Whenever a legally armed citizen stops a criminal from taking lives, or taking more lives, the anti-gun zealots do two things. First, the try to bury the story in the media and social media so the rest of the nation doesn’t hear about it. Second, when burying it doesn’t succeed, they minimize what happened, attack the legally armed citizen and attempt to show how stopping the threat was the worst, most dangerously irresponsible thing to do.
So is the case of the Greenville Park Mall shooting. A despicable excuse for a human being went to the mall with two rifles and one pistol. Emerging from the restroom, he began shooting at people in the food court. Within 15 seconds, a legally armed citizen who was shopping with his girlfriend, engaged the shooter from 40 yards away, hitting him with the first shot. He then closed in and neutralized him with eight of the ten total rounds fired, all while motioning for people to exit behind him. In the end, three people were killed, and two more injured not counting the deceased gunman. This legally armed citizen was carrying without a “permit” due to Indiana’s very recently enacted Constitutional Carry law. Even more remarkable was the fact he did not have a law enforcement or military background and had no formal firearms training. He learned to shoot from his grandfather.
Once the story was out, there was no burying it so anti-gun extremists put Plan B into effect. They attacked the good guy.
They disputed the fact that the armed citizen was legally carrying a firearm by noting the mall has a “Code of Conduct” which lists: No Weapons.
When the police and public began calling him a Good Samaritan, they began circulating the origin of the term and noting it was from a Bible passage describing how someone stopped and helped another person who was injured. Because of this it is unconscionable to describe someone who took a life as a Good Samaritan.
They called the legally armed citizen a “vigilante” because he shot and killed the gunman and didn’t let the police handle the situation.
They said the legally armed citizen put everyone in the mall in danger by having a gun battle with the shooter.
They claimed defensive gun use is extremely rare and that their data shows that “criminal carry” laws (what the anti-gun zealots call Constitutional Carry) “increase gun crime and gun homicides in the states where they’re passed.”
It’s times like this when a Luke Skywalker quote is appropriate. Every word of what you just said was wrong.
In Indiana, there is no criminal violation for carrying a firearm on private property in violation of a Code of Conduct. If discovered, the property owner can only ask the person to leave. Failure to leave on demand is trespassing.
But let’s expand on that a bit. Gun free zones, places which have signs saying no weapons allowed or a Code of Conduct forbidding the carrying of “weapons” are, and always have been the location of choice for mass murderers. Be it malls, schools or workplaces, 98% of all mass shootings in the United States since 1950 have occurred in a “Gun Free Zone”. The reason is painfully obvious. Law abiding citizens are expected to obey the rules not carry a firearm in them. But murderers have zero problems carrying a gun and killing in a Gun Free Zone. The fact that these Gun Free Zones do NOT screen 100% of the people coming into them and do NOT provide armed security or law enforcement within them makes it easy for murderers to kill unopposed.
Let’s not forget the words of the Wauwatosa, Wisconsin Mayor following the November 21st, 2020 shooting at the Mayfair Mall that left eight people injured. “Mayfair has a strict no-gun policy. If the shooter had complied with that policy, no one would have been hurt yesterday.”
Side note: Even the Greensville Park Mall commended this armed citizen: “… We are grateful for the strong response of the first responders, including the heroic actions of the Good Samaritan who stopped the suspect.”
Attacking the term Good Samaritan is just a straw man argument from the anti-gun zealots. Since the original Samarian only helped by rendering aid vs. taking a life to save many others, no modern day legally armed citizen who uses a firearm can be considered a Good Samaritan. Personally, I find it painful to think someone spent time coming up with that.
This legally armed citizen did not seek out someone to punish without legal authority, he responded to a threat to his life and the lives of innocent people all around him. It was self-defense, not a vigilante inspired gun battle that risked the lives of others. Had this legally armed citizen not intervened, how many would be dead waiting for the law enforcement response? Is this what they would have preferred? Sadly, the answer to that question is yes since a high body count helps them pass more gun control.
The anti-gun zealots are always trying to restrict an individual’s right to self-defense in this country. Even though the United States Supreme Court has ruled the Second Amendment DOES include this right, they’d prefer nobody except a tightly controlled, severely restricted and defunded law enforcement be able to use it.
Following the example of the United Kingdom, the Canadian Prime Minister recently declared: “No one in Canada has a right to defend themselves, their family, or their property with a firearm.” How long before they start saying that in the United States?
And finally, is defensive gun use rare? Not really. Firearms are used by everyday people around our country at a rate of 3:1 over felonious use, to the tune of approximately three million per year. In most of these incidents, the firearm isn’t even fired. Simply demonstrating the ability to be able to adequately defend yourself against a criminal is often enough to stop the crime in its tracks.
It’s also important to note the anti-gun zealots always claim Constitutional Carry laws will turn American cities into the wild, wild west and there will be blood running in the streets. Yet each and every time Constitutional Carry is signed into law, violent crime goes down and public safety goes up.
The FBI (yea, those guys) recently put out their metric of armed citizens stopping active shooter incidents at 4.4%. Except, they missed quite a few shootings and defensive uses. The real number is conservatively around 14.6%. Whether this was intentionally done to help drive a political narrative or simply incompetence, it’s best to take anything that comes out of the former premier law enforcement agency in our country with a massive grain of salt.
There’s one more thing I’d like you to take away from the Greenville Park Mall shooting and that’s the lack of focus on the gunman. Why? Because he was stopped quickly and effectively, we aren’t obsessing about every stupid detail about this psychopath. No stories about his pathetic life, how misunderstood his family says he was, or his horrific body count. Most people wouldn’t be able to recall his name, just as it should be.
Why? Because a hero named Elisjsha Dicken was there to stop him. The focus has been on the young man who had the skills and mental discipline to put a stop to the killing as soon as it started.
What do you think will deter the next mass shooter at a mall, school or workplace? A no weapons “Code of Conduct” policy with a little plastic window sign saying “Gun Free Zone” and a disarmed rule obeying population, or the realization that a legally armed citizen might be there to shoot you when you try to start killing people?
Bob
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Tag: 2ndAmendment
Reclaiming NOT Expanding Second Amendment Rights
Perhaps as soon as this week, the United States Supreme Court will issue a decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen. The issue before the court is whether the state of New York’s denial of petitioners’ applications for concealed-carry licenses for self-defense violated the Second Amendment. However, it is the underlying facts that may ultimately decide whether Second Amendment protected rights are applicable outside the home. This case has the potential to be as significant as Heller and McDonald.
As with all Supreme Court cases, it could be a narrow decision applicable only to New York’s highly restrictive and discriminatory conceal carry permit laws, or wider to include other states with similar conceal carrying permits that require applicants to show “proper cause” or a “special need for self-protection”, namely California, Maryland, Rhode Island, Delaware, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Hawaii. There is also the chance this ruling may even include setting the standard by which all Second Amendment cases are to be decided.
What it is NOT is an expansion of Second Amendment rights. This is a lie created by the gun control groups to scare people into thinking they will be less safe. None of it is true.
Despite many people trying to pick apart, redefine, reinterpret or creatively reimagine it, the 27 words of the Second Amendment remain extraordinarily clear.
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
One of the most widespread misconceptions about the Second Amendment is that it grants the right to bear arms. The truth is, it does nothing of the kind. It merely protects that right. The right to bear arms is considered a natural right, one that is not dependent on the laws or customs of any culture or government. Rights of this kind are also called inalienable or even God given rights, inherent to all persons.
Despite this, the nation, states and individual cities and communities have been writing laws to infringe upon the right to keep and bear arms since it was adopted on December 15, 1791. In fact, those defending New York’s highly restrictive gun control law in Bruen note that the law is over 100 years old, thus they claim any reversal of it would be an expansion of Second Amendment rights.
But what the anti-gun zealots call an expansion, is in fact a reclaiming of rights that preexisted BEFORE the unconstitutional gun control law was put in place.
Sadly, Bruen shows how long it can take to reverse unconstitutional laws. If in fact the law in question is over 100 years old, then it took over 100 years for it to be successfully challenged and appealed to the United States Supreme Court to be (hopefully) ruled unconstitutional and reversed.
It’s a fool’s errand to believe that once a law has been enacted, it can successfully be drawn back. Of the thousands of gun control laws passed around the country, precious few are successfully appealed and reversed. The only ones who benefit from the fight are the lawyers. The best way, the ONLY way to stop them is to prevent them from being enacted in the first place.
As is the norm now for cases being decided by the Supreme Court, states and cities around the country who disagree with projected decisions are preparing their response. Not how to fully comply with the decision mind you, that would mean they accept the decision of the highest court in the land. Since they know better than the Supreme Court, they are crafting ways to circumvent the new law-of-the-land and accomplish the very same thing just ruled unconstitutional in a new and creative way.
This is nothing new, especially in the gun control community. Each time a ruling comes out against a gun control law, the anti-gun zealots come up with new ones to take its place. States with highly restrictive concealed carry laws have been particularly good at coming up with new requirements like physical and mental health exams, training and qualifications, multiple interviews, waiting periods, numerous trips to the police station for appointments, all only available during the day during the work week, and ever-increasing fees, fees and even more FEES to help limit who they have to give a permit to.
Remember that each and every time a state has proposed eliminating permits for concealed carry, gun control zealots, led by the activist Giffords organization, has flooded the airwaves and internet with “research” and “studies” showing this would directly lead to people settling all their disputes in restaurants, bars, stores and the streets with guns. It would be the wild, wild west and there would be blood running in the streets of American cities.
Yet each and every time, the exact opposite has happened. Violent crime has gone down and public safety increases.
As we wait for the Bruen decision, let’s keep in mind what has been happening with regards to conceal carry across the country. 25 states now do not require a permit to carry a concealed firearm in public, otherwise known as constitutional carry. That’s half the country that says you don’t need government permission to lawfully carry a firearm outside your home. The national trend is clearly in the opposite direction from New York’s highly restrictive permitting scheme, and there are at least 25 states where we are all safer because of it.
It shouldn’t take 100 years to reclaim your Second Amendment protected rights. Only you can prevent unconstitutional gun laws from being enacted in the first place.
Yes, it does matter who you vote for.
Bob
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A World Without Guns
While discussing the ever-increasing nonsensical gun laws with a close friend, we deliberated what would happen if the gun control elitists were granted their ultimate wish, to have all of the guns in the world just go away. And while there are some pros and cons to such a question, it’s also clear the one group who would never let it happen is the same group openly advocating for it, the gun control elitists.
For a moment, let’s just imagine it was possible for all of the guns in the world to just go away. With the push of a button, each and every gun around the world immediately and permanently disappears. Guns in the hands of civilians, criminals, security guards, police, federal agents, bodyguards and the military all vanish. The world is now free from guns. How would you feel about that?
For me, there are two answers. First off, the elimination of all guns would put everyone on a level playing field. Nobody would have a force advance over anyone else. The ability to impose your will upon someone else would revert back to close quarters impact, cutting or personal weapons. Physical ability or superior numbers would determine dominance or the ability to resist it. In other words, that playing field isn’t as level as we might think.
And that leads to answer two. Removing all guns would mean anyone weaker or less physically capable would be even more defenseless. Firearms allow anyone to be able to protect themselves from others of who are bigger, stronger, more physically capable or from multiple adversaries. Naturally, the wealthy elite would still be able to build barriers and hire small armies to keep themselves safe. But removing all firearms would mean smaller individuals, or those who are older or have physical limitations, or less well off would be at a huge disadvantage attempting to defend themselves.
There was an old Western saying that “God Created Men and Sam Colt Made Them Equal”. It is no less true today than it was then. A firearm evens the force playing field in a way that no other defensive weapon can. Yes, in an completely unarmed world, there are options but all require a lifelong commitment to physical fitness and ability.
Of course, there are also many reasons why making all guns go away wouldn’t work. To begin with, the genie is already out of the bottle on how to make firearms. Someone with little mechanical ability can easily fashion a crude firearm from common components at Home Depot in an hour. Someone with machining skills can create just about any modern firearm from raw metal.
Again, let’s imagine that at the same time you rid the world of guns you also wiped out the information and knowledge of how to build them. (Hey, you magically got rid of all guns, so is wiping everyone’s mind too much of a stretch?). You now have a clean slate to work with. So how long do you think it would take for someone to come up with the novel idea to push a projectile with gunpowder?
But the biggest reason why even if that magic button existed that would rid the world of guns once and for all, it would never be pushed; the gun control elitists would never allow it. They realize that not only do they need their guns to protect themselves; they need them to effectively maintain control over you. When these people talk about getting rid of guns, they are talking about getting rid of YOUR guns, not theirs.
History provides many horrific examples of what happens when a population is disarmed. Unable to defend themselves, they are easily exterminated if they do not submit to the will of their armed dictators. Venezuela is a current example of this playing out with a population unable to speak out against the abuses of the brutal totalitarian government.
Mexico is another current example of runaway gun control. So restrictive are the laws that very few Mexican citizens are able to gain the necessary permits to acquire a firearm for self-defense from the one gun store in the entire country, run by the military. Even fewer are able to use them to defend their lives, families and businesses from a unchecked criminal population with the very best weapons money can buy. All while the citizens are safely disarmed for their convenience.
There is also the one flaw with making all guns go away that nobody wants to admit. While you might eliminate ‘gun violence’, you are not going to eliminate violence. Remove one tool and another one will be used. The United Kingdom for all its claims of success against guns has seen historic rises in violent crime and victimization. Of course, the UK still has an incredible and growing illegal gun problem, but they now are imposing Knife Control laws to deal with the next category of weapons.
What has the UK not dealt with? Victims who are unable to defend themselves against criminals who continue to use illegal firearms and knives to commit their crimes – just as they always have.
Firearms are used by everyday people around our country at a rate of 3:1 over felonious uses, to the tune of approximately three million per year. In most of these incidents, the firearm isn’t even fired. Imagine that… Just demonstrating the ability to be able to adequately defend yourself against a criminal is enough to stop the crime in its tracks.
So when someone says they think all guns should go away, remind them that there is far more good firearm use than there is bad and that if they think the world is a scary and violent place now, imagine what it would be without the ability to defend yourself against a larger, stronger or multiple criminals.
Bob
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Refilling The Swamp – The 116th Congress
Today is a special edition of Odd Stuffing in honor of the One Hundred Sixteenth United States Congress, which includes the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. It begins today and runs through January 3, 2021. With a new Democratic House majority and an expanded Republican Senate majority, we can expect our elected officials to do what they are the very best at – JACK SH!T!
Keep in mind this has less to do with what political party controls the House or Senate – or both – it has more to do with the goals, ambitions and willingness of the individual politicians who make up the parties to work together and with the Administrative branch. Both parties have made it abundantly clear they have no intention of doing anything bipartisan or in partnership with the President.
Separately, each party has displayed nothing but contempt for anyone other than themselves. The Republican Party, despite holding a majority in the House, Senate and having a Republican President hasn’t been able to get out of its own way for the past two years. Yes, they were able to confirm two new Associate Supreme Court justices, but look at what a fiasco those hearings were. The second one, instead of being a relatively clear process, was held up as much by individual members of the Republican Party as it was by the Democrats. Each one had to make sure the spotlight was on them instead of the job at hand.
So instead of being able to pass critical government reforms, the party in charge of both chambers clashed amongst themselves and with the Administration. No healthcare repeal and replace. No immigration reform. No border security. Of significance to those of us in the Second Amendment community; no Hearing Protection Act or National Concealed Carry reciprocity. And we have a partial government shutdown since nobody wants to take a stand for national security.
The Democratic Party for their part has had just one agenda item for the past two years – resist. Anything put out by the Administration or the Republican Party was opposed, even if it was something they previously campaigned, championed and sponsored legislation for themselves. Instead of finding common ground, if it came from the White House or the other side of the aisle, it was wrong. Facts didn’t matter, lives didn’t matter, just being able to stand up and say “I RESISTED” mattered.
Sadly, what we’ve seen the last two years has been the fully entrenched Washington DC establishment, lifelong politicians and career bureaucrats, who have been more interested in protecting the status quo against an outsider than working for the benefit of their constituents. This is the swamp.
So who is responsible for allowing this to happen? Guess what, it’s our own damn fault. You, me and every other citizen of this country who has allowed our government to become so completely unaccountable to us.
Where were we when our elected officials started passing laws that governed our behavior, which they were exempt from? Where were we when they set up special privileges for congressional members only, that we are not entitled to? Where were we when they voted for ever increasing pay, benefits and perks while voting against increased pay, benefit and perks for their constituents? Where were we when they set up a special process that handled sexual misconduct accusations against congressional members confidentially and paid out settlements funded by our tax dollars, for crimes we would have gone to jail for? Where were we when they violated their oath of office to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States – in it’s entirety, not just the parts they agreed with, when we are losing our rights at an ever increasing rate?
What should we have been doing? We should have been marching to their offices with pitchforks and torches demanding they start acting on our behalf instead of their own or we toss them out and replace them with someone who will. BUT NO! We’ve been sitting on our asses letting this bastardization of our government continue unabated.
History tells us that following the Constitutional Convention of 1787, Mrs. Powel of Philadelphia spoke to Benjamin Franklin and asked, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” Franklin responded, “A republic, if you can keep it.”
Mr. Franklin was right to be concerned as a republic is the most difficult form of government to maintain. Despite this, our Founding fathers were well educated on the history of governments around the world and knew this would be the best for their new country. They knew we needed to be a nation of laws, from the United States Constitution down to the local level. They knew if the law didn’t apply to everyone, it applied to no one.
What can we expect for the next two years of the 116thCongress? We can expect partisan bickering, accusations and investigations, grandstanding and backroom wheeling and dealing. We can expect both parties to claim the other is standing in the way of progress and everyone pointing the finger at the Administration. We can expect the 2020 Presidential hopefuls to focus on bolstering their campaigns by doing everything they can to look like THEY ALONE are the leader we have been looking for, even if it doesn’t make any sense.
In other words, we can expect exactly what the denizens of the swap have been wanting all along, a chance to puff up and get into a mudslinging smack down with the other party, all the while knowing it will all end in a stalemate.
Welcome to the 116thUnited States Congress! It’s going to be a long two years.
Bob
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Gun Safety vs. Gun Control
Despite what you’ve heard, gun safety and gun control is not the same thing and the two cannot be used interchangeably. They are in fact, completely opposite. So when you hear someone talking about ‘gun safety’, you need to step back and figure out who they are and what they are really referring to. Simply put, one assumes you are a responsible law-abiding person; the other does not.
Gun control is pretty easy to understand. It’s the government wanting to limit the ability of law-abiding citizens to purchase, posses and use firearms. Sadly, the reasons they tell you don’t even matter since their intentions have nothing to do with it. They tell you it’s about public safety and that you, your family and your community will be safer if you don’t own firearms, or certain types of firearms, ammunition and accessories, or can only have the precious few they currently approve of IF they are unloaded and locked up in your home. They tell you having less guns will mean less crime and that this is the only way for you to feel safe.
Of course there’s a big difference between ‘feeling safe’ and actually being safe. What they aren’t telling you is that all of the laws and rules they are putting into place to take away your right to purchase, posses and use firearms will do absolutely nothing to stop criminals, thugs and terrorists from getting and using their guns against you.
Instead of being able to protect yourself and your family, you are supposed to rely on your local law enforcement agency to protect you. But that too is a fallacy. As much as your local LEO may try, they can only respond AFTER you have been victimized. AFTER you have been assaulted, robbed, raped or murdered, and AFTER you or someone else manages to get to a phone to call and AFTER the police respond – somewhere in the 5 to 45 minute range, or more depending on where you are – they’ll do their best to figure out who victimized you. And that is supposed to make you feel safer.
Keep in mind the government that says public safety is best served by you not having firearms to protect yourself and your family is the very same government that is decriminalizing crime, reducing penalties for other crimes, redefining offenses like assault with a deadly weapon on a peace officer; battery with serious bodily injury; solicitation to commit murder and rape/sodomy/oral copulation of an unconscious person or by use of a date rape drug as non-violent crimes so the offender can get out of prison earlier. The very same government that says eliminating bail and mandating those arrested to be released within 12 hours is fairer to ‘justice connected individuals’. And that too is supposed to make you feel safer.
Gun safety on the other hand is just what you would expect it to be, being safe with firearms. Gun safety doesn’t say the only way you can be safe is to take away everyone’s firearms, it says the firearms you purchase, posses and use can be done safely.
If you talk to someone about gun safety – real gun safety – you’ll hear them talk about information, training and personal responsibility. You’ll learn how firearms and ammunition work. You’ll learn about how to pick up and handle firearms safely. You’ll learn about the law and what your responsibilities as a firearm owner are. You’ll learn that alcohol or drugs and firearms are never to be mixed. You’ll learn about safe storage based on the needs of you and your family. You’ll learn about training to use firearms safely, confidently and accurately. You’ll learn about how to keep you and your family safe and ways to avoid becoming a victim. You’ll learn and live by the four basic firearms safety rules like your life and everyone else’s depends on it.
- Treat all firearms as if they were loaded.
- Never let the muzzle cover anything you are not willing to destroy.
- Never place your finger on the trigger until your sights are on target and you have made the decision to fire.
- Know your target, what is in front of it and what is beyond it.
Real gun safety isn’t a fantasy; it lives and breathes every day in every corner of this country by millions and millions of law-abiding families. All these people know that firearms can be purchased, possessed and used safely no matter if their intent is for hunting, sport, collecting or self-defense.
Keep this in mind the next time you hear someone talking about ‘gun safety’. Are they really talking about safety, or have they hijacked these words as a prelude to their real objective, gun control – and taking away your right to purchase, posses and use firearms.
The choice is yours – for now.
Bob
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California’s Victim Compensation Board
This week’s article is a public service announcement for all of the future victims of crime in California. The increasingly strict gun control laws eliminating the possibility of self-defense by law-abiding citizens combined with the soft on criminals focus of the state including decriminalization of many offenses, elimination of bail and early release of non-violent felons for crimes such as assault with a deadly weapon on a peace officer; battery with serious bodily injury; solicitation to commit murder and rape/sodomy/oral copulation of an unconscious person – your opportunity to become a victim of crime in California are better than ever. Preparing ahead of time will get you into the long administrative line quicker when you are victimized.
Started in 1965 and evolving through several different state organizations, the current California Victims Compensation Board (CalVCB) is a three-member board of appointees whose mission is to provide financial assistance to victims of crime. There are also resources at the local and county level that may be of additional assistance or to help you complete the application to CalVCB.
There are of course limitations and caveats. The only crimes covered are: Domestic violence, child abuse, assault, sexual assault, elder abuse, molestation, homicide, robbery, hate crimes, drunk driving, vehicular manslaughter, human trafficking, stalking and online harassment. Claims must be filed within three years of the crime.
Expenses that are eligible for compensation include: Crime scene clean up, funeral and burial expenses, home or vehicle modifications for victims who became disabled, income loss, medical and dental treatment, mental health services, relocation and residential security.
It is also important to note that by law, CalVCB is the payer of last resort; reimbursement and recovery sources must be applied to all expenses first. Examples include medical insurance, disability insurance, employer benefits and civil suits.
Applications are available on the CalVCB website at: https://victims.ca.gov/publications/calvcpforms.aspx
So, why am I doing a PSA for victim compensation? That’s easy… California is proudly taking the lead in being soft on those who break the law. In fact, in many situations, their activity is no longer considered a criminal violation. In the situations where it is still a crime, the consequences of committing a ‘criminal’ act are so low there is no longer any reason NOT to commit the ‘crime’. Prop 47 and 57, along with other so-called reforms, the commuting of sentences for those on death row, pardoning the crimes of illegal residents to keep them from being deported and the elimination of bail and mandated release of most of those arrested within 12 hours – all adds up to more criminals than ever being dumbed back on California streets.
If you’re thinking – I just saw the latest crime statistics from the State and my local PD/Sheriff and crime is down – well, there’s something you need to know. With the ever-changing definition of “crime” in California, it’s like comparing Apples to Oracles. Combine that with a little Common Core math, a copy of “How to Lie with Statistics” and people who want you to believe their BS, and you’ve got ‘safer feeling communities’.
If you want to know the truth, talk to your neighbors. Talk to the people who have been the victim of property and violent crime in your own city or town. Then see how that fits into the official narrative being shoveled out the back door of the Statehouse and City Hall.
It wasn’t that long ago when your local law enforcement agency partnered with the NRA (National Rifle Association) and the NSSF (National Shooting Sports Foundation) to offer public programs to promote safety in the home and in public. I’m not just talking about firearms; I’m talking about a range of real-life safety programs for everyone at every level.
But then… these programs promote individual self-reliance, something a victim encouraging government can’t stand. And there’s the association with firearms, something they don’t want you to have (see no individual self-reliance). As a result, very few law enforcement agencies in California still offer any programs other than registering your belongings and alarm/video systems.
Is being a victim of crime in California inevitable? For a lot of people I’m going to unfortunately say yes. Without the ability or knowledge to protect themselves, these are the people who are going blindly into the night thinking the state is doing everything possible to protect them and they “feel” safe. For these people I recommend downloading and filling out a couple of victim compensation forms ahead of time.
And then there are the rest of us; the people who refuse to be a victim. The people who do not believe the state is doing anything to increase our level of safety. The people who believe criminals should be punished for breaking the law. The people who believe they have a right to defend their own lives and the lives of their families with the best tools and training available to them.
Welcome to the new California, the leader in turning law-abiding citizens into law-abiding victims.
Bob
#oddstuffing, #Constitution, #BillOfRights, #SecondAmendment, #GunControlFails, #CrimePrevention, #FeelingSafer, #RefuseToBeAVictim, #NRA, #NSSF, #CalVCB, #NOTAVICTIM, #mewe, #medium, #oddstuffing.com
Kalifornistan vs. Gun Culture
With the election of California’s Lieutenant Governor to Governor, we enter a new era of oppressive and draconian gun control. If you think the past decades of small, incremental Second Amendment infringements was bad, the coming years are going to make what we’ve had up to now look like firearm owner’s utopia. As always, it will be built on the lie that gun control will make you safer. But as we’ve seen over and over again, it just turns law-abiding citizens into law-abiding victims. Welcome to the new Kalifornistan.
With the Lt. Governor’s elevation to the big-boy chair, he’s already planning out how he’s going to take your rights away. Freed from the pre-election moratorium on gun control comments that might have alienated firearm owning democrats or progressives, he’s already ramping up the rhetoric before being sworn in.
Here are a couple of quotes:
“The gun violence that continues to plague our nation is beyond heartbreaking — it’s a societal failure. Simply saying, “enough is enough,” is NOT enough. We must address the root causes of these devastating acts at every level of government.”
“It’s a gun culture. You can’t go to a bar or nightclub? You can’t go to church or synagogue? It’s insane is the only way to describe it. The normalization, that’s the only way I can describe it. It’s become normalized.”
Our governor-elect has promised that he “will raise the bar” on gun control when he takes over in January, and would not have vetoed the gun control legislation the current California governor has in the past.
So let’s pick apart a few of the incoming governor’s comments. He wants to address the root causes of these devastating acts. By that I would hope he understands that violence isn’t about guns, it’s about violence. Violence has always been committed by whatever means is available and convenient. The use of a gun has never really mattered.
The gun control elitists love to herald the success of the Australian model of gun control, until you point out the homicide rate didn’t change when they took away the firearms from the law-abiding citizens or that the violent crime rate went up. If gun control is so effective, then why did London, England’s homicide rate recently surpass that of New York City, with a population 500,000 larger than ‘firearm free’ London?
Perhaps the fact that all the gun control laws only target the law-abiding citizenry would help explain these inconvenient truths. Or perhaps in California, it’s the effects of Prop 47, 57 and other soft on criminal laws. There are laws that reduce or eliminate the penalties for crimes – or actions formerly known as crimes. Perhaps it’s reclassifying such crimes as assault with a deadly weapon on a peace officer; battery with serious bodily injury; solicitation to commit murder and rape/sodomy/oral copulation of an unconscious person or by use of a date rape drug as non-violent crimes.
Our governor-elect has chosen to villainize “gun culture” as the cause of death in public places. It’s never the criminal, the person who carried out the crime; it’s always the culture of guns that is to blame. It’s too bad he doesn’t know anything about gun culture.
The gun culture I know about, the gun culture I am part of, realizes the incredible responsibility that comes along with the inalienable right to keep and bear arms. The law-abiding citizens who keep and bear arms do so to prevent violence, not to inflict it upon others. The law-abiding citizens I know use lawfully owned firearms to prevent and stop crimes at a rate of three times more than firearms are used feloniously in this country, to the tune of 2.5 to 3 million times per year. Considering 98% of all mass shootings in the United States since 1950 have occurred in gun free zones, maybe we should be encouraging MORE gun culture, instead of less.
Here’s the depressing reality of violence. There are no set of laws that will ever prevent someone from attempting to violently subject their will on someone else. Telling the unarmed masses they will ‘feel safer’ because the law-abiding are disarmed is an absolute lie. Criminals can obtain whatever weaponry they want, they always have and they always will.
Please take special note of the word “attempting” in the last paragraph. While there is nothing that will stop an attempt, there is something that will stop the act; having a law-abiding citizen there who is armed and willing to defend his or her own life. As Wayne LaPierre so bluntly put it, “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun”.
Gun culture isn’t to blame for violence, but our politicians won’t come out of their firearm protected bubbles long enough to realize that. They want to keep the real safety and control all for themselves, while allowing the unarmed masses to simply ‘feel safe’; right up until they become victims.
Hold on tight law-abiding Kalifornistan firearm owners. It’s going to be a rough road ahead.
Bob
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If It Bleeds, It Leads
First used as the mantra for news programming in the early 1980’s, “if it bleeds, it leads” has become the standard for network, print and social media news. News after all is a big and prosperous business and the more attention given to the gore, the more viewers will tune in. It’s no wonder that the myth of the United States being the only country in the world to have mass shootings has been so easy to perpetrate. Of course, it is completely false and doesn’t tell the reality of firearm usage.
It’s easy to see why media outlets run 24/7 coverage of every shooting story they can get their hands on. By running these stories first and often, they set up the perception that this is what commonly occurs in our country. Then the gun control elitists come along and say how this only happens in our country and that the only way to make it stop is to implement their “common sense gun safety” laws. The horrible, gruesome problem and the sensible solution are all presented in the first few minutes of the broadcast. What could be easier?
Sadly it’s not just the left leaning stations, papers and other news outlets that follow this formula. Even the one major news network that isn’t completely anti-gun / anti-Second Amendment sensationalizes every tragedy, giving the pathetic psychopaths the very attention and notoriety they crave. Each story of a mass shooter who is able to kill X innocent victims inspires the next shooter to kill X +1 so THEY will be the biggest and baddest killer of all times.
Given this one sided approach to the news, it’s easy to believe that mass shootings are common place and the horrible death machines the shooters use – be it semi-automatic rifles or pistols, with or without so-called “high capacity” magazines are ONLY used by psychopaths to kill large groups of people. Since the stories show there is no legitimate use for them, the only way we can be safe is to get rid of them.
Time for a reality check here.
From this nation’s 44thpresident to every well-funded and centrally coordinated “grass roots” gun control group, you hear that this doesn’t happen in other countries. They quote statistics saying the United States is the worst among a select group of countries they call “high income” or “advanced” countries. In reality, it’s just a list of countries that happen to have lower crime rates than the United States. If you look at the entire planet using the current FBI definition of mass shooting, you’ll find the United States is really 64th. Now being 64thout of 195 countries isn’t something to be especially proud of, but then you realize there are 63 other countries that have more mass shootings that the United States – and that you’re being lied to.
The other commonly perpetrated myth is that firearms in civilian hands only increase the crime rate and do nothing to prevent violence, only make it worse. Again, a lie.
In long buried CDC (Centers for Disease Control) studies, the CDC found that civilian defensive use of firearms outnumbered felonious use of firearms by a rate of 3 to 1, to the tune of 2.5 to 3 million uses per year. Note that not all of the events involved the discharge of a firearm by the civilian. Often times, the mere presenting or challenge to the criminal with a firearm was enough to stop the intended crime. It’s also important to realize this number ONLY includes persons who were not performing defensive duties as part of their employment such as law enforcement or security services.
So what we wind up with on the evening news is only one side of the story. The horrible crime, distraught and sobbing relatives grieving for the loss of their loved one and politicians jumping at the chance to celebrate the death of innocents in order to advance their own political agenda. Lost are the stories of courage and heroism of everyday Americans who stood up to violence with a legally owned firearm and stopped the criminal right then and there.
When is the last time you saw the network news or even your local news station do a story on how someone used a firearm for lawful defense of life? The stories are out there, but they are damn few and far between. With three lawful uses to every unlawful use, you’d think it would be far more common.
Why is easy to understand from the business of news point of view. A homeowner pointing a shotgun at an armed criminal who just kicked in their front door before coming face-to-face with the determined homeowner and fleeing doesn’t sell the news. No bleeding – no leading. In fact, no story at all.
What do you think would happen if people saw on the news the courageous and lawful use of firearms by normal citizens on the news every day? What would happen if people saw on the news they could effectively defend their lives and the lives of their family with a firearm? What if people saw on the news how long it really takes for law enforcement to get to them when they really need help RIGHT NOW and that they can save their own lives and the lives of their families with proper defensive use of firearms? And finally – what do you think criminals are going to think when they see on the news a community that chooses to fight back instead of allowing themselves to be victims?
Since the news is never going to show you the good side of defensive firearm use, you’re going to have to seek it out yourself. Look for the local stories around our country – and around the world – of people standing up to crime & violence and taking responsibility for their own safety. Share these stories with your friends, family and neighbors. It’s time the best-kept secret about lawful, defensive use of firearms came out. It’s time to save someone’s life.
Bob
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Guns and Ballots
Tomorrow is the 2018 Midterm election and it is important to remember the critical association between firearms and ballots. Our Bill of Rights guarantees our individual right to keep and bear arms. Yet while the last four words of the 27 word Second Amendment are “shall not be infringed”, we are seeing our rights slowly and surely infringed. Backed by extremist justices intent on ignoring the Constitution in the name of social agenda. But guess what, that’s not the way it has to be.
The proponents of gun control have been playing the very long con game all along. It always starts innocently enough with what they call “common sense”, “gun safety” or “public safety” laws that don’t significantly infringe on Second Amendment rights. Minimal infringements are thought to be acceptable as long as it advances the government interest of keeping people safe. But of course, it never ends there. One minor infringement leads to the next, and the next and the next, since the previous gun control laws were never quite enough to achieve the public safety goals they set.
Remember, gun control does absolutely nothing to increase public safety and the answer to fix that shortcoming is always to implement more gun control.
If you’re wondering where it ends, the answer is it only ends when there are no civilian owned firearms. Of course, even this level of gun control will never increase public safety as no set of laws is ever going to prevent criminals from breaking the law. Criminals will always be able to get and use firearms since breaking the law is the actual definition of a criminal. With an increasingly disarmed population, there is very little that will ever deter them from continuing to use guns to gain an advantage over their helpless victims.
Recently some gun control zealots have been more open about their goals. They have been publicly speaking about repealing the Second Amendment, even going so far as to have a former US Supreme Court Justice openly write about repealing the Second Amendment following the protests of children in Washington. He wrote that the concerns that brought about the Second Amendment were “…a relic of the 18th century.” Further that “a constitutional amendment to get rid of the Second Amendment would be simple and would do more to weaken the N.R.A.’s ability to stymie legislative debate and block constructive gun control legislation than any other available option.”
It’s hard to even conceive of how a former Supreme Court Justice, someone whose life has been dedicated to defending the Constitutional could abandon a foundation of our nation and even suggest that.
Yet this is the type of thinking that is now becoming more and more common in places like the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. By ignoring the Constitution, Bill of Rights, previous US Supreme Court rulings and the rule of law, they are finding these new and legally imaginative gun control laws are constitutionally valid. With very little interest from previous US Supreme Courts to revisit the Second Amendment, clearly infringing gun control laws are becoming the law of the land.
Politicians are pushing ever more repressive gun control measures while at the same time trying to block judges who will uphold the Constitution at all levels of our court system. Their goal is simple. Pass unconstitutional laws then have them legitimized by fringe justices.
Simultaneously these very same politicians are passing laws lessoning or eliminating the penalties for those who commit crimes, redefining crimes such as rape, assault with a deadly weapon and drive-by shootings as “non-violent”, eliminating bail requirements, commuting the sentences of murders to allow their release and pardoning an illegal alien convicted of kidnapping, robbery and using a firearm to prevent their deportation. THIS is the type of pubic safety they are pushing.
Firearm ownership and use isn’t the exclusive domain of any one political party or ideology; it crosses all walks of life and ways of thinking. But there is often a disconnect when it comes to defending those rights. Many who own firearms support candidates who sponsor increasingly draconian gun control laws, even to the point where these laws will make the very firearms they own illegal and them a criminal. Whether they believe they will be (temporarily) grandfathered, they alone will be exempted or they just don’t believe it will impact them, they haven’t decided to fight for the rights they currently enjoy. Sadly, at the point where they do realize this is also their fight, there will be nobody left to stand and fight with them.
In the last few weeks the gun control lobby has essentially gone dark. They have stopped pushing their extremist agenda because they know this is a critical issue for undecided voters. They reason that if undecided voters don’t hear about a candidate’s radical gun control agenda in the run up to the elections, they’ll believe they are a more moderate candidate and their firearm rights are not in jeopardy by voting for them. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Firearms were the tools that allowed us to have a ballot in the first place. Without them, this nation would still be an English colony instead of the republic it now is. Now ballots are the tools that will allow us to keep our firearms. If we choose not to use our ballots to ensure the rights this country was founded on, no other right can be guaranteed.
Only your vote can defend your right to keep and bear arms. Please choose wisely.
Bob
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Gun Control’s End Game
One of the more popular anti-gun control posters shows pictures of people who want to take your firearms. Among them are Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong and Pol Pot; all leaders who eventually killed significant numbers of their own unarmed citizens. This implication is the people in our government who want to take your firearms away are following in the same footsteps as these genocidal maniacs and will exterminate large portions of the United States population. That’s probably a bit on the extreme side, but make no mistake what the goal of gun control is… control.
When our nation first emerged from English rule, the Founding Fathers wanted to ensure the new republic they created would never be able to oppress it’s own citizens like they had been oppressed under King George III. They limited the power of the government, they set up checks and balances with three branches of government, they wrote a Constitution and Bill of Rights enumerating the inalienable human rights all citizens would enjoy, preventing the government from infringing upon them.
Since then, firearms have been an integral part of the American culture. From the expansion West to hunting for sustenance to the protection of one’s life and liberty, firearms are as American as eagles, apple pie and baseball. Despite what the gun control zealots tell you, the firearm culture has been a significant part of our nation’s strength.
Still not everyone has been comfortable with the Second Amendment and the right to keep and bear arms. The history of gun control in this country has its roots in racism and class structure. Keeping firearms out of the hands of blacks, Hispanics, Chinese – or any minority – or the poor whites denied them their own safety and the ability to resist those who held power. This was all done in the name of ‘safety’; only it was for the safety of the oppressors not the safety of the people.
Today firearm sales, possession and usage are covered by a patchwork of laws at the federal, state and local level. Decidedly liberal state and local entities are constantly increasing the level of gun control in their jurisdictions as a mechanism to stem the spiraling rate of crime and violence. Yet areas of our country with the tightest gun control laws continue to have the highest levels of crime and violence. The answer to this problem is to implement even more gun control laws.
Think about what firearms provide us with. They allow law-abiding citizens to protect themselves and their families from those who would inflict harm upon them. Without them, law-abiding citizens are wholly dependent on the government for their protection.
Gun control laws, laws that are supposed to increase ‘public safety’, only impact the law-abiding, never the criminals. The laws limit the type and number of firearms that can be legally purchased, the number of rounds a magazine can legally carry, the ability of a law-abiding citizen to carry a firearm and where they can legally carry it and how a firearm can be legally stored and transported, among many other restrictions. The penalties for breaking these laws and ordinances are supposed to be a deterrent for any would be criminal. Yet somehow, the criminals still ignore them.
Why is very easy to understand. For a criminal, the gun is the tool of their trade, the ability to subject their will upon another. Whether the motivation is murder, robbery, assault, rape, intimidation or terror, the insignificant additional penalty of carrying a loaded firearm in public pales in comparison to the crime they are going to commit or the protection they desire from victims who choose to fight back.
At the same time gun control laws are being tightened, the penalties for crime are being reduced or eliminated and more and more criminals are being released early from jails and prisons to prey upon increasingly unarmed citizens. Crime goes up, even as the new math to calculate crime rate shows it decreasing.
Gun control promises to keep you safe from the horrors of “gun violence”. The simple truth is “gun violence” isn’t the problem; only violence. Guns are simply tools used in violence, and they aren’t even the most common ones used. Knives and cutting instruments kill four times as many people annually as so-called “assault weapons”. Suicides count for two-thirds of the deaths attributed to “gun violence” – in other words, violence directed towards yourself rather than another.
So if the so-called public safety laws do nothing to increase public safety, why have them? The answer is simply control. An unarmed, frightened populace is far more willing to pay more, submit to more government regulation and control in order to ‘feel safe’, even if their safety is less assured now than it ever was.
Being safe is more important than someone’s false sense of feeling safe. Every year in this country, firearms are used lawfully to defend life at a rate of three to one felonious uses. Yet the ever-increasing gun control laws target the law-abiding citizen’s ability to own and use a firearm to defend themselves and their family.
I’m not dark minded enough to believe the current authors, promoters and supporters of gun control laws in our country intend to exterminate large numbers of the United States population who disagree with their politics. However I do firmly believe they intend to use gun control as a mechanism to eliminate self-reliance, personal safety outside of the control of government and impose increased level of control upon a vulnerable population.
I choose to not be vulnerable.
Bob
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