Thursday, December 27, 2012

CAMDEN, N.J. - Is the Latest City Asking Its Residents to Voluntarily Surrender Their Firearms for Cash | TheBlaze.com

This Is the Latest City Asking Its Residents to Voluntarily Surrender Their Firearms for Cash | TheBlaze.com:

TheBlaze previously reported on the gun buyback program conducted by the city of Camden, N.J., where residents turned in about 1,137 guns — a new record for the city. Now, in New York, the Ithaca Police Department and Tompkins County Sheriff’s Office are asking their residents to give up their guns to decrease the number of guns on the streets, the Post-Standard reports.

“The goal of the program is to remove unwanted guns from our community before they fall into the hands of those that may do harm,” a law enforcement source said.
The purpose of the buyback program is apparently to encourage Americans to voluntarily surrender their guns in exchange for immediate cash, including as much as $200 for some semi-automatic rifles.
 Oh, DO go to the comments section to see what people in the area think about this!  My own personal take is .. oh dear, are you next going to give up your right to write letters to your grandchildren?

People who think that the Second Amendment should be abrogated .. or outright deleted .. would be "Up In Arms" if the same restrictions were applied to their right to SPEAK. 

Oh, but "Up In Arms" wouldn't be valid any more, would it?

I guess most folks don't realize that the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America is supported .. and made feasible .. by the Second Amendment.

When I was a child, there was a movement (not locally, but it only affected me that way) for children to turn in  their comic books which were violent, in return for more "acceptable" books.  I tried to take advantage of the program (I've talked about this before) but unfortunately they were all out of dinosaur books so I took all my Rin Tin Tin and Roy Rogers comic books back home.  (I know, I have written about this before.)
 In later years, I bought my OWN fricking Rinny and Roy books .. and kept the comic books I already owned.  Some of them .. like the Lone Ranger comics .. had been given to me by my sister for Christmas.  In later years, I lost track of them; but I never lost track of how glad I was that I didn't give them up for some stupid dinosaurs who didn't do nothing!

This 'gun trade-in for toaster ovens' movement is nothing better.  Some people decided that what I had wasn't politically acceptable, so they offer valueless trivia from China in return for .... whatever.  When I was a child, comic books were as valuable to me as firearms are today.  Junkers, or important tools; a part of American History or stuff that I didn't really want or need any more.  It's all the same.  It's more valuable to ME than it is to them, except for the 'this is bad stuff' iconicism to which they ascribe my 'stuff'.

I fell for it fifty years ago (okay, a little bit further back than fifty years), but I couldn't be persuaded today.

I can't tell you how  the families of New Jersey are responding to this offer, but I strongly advise you to go look at the comments.  Most of the folks talking about this are from "out of town".  Still, their voice needs to be heard:

"The goal of the program is to remove unwanted guns from our community before they fall into the hands of those that may do harm,””……I call B.S….The goal is to disarm the public PERIOD…"

and ...
 
This is all I need to know about gun control: our FOUNDERS were FOR RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS – TYRANTS AND DESPOTS Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Obama ARE AGAINST. I don’t own a gun, don’t want a gun – but I darn sure want every law abiding citizen to be able to fully exercise their right to bear arms as guaranteed by the Constitution.
The left has an agenda to drive this culture in a direction designed to destroy it. Gun control is just one of their weapons. The cadre of intellectuals that have trained Gramsci shock troops of teachers and media hacks to take this which was a Judeo/Chrsitan culture down from within…
Things are much more duplicitous then either you know or you admit:
and ....

Ummm. Prosecution from what? They could turn their guns in without fear of prosecution? Sounds like a call to criminals. Yep. You get a pass on murder. You got a gun you killed someone with? No Problem! We’ll take care of it for you! We don’t want you, we want responsible gun owners. They scare us!… Gird your loins, people. Take on the armor of God. These people are nuts
and ..
  
They state the guns owned by law abiding citizens will eventually end up in the hands of criminals. The only way mine will is if I’m dead. I guess they believe the criminals are going to prevail. Hunh. Think about that.
Yup, this sounds like a successful gun buy-back program; just like every other "successful gun buy-back program" ever promulgated in the most sorrowful states.

This sounds SO "progressive" to the Liberals, but they don't have a clue how it looks to the participants. Got a murder gun?  Sell it!  Got Papa's old POS pistol?  Sell it.  It's not like they will ever be used again, and nobody is about to track the tuns anyway.   Don't have a gun? Steal one!  Sell it. No pain; you'll steal two and sell one.  Piece of cake!

I swear, these people just don't have a single clue about how the Real World works.  They have these pie-in-the-sky notions, and they think that everybody is honest.  "It's my grandfather's gun" they claim ... and they are believed.

Yeah, like your grandfather bought that Glock 17 because it was a War Memorial.

What a bunch of maroons!

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Obama gun ban list leaked

Report: Obama gun ban list leaked - Virginia Beach Conservative | Examiner.com:

On Monday, Alan Korwin, 2nd Amendment activist and author of Gun Laws of America, published a preliminary list of firearms and firearms accessories to be included in the yet-to-be announced, but much anticipated new version of the so-called Assault Weapons Ban.

The chief sponsor of the last ban, Sen. Diane Feinstein is said to be crafting new legislation now, which, if passed, President Obama would undoubtedly sign.
(The list is published as part of the original Virginia Beach Conservative article ... see the link at the beginning of this post.   Korwin's "Gun Laws of America" is available from Amazon here. )

In the immortal words of William Bendix, in "The Life Of Riley" television show in the 1960's:
"What a revoltin' development this is!"

This is not entirely a surprise, of course, to those of us who never expected anything less from this administration.

Oh the other hand, the word is that (in at least early versions), is that there will be no "Grandfather Clause".  It won't be "you can't buy these guns", but "you can't OWN these guns". Or magazine, ammunition, accessories  .. whatever.

For IPSC competitors, for example, it might be "no compensators".  Never mine magazine capacity over 10 rounds.   Any gun that can take a compensator might be modified to take a 'silencer'.

Compensation for confiscated firearms?  We can hope for the best, but expect the worst.  As Canada has already demonstrated, it's a multi-BILLION dollar proposition to compensate owners for confiscated firearms.   It would be "in the best interest of the American economy" to refuse compensation for confiscated guns.  (Not that this administration has demonstrated much respect for National Indebtedness .. witness the Health Care Bill ... but if this is accomplished by fiat there is no reason why the the general American Public wouldn't consider this sort of draconian measure to be "more acceptable" if they were sure it wouldn't cost them anything.)

Don't worry any more about The Gun Show Loophole; no "private-to-private" transfers; that's on the block.  No 'giving' guns to your children.

I hope that I'm being unnecessarily phobic here, but the sad fact is that Business in America  (I'm not talking about "Big Business"; the small businesses have been threatened even more by an erratic Federal leadership) has learned that we cannot rely on a reasonable, consistent administration of Federal regulations. Not for the next four years, at least.   I was never all that fond of Mitt Romney, but at least if he had been elected we wouldn't have been forced to cope with an out-of-control, Lame Duck President.

Who knows what tomorrow will bring?  I sure don't  It's a sad commentary when we no longer distrust our government.  Today, too many Americans fear our government.

PS:  
Oh, you think maybe I AM being too negative?  Take a look at this video!   The liberals .. and I'm talking about Members of Congress ... are gloating over the prospect of imposing "REASONABLE Gun Controls"!  



And they're not at all worried about .. or listening to ... any introduction of a contradictory point of view.

Still not convinced that the Gun Grabbers are determined to take these recent tragedies and run with them?

Even on Conservative news panels, there is emphatic, sincere, emotional controversy:
It's a joy to me, to watch calm, measured discussion on a topic which has such a powerful effect on our nation. Fortunately, we have George Will .. to whom nobody actually listens. It's sad, when one quiet man can calmly observe that (regardless of the good will of the common man): "Things like this are going to happen."




Not that I believe he will influence anyone who doesn't already believe as he does.

The War On Guns .. ho hum

I have to admit, sometimes I get SO tired about writing about Second Amendment Issues.  The liberal left is tireless ... how can one grizzled old gun nut keep up with them?   They keep talking about "Common Sense" gun laws ... as if we don't already have enough of them.   And we're all so darned serious about it?

Don't get me wrong.  I don't think it's not serious (which is probably why I keep writing this tired old blog).  It's just that 'they' combine "Serious" with "Concerned" and "Reason", and seemingly seem to expect that if they can just be sufficiently sincere, their lack of logic can be overlooked.

 Fortunately, once in a while, we find a public figure who can take a lighter (or at least less determined) approach.  Maybe we can watch this kind of thing from time to time, and learn to laugh about how the folly of our fatuous passion.

 Chuck Woolery on Assault Weapons - YouTube



The interesting thing is, this guy (I understand he's an ex-game show host ... but I haven't had a cable connection to my TV for a decade and a half, so I don't know) ... somehow he seems to project just the right note of "Why So Serious" to appeal to my dark-side sense of humor.

I did, however, become sufficiently re-invigorated to look at some of the recent commentary about the issue, and I found some fascinating viewpoints which you may find as interesting as I did.  This is going to be a gallop-through of several links.  You will forgive me if I just point you in various directions, perhaps make a few descriptive comments about the content,, add a quote here and there.  You can decide what you want to do with the variety of perspectives.  Okay?

Here we go:

The Blaze: December 19, 2012:  CNN host Piers Morgan on a panel discussion (about recent massacres ... assume this is the subject in most of the reference you will see here, if only tangentally) takes on John Lott and attempts to turn the entire controversy on the point of "how many bullets can an AR15 fire in one second?".   Personally, my best split-time with a handgun is 0.13 seconds, with absolutely unreliable accuracy.  I do 0.18 seconds with faith that I'm close enough to the target that I wild get some cardboard.  Most of my split times, though, are 0.25 - 0.35 seconds. when I'm hurrying.  Morgan says "four to six shots per second", though, and I'm sure that's not an unreasonable figure.   Not that it matters, because I can get the same split-times with a revolver ... if I don't expect to be accurate.  Lott refuses to respond to the question because it's not salient to the issue.  In a word, Morgan is losing the debate so he chooses to obfuscate the issues by focusing on an insignificant side-issue.

Washington Post "WonkBlog", December 14, 2012:  under the title "Twelve facts about guns and mass shooting in the United States" (sic),  Ezra Klein starts out with a homily about "politicizing the tragedy".  He seems to think that is A Bad Thing.  Then he spends hours to build a presentation based on 12 talking points, at least as many graphs, and a sad picture to propose that when people shoot people, that is indeed A Bad Thing.  We can agree that both politicization and shooting are Bad Things.  Not sure about his conclusions, though.  His arguments are weak, his citations from singularly skewed sources (eg: Duke University, Harvard University), his conclusions have been made before he wrote the article:

Only with gun violence do we respond to repeated tragedies by saying that mourning is acceptable but discussing how to prevent more tragedies is not. “Too soon,” howl supporters of loose gun laws. But as others have observed, talking about how to stop mass shootings in the aftermath of a string of mass shootings isn’t “too soon.” It’s much too late.
 "Supporters of loose gun laws" ... gee, that sounds like a fore-gone conclusion to me.

 In a December 26 "Wonkblog", Klien continues to beat the same dead horse; he has found another graph!  Oh Frabujous Joy!  ("Guns kill people, in one chilling graph"):

No money quote: here is the entire text of the article:
You know that line, “guns don’t kill people, people kill people?” It’s true, so far as it goes. But in the United States, when people decide to kill people, or kill themselves, they typically reach for a gun.
Never let it be said that I didn't present both sides of the argument.  And I didn't even have to pick and choose .. both citations were picked at random.  I guess some people just get a lot of press.

WONKBLOG December 23, 2012:  Same place, different writer.  John Sides contributes to the Christmas Spirit with "Gun owners vs. the NRA: What the polling shows".

You guessed it: another graph.   These guys love graphs; they represent statistics!  You know the old saying: "Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics!".

The statistics were a bit vague, but not as vague as the conclusions reached by the author.

NRA members were also different politically even from gun owners who weren’t in the NRA.  For example, 70 percent of gun owners who were NRA members called themselves “conservative” or “very conservative.”  Only 44 percent of gun owners who weren’t NRA members said that.  And while gun ownership has become increasingly confined to Republicans, there are still big differences in terms of party identification even among gun owners.  The vast majority of NRA members (73 percent) identified with or leaned toward the Republican Party.  But among gun owners who weren’t in the NRA, only 49 percent were Republicans; more than a third (35 percent) were actually Democrats.  
 I'm not sure what the author's point was, but it seems that he's surprised  (disappointed?  outraged?) that NRA members and/or gun owners were not entirely conservative men.  Some gun owners, some NRA members, "were actually Democrats"!  Imagine that?

Fear not.  By the time he ran out of steam, he had proved conclusively (?) that Guns Are Bad, and All Right-Thinking Americans Know That.

Actually, there are a still a few Americans who don't agree with that.  The Washington Post would probably not be surprised (or disappointed) to learn that some of those deluded people are [gasp] Jews.

 "We Know How To Stop School Shootings" (Front Page Magazine; December 20, 2012; by Ann Coulter)
Someone planning to commit a single murder in a concealed-carry state only has to weigh the odds of one person being armed. But a criminal planning to commit murder in a public place has to worry that anyone in the entire area might have a gun.
You will notice that most multiple-victim shootings occur in “gun-free zones” — even within states that have concealed-carry laws: public schools, churches, Sikh temples, post offices, the movie theater where James Holmes committed mass murder, and the Portland, Ore., mall where a nut starting gunning down shoppers a few weeks ago.
Guns were banned in all these places. Mass killers may be crazy, but they’re not stupid.
 I love Ann Coulter.  I want to bear her child. It seems impossible for her not to bait the gun-grabbers at every opportunity,  She pisses them off with every word she speaks; she can rarely actually GIVE a talk to a University audience, because the students (and often the faculty) end up spitting at her, throwing chairs, attacking campus police, and other variations of rioting, mob rule, and ... well, generally speaking, what passes for 'decorum' under the definitions of Liberal Society.  This is not all that bad for her; the university hires her to give a talk, and the student body (sometimes even members of the faculty) make the environment unsafe.  She still gets the 'honorarium' (which is the only honor the place actually offers).  Fortunately, most universities which schedule her talks are governmentally funded, and we all know that the government spares no expense to allow their students to listen to new ideas and expand their knowledge and ability to reason dispassionately.

I actually learned something from reading this article which I have NEVER seen reported by any other MSM pundit:

If the deterrent effect of concealed-carry laws seems surprising to you, that’s because the media hide stories of armed citizens stopping mass shooters. At the Portland shooting, for example, no explanation was given for the amazing fact that the assailant managed to kill only two people in the mall during the busy Christmas season.
It turns out, concealed-carry-holder Nick Meli hadn’t noticed that the mall was a gun-free zone. He pointed his (otherwise legal) gun at the shooter as he paused to reload, and the next shot was the attempted mass murderer killing himself. (Meli aimed, but didn’t shoot, because there were bystanders behind the shooter.)
[If I may add a minor comment, apropos of absolutely nothing at all:  I can speak from experience that it's not always intuitively obvious that virtually all malls in Oregon are "Gun Free Zone".  I have several friends  experience a similar cognitive incongruity when entering places designated as "Gun Free Zones".   Not that I actually ever carry a concealed weapon there, nor do my friends.  Still, it's easy to understand that this may happen from time to time.]

Anyway ... if the MSM never reports this, did it happen?  If a tree falls in the woods, and nobody is there to hear it, is there a sound?

I'll look for other references:
KGW TV December 17, 2012:  Clackamas Mall Shooter Faced Man With Concealed Weapon;

MSNNow December 16, 2012:  Armed Civilian at Clackamas Mall Shooting Thought about Firing at Gunman"

EXAMINER, December 15, 2012: "Media Blackout: Oregon mall shooting was stopped by an armed citizen"

(worth a quote here:)
While reports of Tuesday's shooting at the Clackamas Town Center Mall in Oregon, dominated the national media, until Friday's horrific shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, one very important detail has been repeatedly (and intentionally) left out of the MSM's coverage.
The shooter, Jacob Tyler Roberts, was confronted with an armed citizen, at which time he ran away and shot himself. By the time police arrived on the scene, Roberts was already dead.
That armed man was 22-year-old Nick Meli, who was at the mall shopping with a young woman who was babysitting her friend's baby.
 There's a link to the KGW report embedded; read it, too.

And on YouTube:
Oregon Mall Shooting stopped by licensed Gun Carrier

It appears that there was an armed civilian there.  Why didn't anyone notice?  Perhaps one person noticed; the shooter.  That seems to have been the only one who mattered, and  apparently it mattered a great deal.

SO ....   EVERYBODY HAS BEEN FOCUSING ON THE SHOOTER!
Nobody is paying attention to the man who may have been the crucial factor in the shooter's decision to kill himself, at that moment instead of other innocents.

Pay attention to this name:  Nick Meli

I think we all get the message, and hey!  If you ever get to meet Nick Meli?  I've got a Bronze Star from Vietnam sitting on my mantel.  Please tell him that I would be homered if it was sitting on Mr. Meli's mantel, instead.   He's done more to earn it than I ever did.

And that's all I have to say about it.

Monday, December 24, 2012

Ho Ho Ho!

Open letter from the Congress of the United States of America:
Hello Boys and Girls, this is Santa Claus coming to you directly from the North Pole! Ho Ho Ho!

I bring you joys and toys for all girls and boys. And Good News! The Kyoto Treaty has died the death of inevitability .. nobody really wants it.   We didn't have to vote on it, so it's Not Our Fault.


Oh, and (ho ho ho!) That thing about the United Nations Small Arms Treaty? Sorry, that was just a joke left over from April Fool's Day. Nobody wants to take your guns. Ho Ho Ho! You're so gullible, Santa LOVES to mess with your minds.


 Carolyn McCarthy's recent bill to reincarnate the (already failed, 'cause it is a piece of crap that didn't work) Assault Weapons Ban? Not a happening thing.

Nobody in the House OR the Senate wants to sign on to it; they know as well as we do that she's a dingus, a doofus, and a melt-down just waiting for the correct juxtaposition of the stars. We just let her introduce any bill which strikes her as 'appropriate' so we look good to the press.   God forbid it should come down to a vote;  y'all might get the impression that WE aren't comfortable with you having guns that we can't control.

Funny thing ... she has introduced the same bill every year for the past ten years, and everyone has ignored it every year. You would think that she would get the hang of it, but Nooooooooo, If she had any friends in the house, you would think that at least one of them would mention the "beating a dead horse" thingie to her. But .... NOOoooooooo! Sorry, Carolyn; you're a self-absorbed twit, a one-note samba, an ignoramus who can see the signs but can't read them. So; this year, as we have done for so MANY years, we're going to ignore you again. You're an idiot, but you're OUR idiot.

Besides,  Carolyn ....your ideologically inane political priorities are obviously  idiotic, but the fact that we continue to let you present the SAME bill for so many years, and we pretend to take you seriously, makes us look good to the other asshats in your party. So .. keep up the good work, Carolyn. Every time you do the same old thing in the same old way, and expect different results, you reconfirm our definition of insanity. You Go, Girl! (Please!)

 Looking to the new year, we see other idiots who think the best way to stop people from massacring their neighbors in shopping malls and schools is to keep sane people from being allowed to protect themselves while they're in ... well .... shopping malls and schools.  And churches.  You know, the kind of places where people ask you:  "Why do you want to carry a gun in a CHURCH?  That's a Peaceful Place!  (As if .. RTFM, Folks.)  Gee, that's tough on the people who frequent shopping malls and schools.  But what the heck .. we're elected by the same constituency every year, and as long as they don't seem to have a problem with their neighbors being killed while we continue to introduce bills to keep honest folks from having guns, is there really a problem here?  We don't think so.

In the mean time, we'll   have our chauffeurs and Nanny, our aides and our secretaries, do our Christmas shopping for us.  We are too busy to keep track of what our families want .. hell, we're too busy to know what our constituents want! .  So we'll just keep on making meaningless policy statements on television, and will ALWAYS keep our $400 haircuts au courant.  It doesn't matter what we do, as long as we look good; right?  In the meantime, we're in our offices at least 3 or four hours a day, so keep those cards and letters coming, People.  Our aides need the traffic to keep them busy and to justify their employment .. which you pay for.

Y'all folks have fun doing your Christmas Shopping, okay?  Don't expect to meet us in the malls, though.  Santa may have an AK, but he isn't as devoted to our personal protection as we would wish him to be.

{signed}  Your Congressman