'Not without a fight'--the best $15.97 you'll ever spend

On Thanksgiving, on my St. Louis Gun Rights Examiner column, I mentioned a new gun rights documentary, "Not Without a Fight," by Max Lemus.

This features several of my fellow GREs: Skip Coryell, Paul Valone, Howard Nemerov, and David Codrea (all but the first of those four links are to those individuals' glowing reviews of the project). Also featured is Pastor Kenn Blanchard--better known, perhaps, as Black Man with a Gun.

At the time, with Thanksgiving activities in full swing, I had not had the opportunity to watch the entire video (which is around 100 minutes long), so I couldn't in good conscience say much about it, although from what I had seen, and knowing the people involved, and having seen what Paul, Howard, and David had said about it, I knew it would be good.

Now that I have seen the whole thing, I can say that my lofty expectations were exceeded. Buy and download this video--you won't regret it.

Mayor Bloomberg's racist gun policies

The Klan--perhaps the first domestic terrorist organization in the U.S., exploited onerous "Black Code" gun laws to keep freed slaves unarmed, and thus ripe for lynching. One intent of the Fourteenth Amendment was to end that.

These days, adding insult to (fatal) injury, the forcible citizen disarmament lobby often implies that their advocacy of draconian gun laws is intended to help African-Americans, and that opponents of such laws are the bigots. I have to hand it to them--it takes truly Orwellian chutzpah to sell oppression as salvation. [More]

Today's St. Louis Gun Rights Examiner. Hope it's worth your time.

A word to the wise*: the next paralyzed would-be victim might not be helpless

A friend, apparently concerned about my weight, sent me something yesterday that I can only assume was calculated to put me off my feed, just before the turkey came out of the oven:

2 men rob Indiana home with paralyzed man in bed

SOUTH BEND, Ind. - Police say a paralyzed man was unable to get out of his bed while two men robbed his St. Joseph County home.

Police say the robbery occurred west of the South Bend city limits on Sunday evening.

They say one of the robbers placed a T-shirt over the paralyzed man's face.

The men broke into the home by breaking a rear window.

After placing the shirt over the homeowner's face, they stole his laptop and a $100 bill on a dresser.

After the robbers left, the victim says he was unable to call police or close the window that had been broken.

A friend who stopped by the home was able to call police.

I don't have family-friendly words to describe the evil thugs who would prey on the disabled, so I won't even try. Instead, I'll simply remind them that some of us can fight back--with deadly force, and without hesitation.

That's not, by the way, intended (at all) as criticism of the victim in this case--it sounds as if he is quadriplegic, and would thus be unable to defend himself with a firearm.


*The "word to the wise" doesn't really apply here, because "wise" is something these creatures are clearly not. To quote Bill Cosby:

A word to the wise ain't necessary -- it's the stupid ones that need the advice.

Turnabout is fair play--help protect the Oath Keepers

So gun rights organizations--and gun owners--got involved. We got in our Senators' and Representatives' ears--and we prevailed. Montana Senators Max Baucus and Jon Tester wrote a letter (pdf file) to the Defense Logistics Agency, and voilà--the policy was rescinded.

Congress members always claim to be loyal to the Constitution (well, except for Nancy "Are you serious?" Pelosi)--let's give them a chance to show some evidence of that loyalty, by supporting those who have sworn--repeatedly--to defend the Constitution. Tell them that you want them to demand that the Pentagon not allow the Ft. Hood atrocity to degenerate into a witch hunt that ends with the Oath Keepers as the "witch." If you live in a district represented by a member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, or the House version, your voice might make an even larger difference. [More]

Today's St. Louis Gun Rights Examiner. Read it as you recover from the tryptophan hangover.

Giving thanks for freedom, and for those who defend it

I would be remiss if I neglected thanking the Founding Fathers, for the Constitution they bequeathed us. As might be guessed, I am particularly grateful for the Second Amendment--"the true palladium of liberty." Without it, and the protection it provides to the people's right to the means to resist tyranny, our liberty depend on the good will, noble intentions, and limited ambitions of our servants, who, inevitably, tend to fancy themselves our masters. I will be forever thankful for my confidence that any serious attempt to disarm the American people will end in the deaths of the would-be disarmers.

Happy Thanksgiving. [More]

That's today's St. Louis Gun Rights Examiner. I am thankful that anyone finds my meandering thoughts worth reading.

Does Kirsten Gillibrand think buying a gun is a crime?

My--how far our "pro-gun Democrat" has fallen.

David has been following Kirsten Gillibrand's new special friendship with Carolyn "What's a Barrel Shroud" McCarthy. Yesterday, the two announced their collaborative effort--their "Make Gun Trafficking Even More Illegaler Act of 2009" (or something like that).

Details about the bills (I assume they're teaming up to introduce identical legislation in both the House and Senate) aren't yet available, but David had a bit about their press conference, with a Who's Who of New York gun haters in attendance.

NY1 covered it also, and something Gillibrand said jumped out at me. You can see the full video there, but here I've shortened it down to just the part I'm talking about:

"From the person who buys the gun from the dealer, to the person illegally selling the gun out of the trunk of his or her car, to the kingpin who’s organizing this criminal network, the legislation makes crystal clear that these people are criminals [who] should be prosecuted,” said Gillibrand.

Are we to understand that "buy[ing] the gun from the dealer" is a crime? It sure sounds that way. The other two actions she described: illegally selling out of one's car trunk and "kingpinning" a criminal network, are already federal crimes. Likewise, if Gillibrand's reference to "the person who buys the gun from the dealer" refers to straw purchasers--they're already federal criminals, as well.

Well, New York gun owners? How's that "pragmatism" working for ya'?

Kentucky census worker not victim of 'right-wing hate'--can we stop calling for censorship?

In a society that counts the right to free speech as being worthy of the No. 1 spot in the Bill of Rights, these calls to "round up 'hate speech' promoters," because of a murder that the supposed "hate speakers" never called for, were chilling. Saying anything that might make unstable people angry enough to kill should be illegal?

Moving the situation from alarming to absurd is the finding that Sparkman's death was not murder (much less politically motivated murder--"right-wing terrorism," in other words): [More]

Today's St. Louis Gun Rights Examiner. Please give it a look.

David Codrea gets a (brief) nod from the NRA

Anyone who reads Armed and Safe on anything approaching a regular basis had better be reading David Codrea, as well. If you do, you are probably aware that David is, although a life member of the NRA (one might say that he is the NRA), also a frequent and vocal critic of the current leadership's "pragmatism" and willingness to compromise that which shall not be infringed.

NRA loyalists (I won't say "kool-aid drinking, lockstep apologists"--oops, perhaps I just did) tend not to take kindly to David's criticisms of the Lairds of Fairfax (I think that's the first place I saw that excellent term for NRA leadership), and the NRA itself, of course, does not either.

That means, not surprisingly, that David's writing, no matter how good, tends not to get any promotional help from the NRA (which is, of course, their prerogative, even if it means that they miss out on a superb voice in the gun rights debate). That's why it amazed me yesterday to see this in their news feed:

Attorney General Holder admits support for gun control

During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Department of Justice oversight, Holder admits to supporting "no-fly no-buy" legislation as well as the repeal of the Tiahrt amendment.

Read About It: The Examiner

Posted: 11/23/2009 10:01:00 AM

I, obviously, tend to be rather critical of the NRA, as well, but I have to admit that if the NRA is going to promote only one of David's articles, their choice of this one is hard to fault.

Be sure to read it, if you haven't already. I had gotten the email alert from Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership (JPFO), and read the press release from Law Enforcement Alliance of America (LEAA), but couldn't find any actual text of Holder's remarks, so didn't know what to do with the information, and thus ultimately did . . . nothing with it.

David, on the other hand, showed why he's an actual journalist, while I am still no more than a blogger*--he did the digging necessary to find and verify the information around which to build an informative article:

I held off on bringing this release to the attention of Gun Rights Examiner readers because I wanted to corroborate the claims--which, unfortunately, the official transcript of Holder's prepared remarks, posted on the Justice Department website, do not.

So I contacted LEAA and spoke last night with their Chief Operating Officer and national spokesman, Ted Deeds. He told me they were reporting on remarks made during questioning, and sent me a transcript of the appropriate segments of AG Holder's testimony: . . .

Go read it, if you haven't.

The NRA, by the way, perhaps realizing they were promoting someone they didn't like, quickly pulled that News Feed link from where it would be easily seen--if I hadn't noticed it early, most of us would probably never have known. Some things, evidently, never change.

*Not that I'm ashamed of being a blogger--just that I think it's a different animal from formal journalism.

NYC Mayor Bloomberg and friends step up 'terror gap' scare rhetoric

This is a major effort on the part of MAIG--with a full page ad in the Washington Post (pdf file) to kick it off. No problem for multi-billionaire Bloomberg, of course, who has already invested something like $3 million into MAIG's forcible citizen disarmament campaign, which also receives hundreds of thousands of dollars from the rabidly anti-gun Joyce Foundation.

If you think that such legislation will make you safer, just realize that anyone can be considered a "terrorist suspect"--including you. [More]

That's today's St. Louis Gun Rights Examiner. Read it, and be edified by my great wisdom--just kidding.

Now, now--you don't have to laugh that hard.

CSGV anti-gun spin machine in full gear

One of the "features" on the homepage of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (CSGV) (the only organization I know of to openly call for a government monopoly on force) is the inclusion every day of a couple links to mainstream media articles about guns, gun laws, shooting deaths, etc. CSGV, though, is often not happy with what they apparently perceive to be an insufficiently anti-gun slant in the headlines--so they simply make up their own.

Today, one of CSGV's headlines is "Innocent Shot Woman Latest of 400 Serious Hunting Accidents in Virginia."

(Click to enlarge)

The real headline, though, is somewhat different--"Ferrum student's death unusual: Accidents rarely involve nonhunters"

I guess we know now what makes the victim "innocent"--as a non-hunter, she was not "guilty" of hunting.

The real headline makes clear that the entire thrust of the story is the unusual nature of a fatal hunting accident in which the victim was not a hunter, but that's very clearly not what CSGV wants to talk about.

Actually reading the article clears up some other points the CSGV would probably prefer remain fuzzy. Right from the beginning, we have:

There have been nearly 400 serious hunting-related accidents in Virginia since 1998 . . .

The CSGV zeroed right in on that "400" number, without mentioning that we're talking about over a decade's worth of accidents in Virginia (a state in which there is a lot of hunting).

The article doesn't make clear the criteria by which an accident is judged to be "serious," but this passage might shed some light.

Of 39 firearms-related hunting fatalities in Virginia since 1998, none involved a nonhunter, according to Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries spokeswoman Julia Dixon.

So in that time period of more than a decade, fewer than 10% of the 400 serious accidents were shooting fatalities. Granted, as a paraplegic, I'm well aware that non-fatal injuries can be quite serious, but I think it quite reasonable to assume that the victims of many of the "serious" accidents eventually recovered fully.

Note also that serious hunting accidents do not necessarily involve gunfire, as the article makes clear.

The game department's accident data include firearms-related incidents and serious tree-stand falls.

I can attest to the potential seriousness of a fall from a tree stand--when I did my inpatient physical therapy following the car accident that put me in a wheelchair, one of my fellow patients was a paraplegic whose condition stemmed from such a fall. I suspect that the "400" number also includes bowhunting accidents.

I am not trying to minimize the tragedy of the death of the woman, or excuse the idiocy of the hunter who shot her because he thought she was a deer, and fired without verifying his target, but there simply is not an epidemic of fatal hunting accidents via gunfire, as the CSGV would seem to have us believe.

Defining 'extremist organization': Will Pentagon try to crush Oath Keepers?

I can certainly understand adding Hamas and Al Qaeda, etc., to the list of unacceptable groups (I am not, by the way, claiming that Hasan was a participant in either of those--just giving a couple examples), which already include racially bigoted groups more commonly associated with the U.S. Still, any broadening of the definition of "extremist hate group" risks being exploited by those who would manipulate the definition process to include groups that, rather than being "hate groups," are actually the targets of hate on the part of those doing the defining.

On reading the Associated Press article that mentioned the possibility of tighter regulation of service members' participation in political groups, my immediate concern was that such a move could provide the perfect opening for suppression of the Oath Keepers. It seems absurd--the Oath Keepers, after all, in reaffirming their oath of loyalty to the Constitution, would seem to be the last people we need to worry about. [More]

That's today's St. Louis Gun Rights Examiner. Please give it a look.

East St. Louis clerk who killed robber not facing charges

As discussed Thursday, an East St. Louis convenience store clerk shot and killed one of a group of predatory thugs trying to rob the place. At the time, I expressed some concern that (this being Illinois) the clerk could find himself in legal jeopardy, simply for defending his life with a firearm.

This is, after all, East St. Louis, IL we're talking about, where the mayor tells us that the Second Amendment means nothing outside one's home.

Parks gave a reminder that Illinois does not allow concealed carrying of guns.

"You have the right to bear arms, but you have the right to bear them within your home, not on the streets, not in your cars, not inside stores," Parks said.

East St. Louis is located in St. Clair County, the board of which is fighting a years-long, expensive legal battle to close down a gun range, despite the range having never caused a problem.

It was therefore a pleasant surprise to me that the State's Attorney for St. Clair County apparently recognizes legitimate self-defense when he sees it.

St. Clair County State's Attorney Robert Haida, whose office filed the charge, said in a prepared statement: "I commend the shop clerk for what is clearly a legal act of self-defense." He added, "This type of defensive action is allowed by law-abiding citizens when violent, unlawful acts are perpetrated against them."

Granted, I suspect Haida's reaction may have been somewhat different if the act of self-defense had happened on the street, with a firearm carried in contravention of Illinois law against self-defense in public, but he's doing the right thing here.

Incidentally, one of the surviving robbers is being charged with murder for the death of his accomplice. That's because in Illinois (along with several other states--I don't know how many), if someone--even one of the perpetrators--dies as the result of a felony, his/her accomplice(s) can be charged with murder.

I have mixed feelings about that. I certainly want the book thrown at perpetrators of crimes like armed robbery, but I'm not particularly comfortable with the idea of a murder charge, when there doesn't seem to be a murder victim. The deceased in this case made the choice to commit armed robbery, and ended up paying with his life for that bad decision. If he's a "victim" of anything, it's of his own bad decisions.

Still, the murder charge against one of the surviving thugs offends me far less than the fact that legal self-defense with a firearm in Illinois is restricted to such a narrow set of circumstances (in one's home or business, basically).

Bloomberg's New York: Bill of Rights--free zone

Mayor Bloomberg's hostility to the Second Amendment is well known, of course, and has been extensively discussed here and elsewhere. What may be less well known is his apparent disdain for the Fourth Amendment:

Police have stopped and frisked more than 130,000 people in the third quarter of 2009, a 15 percent jump from the same period 2008, according to a report released by NYPD.

Over the quarter, police stopped and interrogated 137,894 people, 93 percent of whom were men, and 58 percent were black.

Hispanic men made up 31 percent of those who were stopped and frisked, and white men were stopped just 9 percent of the time, according to the report.

Under the Stop and Frisk program, officers can stop, question and pat-down people they deem suspicious.

Police also keep information about the people they frisk in a database.

Racial profiling--in New York? Hardly a surprise--racism, after all, was a prime motivating factor behind the Sullivan Act.

Like the Sullivan Act, Bloomberg's efforts to crack down on Walking While Dark-Skinned is presented as being in the interest of "public safety."

Last year, the police confiscated 6,970 illegal weapons as a part of the program including mostly knives but also 747 pistols, 84 assault weapons and rifles and 9 machine guns, the report said. The report doesn't say how many weapons were confiscated this year.

It would seem that Mayor Bloomberg is an enthusiastic advocate of a policy of "No Guns for Negroes."

Guns better protection for gays than 'hate crime' laws

No assortment of laws will ever end hatred, or even the violent expression of that hatred. What will is the ability on the part of the targets to fight back. The Pink Pistols chapters are helping to provide those targets with that ability. That's "hate crime prevention."

Incidentally, the new law also extends its "protection" to the disabled, and being paraplegic, I would thus be one of the supposed beneficiaries of this legislation. Thanks, but I've made other arrangements. [More]

That's today's St. Louis Gun Rights Examiner. Please give it a look.

Ooh--Mayor Alvin Parks isn't going to like that

Saturday, I wrote about the violent crime in East St. Louis, IL, and the fact that Mayor Alvin Parks doesn't want citizens getting uppity, and thinking that the Constitution protects their right to, well . . . defend their lives (my emphasis added).

Parks gave a reminder that Illinois does not allow concealed carrying of guns.

"You have the right to bear arms, but you have the right to bear them within your home, not on the streets, not in your cars, not inside stores," Parks said.

Today, we find that someone was apparently not listening:

Illinois State Police are investigating an attempted robbery that ended when an employee shot and killed one of the robbers.

The shooting happened around 4 a.m. Thursday at the Quality Food Mart store at 1032 Bond Ave. in East St. Louis. According to police, several armed men entered the store and attempted to rob it, but the store clerk pulled a gun and shot one of the men in the chest. He died at the scene.

It gets a bit confusing, because the article is titled "East St. Louis store owner kills robber," but then the body of the article says the chlorine was added to the gene pool by the actions of an employee.

Granted, either way, even Illinois law would permit the owner to have a gun in the store, and/or to allow employees to do so (assuming the owner/employee had a valid FOID card, and complied with all the other Illinois bureaucratic hoops), and Mayor Parks may well have meant to deny the right to bear arms "inside stores" only to customers, rather than owners/employees.

Still, are customers' lives somehow less valuable? Something to think about before doing business in Illinois.

Update: We get a little more info here:

Illinois State Police Lt. James Morrisey told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch the shooting victim, whose identity was not released, was one of four suspected robbers who broke into a secure convenience store.

Someone apparently defines "victim" differently from how I do so--I'd call him the dead (and unmourned) would-be robber. We apparently also have different ideas about what constitutes "secure"--the meaning here, apparently, is that after 11 pm, the door is locked, and transactions are conducted through a small window--but that "security" didn't last long, because the thugs simply broke in. The only real security was provided (possibly illegally?) by the armed clerk.

Morrisey said the 21-year-old store clerk, whose identity was not released, reacted to the attempted robbery by producing a pistol he carries for protection.

Hmm . . . if that's not simply sloppy wording, then the clerk could be in trouble, because carrying a pistol for protection is illegal in Illinois (can't go around letting people protect themselves, can we?), and that's exactly the kind of thing Mayor Alvin says we can't do.

The Brady Campaign to be like Mike

For readers who need some more reason not to surrender that privacy, Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership (JPFO) has assembled some information pointing alarmingly to the conclusion that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE) is correlating all the trace data into a de facto (and illegal) gun registry.

When we allow the government to know where all the guns are, we have voluntarily chained ourselves. We're better than that. [More]

That's today's St. Louis Gun Rights Examiner. Please give it a look.

Maersk Alabama attacked again--pirates sent running

Even with our society's notoriously short attention span, one would hope that not many have forgotten the hijacking, by Somali pirates, of the Maersk Alabama last April. In that hijacking, you will remember, Captain Richard Phillips was taken hostage, and held for several days--until a SEAL team rescued him, killing all but one of the pirates in the process. A happy ending, certainly, but one reached only after a great deal of danger and discomfort. It certainly would have been nice if there had just been some way to stop the attack right from the beginning.

Sure, that would be great, but what would that idea be?

Well, the Maersk Alabama was recently attacked again, and as it turns out, someone has apparently thought of a good way to stop a pirate attack in its tracks--because that's what happened this time.

The MV Maersk Alabama has thwarted another attack by Somali pirates, according to European Union and U.S. Navy officials.
American-crewed container ship Maersk Alabama is hijacked by Somali pirates

"Pirates fired automatic weapons on MV Maersk Alabama who responded with fire," said an EU Naval Command Statement, "The crew managed to repel the attack and no casualties were reported."

Oh . . . so that's what worked--having armed good guys on board, to shoot back. Now why didn't I think of that?

Granted, the citizen disarmament advocates will doubtless seize on the fact that the armed good guys were dedicated security types, rather than "just" sailors with guns. And we know of course, that effective armed security can only be provided by the "Only Ones" professional enough (like Lee Paige) to carry weapons.

The thing is, sometimes the "Only Ones" aren't all that much more professional than everyone else (and sometimes notably less so), and paying a full time security team (and feeding them, and housing them, etc.), who will spend the vast majority of their time battling their greatest enemy--boredom--is an expense I doubt many shipping companies will take on.

An armed crew would not have to be trained to SEAL standards (or anywhere near them)--they would need only be good enough with a rifle to make attacking ships too dangerous to be an attractive career choice for the young worthies of Somalia.

The message behind increased gun sales

You want the short version of the message, Josh?

Step away from oppressive gun laws; acknowledge that when the government ignores the Constitution, that government abandons any claim to the citizens' loyalty, and resistance to said government can no longer be characterized as treason; know that we will not disarm.

That's the message, Josh, and if you're a good deal wiser than I think you are, you will help disseminate it, because if that message is ignored . . . [More]

That's today's St. Louis Gun Rights Examiner, and it's not very "pragmatic."

That was kinda the idea, for those who might have been wondering.

The Brady Campaign to hide the truth is failing

Anyone who has been following Armed and Safe for any length of time is probably aware that one of my favorite projects is exposing the Brady Campaign's lies. One of the best examples of those lies comes in a video segment they shot of Dennis Henigan, their Vice President for Law and Policy.

This was right after Shelly Parker won her case in the D.C. Court of Appeals (in the case that eventually went on to become the District of Columbia v. Heller case). At that time, the Brady Campaign was still desperately clinging to their now badly discredited "collective rights" interpretation of the Second Amendment. So desperate were they, in fact, that when reciting the Second Amendment in the video clip, Henigan simply omitted the "of the people" part--realizing, apparently, that they can't claim a right of the people is not really . . . of the people.

The Brady Campaign must have thought no one would notice, because they proudly displayed the video on their website, and posted it to YouTube. Eventually, though, gun rights advocates noticed it--and we made some noise (I'd like to think I made a difference with my efforts on that front).

That's when the Brady Campaign realized they'd messed up, and decided to try to sweep this embarrassment under the rug. They pulled that page from their website (Gone!), and they pulled it off YouTube (Vanished!).

When I started posting it, they bullied the video hosting services with threats of copyright infringement action. That happened on YouTube, Photobucket (which also does video hosting), Metacafe, here on Blogspot, etc., despite the fact that this use would pretty clearly fall under "Fair Use" guidelines.

Last month, I tried posting just 15 seconds of audio, and even that was supposedly a violation of their "intellectual property."

Last week, I had another idea, and using Thirdpower's screen capture (I had one of my own, but stupidly saved it at a low resolution) of the Brady Campaign's now-removed webpage with the transcript of Henigan's little video, was still able to point out the breathtaking lack of integrity.

Still, nothing really hits home like the video, and I really wanted to be able to post that. Luckily, Shaun, at ICarry, had gotten hold of the video file, is always spoiling for a fight with groups like the Brady Bunch, likes keeping his lawyer busy, and has the ability to host his own videos.

So . . . voilà! Video hosted by ICarry.org

Just in case even Shaun gets pushed into taking it down, I suggest downloading the video while you can. Let's take this thing viral.

Update: Look who stopped by for a look! See anything interesting, Brady Bunch?
(Click to enlarge)

The right to keep and bear arms is not based on 'sporting purposes'

The fatal flaw, of course, with using the "sporting purpose" test to determine a gun's suitability for private ownership by the people, is that the Founding Fathers did not devote 10% of the Bill of Rights to the protection of sport. The forcible citizen disarmament lobby demonizes whatever is the "evil" gun du jour as being an "weapon of war," while utterly disregarding the fact that the Second Amendment is intended specifically to protect the citizenry's right to possess such arms.

I'll end with a line that I first saw attributed to the late Lt. Colonel Jeff Cooper, but have been unable to establish that it was actually he who said it. Regardless, it's a line worthy of him: [More]

That's today's St. Louis Gun Rights Examiner, and yeah--I deliberately left ya' hanging, so you'd have to go to the GRE page to read the (maybe) Jeff Cooper quote. Sneaky, eh?