. “This means that at least a fifth — and maybe more — of [House Minority Leader Nancy] Pelosi’s minions will have to be ordered to support [House Speaker John] Boehner for it to pass. And Pelosi has made it clear to the press that the bill will have to be altered to be satisfactory to her in order for her to provide those votes.

One of the changes the GOP could insist on now would be to restore funding closed off through an appropriations maneuver by anti-gun New York Democrat Chuck Schumer for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives “to investigate or act upon applications for relief from Federal firearms disabilities submitted by individuals.” Unless and until that is done, “[T]housands upon thousands of Americans who are disqualified from owning firearms because of non-violent federal felonies have no way to get their gun rights back,” GOA noted in January.

The prohibition on relief funding remains in the ATF expense section of the bill. The section beginning on page 139 notes “That none of the funds appropriated herein shall be available to investigate or act upon applications for relief from Federal firearms disabilities under 23 section 925(c) of title 18, United States Code.”

At this writing, as things are unfolding in real time, it appears a revolt has almost killed the bill, and floor votes may not be enough to allow it to pass, particularly if opposing Democrats hold fast to their reasons for objection. If that happens, Matthew Boyle of Breitbart notes, “congressional leadership is planning to change tack and move forward with a three-month stopgap spending bill, or a clean Continuing Resolution.”

If that happens, GOA will once again have proven itself as a uniquely effective “no-compromise” national leader in the gun rights advocacy community. Whether that will be widely recognized by even more gun owners than currently count themselves among its supporters, and repaid in kind with a commensurate merited increase in membership support, remains to be seen.

http://www.examiner.com/article/republicans-leaving-anti-rights-restoration-provision-appropriations-bill?CID=examiner_alerts_article

Florida open carry case tests recognition of bearing arms

Posted: December 11, 2014 by gamegetterII in anti-gun asshattery
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A conviction being contested in Florida’s Fourth District Court of Appeal will challenge the state’s recognition of the meaning of the right to bear arms, NBC’s WPT5 in West Palm Beach reported Monday. Unknown to him at the time of his arrest in 2012, concealed carry permit holder Dale Lee Norman’s gun was exposed to view resulting in his conviction for open carrying, a decision now being challenged on Second Amendment grounds.

Dale Lee Norman is arrested by Fort Pierce, Fla. police for open carrying a gun.

Screenshot from Fort Pierce, Fla. Police dashcam video.

Florida law does not provide for open carry of handguns except in limited cases, such as while hunting, camping and fishing. At the heart of the legal issue is prior precedent declaring concealed carry a privilege, Norman’s attorney Eric Friday, who is also lead counsel for the statewide grassroots gun rights group Florida Carry, maintained. With open carry prohibited, there is no legally-recognized right to bear arms, a situation that directly contradicts the U.S. and Florida constitutions.

Among those opposing Norman’s challenge is Artie Williams of Mothers Against Murderers, who says the practice “gives the carrier an intimidation factor.” As prohibited persons may not possess a gun without being in violation of the law, just who lawful gun owners might be intimidating, aside from those intent on victimizing others, is not clear.

The anti-gun group’s website notes it was founded “in memory of … Torrey Donnell Manuel, who lost his life due to a senseless act of violence.” Further explanations on the circumstances of that act are not provided, nor is any further clarifying information apparent from search engine results. Co-founder Angela Williams maintains “she also lost 13 additional family members to gun violence in Palm Beach County, Florida.”

That there may be solutions to prevent similar losses that don’t involve the state depriving law-abiding gun owners of their rights is left unstated. “Gun violence,” without further examination of individual circumstances, is a broad term, and identifying the factors contributing to the cited family losses might shed light on superior alternatives.

For its part, Florida Carry continues to support and promote Norman in his appeal. The group has established a Norman v. State resource page to give background on the case, including providing access to many of the filings, as well as an interesting side trip of sorts explaining how “the Florida Attorney General’s Office filed an extraordinary motion with the Florida Supreme Court attempting to prohibit the Fourth District Court of Appeals from hearing the case.” The page also links to online donation and membership forms so that gun owners can support the group’s legal, legislative, educational and outreach efforts, allowing Florida Carry to continue its work and to expand its influence.

http://www.examiner.com/article/florida-open-carry-case-tests-recognition-of-bearing-arms?CID=examiner_alerts_article

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