The Second Amendment Itself is Common Sense Gun Reform

From youtuber Styxhexenhammer666, a parallel universe version of Razorfist/the Rageaholic.  From a couple months back, but hits the nail on the head.

Trump Just Said What? – and Ramifications

Lots to catch up on since last post.  Ben Shapiro covers a handful of things rather well, hitting on Trump being squishy at best on the Second Amendment and plenty willing to bargain away citizens’ rights as part of a deal with gleeful tyrant Feinstein, as well as failures on economics by pushing for tariffs.

Specifically what Shapiro said about Trump’s ignorant comments about the Second Amendment and due process have come to bear fruit in Florida in the time since Shapiro posted that video.  Florida, a state with a GOP supermajority in the state house & senate, passed a gun control bill that takes away rights of those from 18-20 years old, as well as passing a nebulous ban on “bump stocks” that can very easily be broadly interpreted.

I expected gun policy to be the kind of thing that Don Jr. would keep in check, seeing as how by his familiarity with firearms and firearms laws he’s the most knowledgeable and connected in the White House, but that looks like it tragically may not be the case.

ATF Gunwalker – Fast & Furious 6 (or 8) Years Later

The ATF started smuggling guns into Mexico in 2009, then got found out in 2011.  This goes back a long, long ways, and was one of the reasons this blog was started – initially we wanted to cover all kinds of political stuff, but the ATF’s Fast & Furious and sister smuggling operations dominated things for a long time.  Under Obama, nothing was done.  He exerted executive privelege and made all the relevant documents that he and Eric Holder knew about disappear from the public eye, all while claiming nothing happened, all while blood continued (and still continues) to flow in Mexico and in the US.  Holder was held in contempt by Congress for stonewalling their investigation into Fast & Furious, and it showed us how transparently biased much of the media was, especially on Fast & Furious.  Sharyl Atkisson, the CBS reporter who brought the story to the mainstream, was later personally targeted by the Obama administration and eventually left CBS.  David Codrea, one of the bloggers who first broke the story when it was still just “gunwalker”, is still around; sadly the other who helped break it, Mike Vanderbough of Sipsey Street Irregulars, is no longer with us – he was one of those guys with a very long memory and the kind of person who because they were tuned in for decades provided valuable perspective on the players involved at higher levels.  Katie Pavlich, who wrote a book on Fast & Furious, was on the story for years and years, and has moved up a bit in the blogging/reporting world, and still brings some light to the issue when there’s a chance, especially as Fast & Furious within the various gunwalking operations took place in her backyard of Arizona.

So now, years later, with a new president, new administration, new attorney general, it’s being revisited.  We’ll just have to see if anyone’s willing to actually prosecute the ATF and their DOJ counterparts.  Sadly the rule of the swamp is “only banana republics go after the previous administrations, so no current administration will ever go after a prior one for criminal actions”.

Another hearing was held on 6/7/17, which covers mostly old ground.

And the full hearing:

It starts at around 15 minutes or so.

I haven’t watched the whole thing yet, but I’m sure there are things that are forgotten.  In particular one thing that isn’t heard as much anymore is how this was a push by the ATF/DOJ/Obama admin for more gun control, as evidenced by the multiple-gun reporting for southwestern border states being mandated by the ATF, as well as political cries for further restrictions.

A few highlights from the last 6 years or so::

Obama Blames US For Gun Violence In Mexico

Gunwalker Update: Gun Control Celebration at ATF

Gunwalker Update: Feinstein Uses Fast and Furious to Push Gun Control, Gunwalker Being Used to Push Gun Control, Issa Introduces Whistleblower Protection Law, Issa & Grassley Digging Into F&F Investigation Leaks

Gunwalker Update: Public Relations Operation?

Something else to give this further perspective over time is that the last link there includes Stratfor’s debunking of the “90% of guns in Mexico come from the US” lie, which they pointed out is deliberately lying about the facts.  The numbers at the time were something closer to 12-17%, but the 90% number that’s run with by anti-gun politicians and actors comes from the percentage of guns from the US that Mexico sends to the US for tracing.  IIRC the numbers were something like 22,000 guns seized by Mexican authorities back in 2010, with 18,000 being from Mexico or other nations; with some 2-3000 being sent to the US because maybe they’re from the US, and then 90% of that smaller portion being traced to the US.  I go over this here, because as another note to how time has passed, Stratfor was hacked back in 2012 and parts of their website now only exist on the webarchive/wayback machine.

Also in that same last link there is reference to Bob Owens of PJ Media, who went on to start Bearing Arms, and who tragically committed suicide a few months ago.

He also wrote one of the best articles that delineates the clear differences between Bush’s Wide Receiver and Obama’s Fast & Furious/Castaway/unnamed TX operation Gunwalking programs.  Wide Receiver was a Bush ATF program from 2007 that sent tried to track guns south and have the Mexican authorities and ATF in Mexico catch the bad guys; versus Fast and Furious and the various parallel gunwalking programs like Operation Castaway in Florida – all of Obama’s DOJ’s programs that sent guns south and had no notification to any authorities in Mexico, not =Mexican nor US ATF in Mexico; nor other nations guns were sent to by the ATF.  During testimony in 2011, ATF Mexico attache Darren Gil explained how he was utterly blindsided by Fast & Furious and didn’t hear of it until through some backchannels someone asked him “how’s that gunwalking program going?” which neither he nor any other ATF in Mexico nor Mexican authorities had ever heard of.

Wide Receiver was what leftist useful idiots would refer to and try to use to obfuscate Fast & Furious and make it seem like it was a “botched sting”.  Fast & Furious was not a “botched sting”.

It deliberately sent guns to Mexico to recover them at crime scenes after people had been murdered.  That was what was intended.  Once people accept those facts – as laid about by the ATF agents either whistleblowing or being grilled in front of Oversight & Reform in 2011 and ever since, it leads to the question of “why?” of which there are only two answers – either deliberately undermining the US constitution through a manufactured murder crisis in Mexico and/or influencing Mexico cartel politics by arming cartels.  The question then simply becomes “who is responsible for this and will they be held accountable?”  Six years in and we know the ATF bottom to top was responsible, the DOJ from Lanny Breuer to Eric Holder was responsible, and we know the executive branch to Obama knew about it (he talked about it in an interview even before Eric Holder finally fessed up to knowing about it).

So far, no one’s been held accountable.  The ATF has retaliated against their whistleblowers and rewarded their gunsmuggling criminal agents, but little else.

Sheriff David Clarke Shuts Down Don Lemon & The Leftist #BLM Lie

Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke makes clear the law enforcement perspective… and one shared by most of the nation regardless of color.  The best exchange is above.

The later part, after cutting to commercial to protect Don Lemon from further looking like a biased chump and useful idiot, is what CNN posted.  It’s 30 seconds of Don Lemon saying, in effect – if you want to have a conversation, you need to shut up and agree with me, then Lemon running interference for racist Black Lives Matter while saying “that’s a different conversation” every time the Sheriff brings up a point.

Sheriff Clarke is elected by the people of the county to provide law enforcement for them.  He is as direct a representation of what a community wants in law enforcement as is possible in a representative democratic republic.  And based on that first exchange, it sounds like he’s got the community’s interests at heart – both the citizen community and law enforcement community, as they are one and the same (7).

Normally I’d say it’s a safe bet Sheriff Clarke won’t be invited back… but then again, if it generates ratings, views, and hits, CNN may recognize they should have someone on besides their party loyalist mouthpieces.

Where Did The Orlando Terrorist’s Co-conspirator Wife Go?

While there’s a big story going on in Dallas now (which is going to require more info before there’s much else to say about it), isn’t it odd that the Orlando terrorist’s wife disappeared?  After the jihadi attack in Orlando with 49 people murdered, she was involved, and then suddenly she disappeared, and nobody knew where she was anymore, and nobody knew anything about her. From LittleMissRightie:

Where is Noor Salman? More importantly, where is the media on her overnight disappearance in the wake of her husband’s terrorist attack on the Pulse nightclub?

Three week ago today, the nation woke up to the news about the worst terrorist attack to hit U.S. soil since 9/11. The one woman who may hold answers (and who may also share responsibility for the attacks) is “missing” according to government officials and no one in the media is asking about her whereabouts. It was obvious given the facts of the case the media was going to bury this story as quickly as possible. But there is a woman missing who may be a co-conspirator and not one inquiring journalist asks about her whereabouts? What a sad state of affairs for that dying profession.

The last update on Noor Salman, second wife to Omar Mateen, was that a grand jury convened to deliberate 49 counts of being an accessory to murder, 53 counts of attempted murder, failure to notify law enforcement of a pending terrorist attack, and lying to investigators. A Google search on the update on these proceedings yields no results since June 15th. The Google search results are all the same: “Sources: Grand Jury to Investigate Noor Salman, Orlando Shooter’s Wife”. That information too is fuzzy. A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney General’s Office for the Southern District of Florida won’t comment on the proceedings or where they are taking place, however, that is not uncommon. Grand jury proceedings, especially at the federal level and for high-profile cases are sealed. At least the contents are sealed. It’s also not uncommon for the location and dates of said proceedings to be sealed. Those caveats aside, it has been three weeks since it was announced a grand jury was convened, therefore, isn’t it peculiar no one in the media thought to ask about the outcome of the grand jury proceedings?

Around the same time, the last update from federal authorities on Salman’s whereabouts was June 20th when Attorney General Loretta Lynch stated, when asked if Salman was still in the state of Florida, “I believe she was going to travel but I do not exactly know her location now”.

Pardon? Federal authorities have “lost” the wife who texted “I love you” to her husband as he was carrying out Jihad at the Pulse Nightclub. This is also the same woman who admitted she bought ammunition with him and drove him to the club to scope out the location and other details as he planned his attack. And authorities have lost track of her? Is anyone buying what they’re selling here?

Yes they have lost track.  And no one is buying it.

LMR suggests that she may be in federal protection somewhere, but that’s a best-case scenario that still relies on trusting that “top men” are on the case.

It would be nice to know WTF happened to a terrorist co-conspirator from the deadliest mass shooting terrorist attack in US history.

The Democrat Anti-Rights Sit-In

In the 1960s sit-ins, the purpose of the sit-in was as a demand for equal rights.

The reason was to sit down and show that you’re as good as anyone else and deserving of the same treatment.

While there’s an argument for property owner rights that a business should be able to reject service to anyone, this was also a cultural argument as well as a legal rights one, such that the property owner would get the idea that he was wrong and that those doing the sit-in were deserving of respect and that their patronage should be appreciated rather than rejected.  Both ways, it was a movement to demand rights.

What the Democrat crybullies are engaging in today is not a movement to demand rights, but to remove rights:

This is a demand by authorities for more authority.

This is a demand by those in power for more power.

This is a demand by those who control the country that the rights of the citizen be overruled.

They want due process suspended, they want gun rights suspended, they want your rights suspended.  They’ve already managed it in a handful of states – despite the Constitution as written forbidding it – and now they want the rest of the nation to kneel.  And their current method is by throwing a tantrum, mocking the actual sit-ins of the 1960s, and demanding that Congress vote to ignore the Fifth Amendment right to due process of law so they can suspend your Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.

Those guys at the lunch counter weren’t recognized as having a right to eat at the same counter that other folks did.  Those rights weren’t recognized by the Democrats in power in the South.  If they went to buy a gun in the South to protect themselves from the racist Democrat KKK night riders, when they went for a permit the racist Democrat sheriff would deny it and leave them defenseless.

Today, elected Democrat representatives who already have power are now squatting in the halls of power and demanding more powers and authorities to go after the citizenry – all to strip rights from those who now have them.

The guys at the lunch counter were fighting against Jim Crow laws.  They were fighting for rights.

The Democrat representatives are fighting for more Jim Crow laws.  They’re fighting against rights.

Bill Whittle’s Firewall: Guns, Islam, and Orlando

Spot on as always.

The Orlando Attack and the Failure to Enforce Existing Laws – The Lautenberg Amendment and 8 USC 1481

As we’ve seen in the last week, with the Democrat’s 15-hour not-really-a-filibuster stump speech about how we need to ban the right to due process, there’s a press on for new gun laws and restrictions and regulations that aren’t infringements in much the same way that getting punched in the face isn’t the same as getting struck in the face with a fist because won’t someone think of the children.

Specifically, we’ve even heard the main proponent of these new infringements say they wouldn’t have worked to prevent the Orlando terrorist attack.

What would have worked, you ask?

Enforce existing laws.

Currently, if you want to buy/possess/own/purchase a firearm, there are some prohibitions.  Namely, you can’t be a felon, a drug addict, an illegal alien, and due to the Lautenberg Amendment, you can’t have been convicted of a crime of domestic violence or have a restraining order placed on you by a domestic partner.

This is from the 4473, the background check form that you do every time you buy a gun from a dealer or store and any time you transfer a handgun between states:

The so-called “gun show loophole”, which is not exclusive to gun shows, nor a loophole, is that in most states, if you want to sell a gun to a private citizen from your own state, you can.  You also have to be sure they’re not prohibited from owning a firearm, because otherwise you’re committing the crime of providing a prohibited person with a firearm.

The Orlando terrorist beat his ex-wife.  Had he been charged, he would have been convicted (or plead out, which is the same as a conviction for gun ownership purposes), and he’d have been prohibited.  It’s the same way US citizens every day are denied arms – because they’ve committed a crime in the past that bars them from firearms ownership (like the wife-beating alcoholic Chicago journalist denied a gun recently).

If for whatever reason the ex-wife didn’t go to the police, or no one enforced the law in that instance, there were other potential blocks already set up that no one bothered to utilize.

Namely, 8 USC 1481.

The FBI had investigated the Orlando terrorist numerous times for his suspected terrorism involvement.  He was on and off the terror watch list.  A friend of his went to the Middle East as an American suicide bomber.  The FBI interviewed him numerous times, but couldn’t figure out how to make anything stick.  Yet the Orlando terrorist went off and murdered 49 people and swore his allegiance to the Islamic State.

And that’s where 8 USC 1481 comes in:

8 U.S. Code § 1481 – Loss of nationality by native-born or naturalized citizen; voluntary action; burden of proof; presumptions

(a) A person who is a national of the United States whether by birth or naturalization, shall lose his nationality by voluntarily performing any of the following acts with the intention of relinquishing United States nationality—
–
(2) taking an oath or making an affirmation or other formal declaration of allegiance to a foreign state or a political subdivision thereof, after having attained the age of eighteen years; or
(3) entering, or serving in, the armed forces of a foreign state if (A) such armed forces are engaged in hostilities against the United States, or (B) such persons serve as a commissioned or non-commissioned officer; or
–
(7) committing any act of treason against, or attempting by force to overthrow, or bearing arms against, the United States, violating or conspiring to violate any of the provisions of section 2383 of title 18, or willfully performing any act in violation of section 2385 of title 18, or violating section 2384 of title 18 by engaging in a conspiracy to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, if and when he is convicted thereof by a court martial or by a court of competent jurisdiction.

He joined a terrorist movement.  He said so at the end.  In all probability – especially as more of his past comes to light, he said the same thing beforehand, but no one would address it.

If 8 USC 1481 had been applied, he could’ve been stripped of his citizenship – with due process – as someone swearing allegiance to and/or conspiring to bear arms against the United States as a terrorist by committing terrorist acts.

Once his citizenship is stripped, he couldn’t legally buy a gun.  Once stripped of his citizenship, he could’ve been deported and sent off to the nation he wanted to be a part of.  The US would’ve gotten rid of a terrorist, he would’ve gotten to go join the nation he wants to join.

Problem solved.  Enforce existing laws.

Field Day 6/20/16 – Another Gun Grabber Roundup

May as well start with the dumbest first.  HuffPo is calling for complete disarmament of the US citizenry.

One may say that the Supreme Court, after 250 years in which the Second Amendment was read as allowing only a well-regulated militia to have guns, recently reinterpreted it to mean that there is an individualized right to own guns. This suggests that we may have to get to domestic disarmament through the back door.

Make the gun manufacturers liable for harm done with their products. Ban the sale of ammunition. And vote for a president that will add to the Supreme Court those who will read the Second Amendment as written.

Above all, domestic disarmament is a true, compelling vision which cannot be said about the small gun control measures that are currently promoted by some of the most enlightened people among us.

That’s a whole new level of smugness right there.  Also, the Second Amendment as written would guarantee access to arms by American citizens, especially weapons used in a military capacity.  It’s very clear what it says, as are the numerous state Constitutions that mirror it.

–

And the next stupidest, via HotAir, from Democrat Senator Chris Murphy:

Today’s gun vote wouldn’t stop recent mass shootings, admits leading proponent

Asked by guest host Jonathan Karl whether the so-called “gun show loophole” would have done anything to stop Orlando, Murphy stammered and finally responded as though he was Miss Teen Connecticut answering a pretty tough question about what his favorite color is.

MURPHY: So, it may have in the sense that if you partner together with the bill that stops terrorists from getting guns…

KARL: But wait a minute. He didn’t buy those guns at a gun show. And he would have passed the background—he did pass a background check.

MURPHY: He did pass a background check, but if the Feinstein bill was in effect, the FBI could have put him on the list of those who are prohibited from getting guns. And what if he went into the gun store and was denied? He could have just gone online or to a gun show and bought another one. *

KARL:  OK. But what I’m trying to get at is that every time there’s one of these terrible tragedies, there’s these proposals. Your proposal would have done nothing in the case of Orlando. It would have done nothing to stop the killing in San Bernardino, and in fact, was unrelated to the killing in Newtown. So why are we focusing on things that have nothing to do with the massacres that we are responding?

MURPHY: First of all, we can’t get into that trap.  I disagree. I think if this proposal had been into effect, it may have stopped this shooting. But we can’t get into the trap in which we are forced to defend the proposals simply because it didn’t stop the last tragedy. We should be making our gun laws less full of Swiss cheese holes so that future killings don’t happen.**

Couple important takeaways here.

1st, let your lefty, gun-grabbing brother-in-law see this so he can stop telling you that you are an accomplice in the murder of innocent people just because you exercise the right to self protection. And repeat it on your social media as many times as it takes: These laws will not stop bad people from doing bad things with guns. Full stop.

Yeah, that’s pretty much it.

We already know that the Orlando terrorist beat his ex-wife.  He could’ve been denied based on that, but apparently his ex-wife never bothered to call the police.  He wouldn’t have had a security job, nor been able to buy a gun legally.  Wouldn’t have happened.

Speaking of wife-beaters not allowed to own guns, from ThisAin’tHell.  Short version is a reporter went into a gun store to try to buy an evil toddler-killing black rifle and was denied.  He claimed it was because he was a reporter.  Really, it was because he slapped around his wife.

The folks at Maxon Shooter Supplies and Indoor Range, who claim to be TAH fans, send us a link to the story about them in the Chicago Sun Times, wherein the Times sent Neil Steinberg, one of their reporters, to write about his experience buying and firing an evil black, scary gun (known in journalistic circles as an assault rifle). Steinberg does the handwringing thing about guns and journalistic integrity thing during his drive to Des Plaines, Illinois to the Maxon “lemonade stand” as the owner described it to me.

Driving to Maxon Shooter’s Supplies in Des Plaines on Wednesday to purchase my first assault rifle, I admit, I was nervous. I’d never owned a gun before. And with the horror of Sunday’s Orlando massacre still echoing, even the pleasant summer day — the lush green trees, fluffy white clouds, blue sky — took on a grim aspect, the sweetness of fragile life flashing by as I headed into the Valley of Death.

Earlier, in my editor’s office, I had ticked off the reasons for me not to buy a gun: this was a journalistic stunt; done repeatedly; supporting an industry I despise. But as I tell people, I just work here, I don’t own the place. And my qualms melted as I dug into the issue.

At 5:13 Sarah from Maxon called. They were canceling my sale and refunding my money. No gun for you. I called back. Why? “I don’t have to tell you,” she said. …

A few hours later, Maxon sent the newspaper a lengthy statement, the key part being: “it was uncovered that Mr. Steinberg has an admitted history of alcohol abuse, and a charge for domestic battery involving his wife.”

Well, didn’t see that coming.

This would be on the 4473:

From the Maxon Facebook page;

Mr. Steinberg was very aggressive on the phone with Sarah, insisting he was going to write that we denied him because he is a journalist. “Journalist” is not a protected class, BTW. We contacted his editor and said that, while we don’t normally provide a reason for a denial, in this case to correct the record before you publish, here’s why; we pasted a couple links of press accounts of his past behavior and his admission of same. He’s free to believe or disbelieve that’s why he was denied, but that *is* why he was denied. There was no “We’ll see you in court!!!!” type of language from us – we simply want to set the record straight. That it undermined his thesis and rendered the column incoherent isn’t really our problem, is it? Thanks for your support.

 

Democrat Joe Manchin – Let’s Get Rid Of Due Process Of Law

Via WeeklyStandard and HotAir:

The problem we have—and really, the firewall we have right now, is due process. It’s all due process. So we can all say, ‘yeah, we want the same thing,’ but how do we get there. If a person is on a terrorist watch list like the gentleman—the shooter—in Orlando, he was, twice by the FBI, we were briefed yesterday about what happened. But that man was brought in twice. They did everything they could. The FBI did everything they were supposed to do. But there was no way for them to keep him on the nix list or keep him off the gun buy list. There was no way to do that. So can’t we say that if a person is under suspicion, there should be a five year period of time that we have to see if good behavior, if this person continues the same traits? Maybe we can come to that type of an agreement. But due process is what’s killing us right now.

Haven’t committed a crime but the government wants to restrict your rights because you’re on a secret list somewhere?  No problem!  Just do away with due process.

How to get rid of the 2nd Amendment?  Easy – just get rid of the 5th Amendment first!

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

5 years of rights restriction based on being put on a watch list?  A watch list that Ted Kennedy had to fight to get off of?

How about… no.