Second Amendment Issues

February 28, 2008 By Leave a Comment

Concealed Carry on the University of Tennessee Campus

Tennessee Journalist

Read the opinion piece by Ashley Cerasaro on the Tennessee Journalist.

I made a couple of comments in response to comments by “anti-gun nuts” as well.

Sa commented, on February 27, 2008 at 12:33 a.m.:

With more guns circulating campuses, I will definitely feel less safe than I do now. Young people can get angry fast and some often lose their patience right away, so I do not want to know what happens when those people have a little killer in their pocket.

I just wish the whole gun situation would be completely different in the U.S. In Europe, where guns have been banned for who knows how many years, school shootings or daily shootings are almost non-existent. As long as people here do not realize that no problem can be solved as long as everybody can get a gun as easily as getting a tattoo, there will be more killings, more deaths, and more parents crying over lost ones. I just hope none of them are supporters of guns.

I guess bills such as these quickly pulls this country back to the Wild West.

My Comment #1:

It never ceases to amaze me how these “anti-gun nuts” … who are against law-abiding, legal, concealed-carry permit holding adults exercising their Second Amendment rights to defend themselves from armed assailants … always have to resort to highly emotional, Quentin Tarrantino style, non-fact based, hypothetical worst case scenarios to argue their side.

They continue to do this in spite the fact that the preponderance of statistical evidence points the other way. I guess “anti-gun nuts” strive to “never let the facts get in the way of a good story.”

Bob commented, on February 27, 2008 at 6:11 p.m.:

And as we speak – 4 shot dead in bristol…

My Comment #2:

And … while that is tragic, taking guns from responsible concealed-carry permit holders would not have stopped that criminal in Bristol from shooting those 4 poor people.

A survey conducted in 1993 by Florida State University criminologist, Dr. Gary Kleck, and his colleague, Dr, Marc Gertz, shows that American civilians commonly use their privately-owned firearms each year to defend themselves against criminal attacks, and that such defensive uses significantly outnumber the criminal uses of firearms in America.

The survey shows that American civilians use their firearms as often as 2.5 million times every year defending themselves during a confrontation with an armed criminal, and that handguns alone account for up to 1.9 million defenses per year.

Dr. Gary Kleck is the author of “Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America.”

ParatrooperJJ commented, on February 28, 2008 at 10:25 a.m.:

Virginia also allows concealed carry at universities.

My Comment #3:

Actually, Virginia does not! In January of 2006, the Virginia General Assembly shot down a proposal to allow concealed-carry holders to legally carry concealed firearms on campus. Tragically, this was not too long before the awful massacre occurred.

It is also interesting to point out that Jason Kenneth Hamilton, the man responsible for the deadly shooting spree in Moscow, Idaho, was a card-carrying Aryan Nations member and had an extensive criminal history in Idaho, Arizona, California and Oklahoma, including arrests for violent crimes, domestic battery and drugs.

To illustrate how well “strict” gun control laws work, it should also be noted that Jason Hamilton was licensed by the federal government to possess fully automatic weapons, including a military-style machine gun and also had a concealed weapons permit in Latah County, despite a domestic violence conviction that should have barred him from owning guns.

Relying on the police, state law, and the federal government to protect you is an exercise in futility. Strict gun laws are broken every day by criminals, and criminals do sometimes squeak through background checks because the agencies performing them fail to use due diligence.

Only “you” have the ability to truly protect yourself or your loved-ones, that was one of the driving forces behind the Second Amendment.

Those who argue that the Constitution is out-dated (usually meaning … the Second Amendment) fail to understand that if the second Amendment can be called out-dated, the same argument can be made by someone else for any of the other amendments. If one fails, then they all fail!

News from the Second Amendment Foundation

Second Amendment Foundation

SAF FILES AMICUS BRIEF IN D.C. GUN BAN CASE BEFORE SUPREME COURT

For Immediate Release: 2/13/2008

BELLEVUE, WA – The Second Amendment Foundation has filed an amicus curiae brief in District of Columbia v Heller, the appeal of the landmark case that overturned the district’s handgun ban on the grounds that it unconstitutionally violates the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.

Written by attorney Nelson Lund at the George Mason University School of Law, the brief has already earned praise of veteran Second Amendment authority David Kopel, who noted in remarks on a popular Second Amendment website, “If you want to read a model Supreme Court brief, this is the brief to read.”

In the brief, Lund notes that the Second Amendment right of the people to keep and bear arms would remain even if the militia were disbanded.

“Our 48-page brief is tightly written, and it refutes the contentions by anti-gunners that the Second Amendment only protects some right of the states to maintain militias,” said SAF founder Alan Gottlieb. “The brief, which can be read on our website at www.saf.org, gets right to the heart of this case. We also note that the opposition arguments are absurd, and explain why.”

SAF’s brief further reminds the court that “In liberal theory, the most fundamental of all rights is the right of self defense.” It also notes that ‘the people’ referred to in the Second Amendment “has always been a much larger body of individuals than the militia.”

“Congress cannot abolish this constitutional right of the people by abolishing the militia,” notes Lund in the brief. “Neither can the right be limited to contexts in which its exercise contributes to the functioning of an organized militia that Congress is not even required to maintain.”

“While anti-gun extremists are beating drums about the downfall of civilization if the high court upholds the individual right,” Gottlieb stated, “we believe that the time has come for the Second Amendment to take its place as the Constitution’s insurance policy against tyranny and as our guardian against unjust laws that leave us defenseless against a growing criminal element.”

The Second Amendment Foundation is the nation’s oldest and largest tax-exempt education, research, publishing and legal action group focusing on the Constitutional right and heritage to privately own and possess firearms. Founded in 1974, The Foundation has grown to more than 600,000 members and supporters and conducts many programs designed to better inform the public about the consequences of gun control.

The Second Amendment Foundation (www.saf.org) is the nations oldest and largest tax-exempt education, research, publishing and legal action group focusing on the Constitutional right and heritage to privately own and possess firearms. Founded in 1974, The Foundation has grown to more than 600,000 members and supporters and conducts many programs designed to better inform the public about the consequences of gun control. SAF has previously funded successful firearms-related suits against the cities of Los Angeles; New Haven, CT; and San Francisco on behalf of American gun owners, a lawsuit against the cities suing gun makers and an amicus brief and fund for the Emerson case holding the Second Amendment as an individual right.

Gun Free Zones

Omaha shooting another failure of ‘gun free zones’

Shopping malls should be as safe as public schools and university campuses, and the outrage that unfolded at the Westroads mall in Omaha, Nebraska proves they are, thanks to the monumentally stupid proliferation of so-called “gun free zones.”

These victim disarmament zones are the handiwork of extremist gun control fanatics and their soulmates in state legislatures who created these loopholes in right-to-carry statutes across the country. Instead of providing areas of presumed safety where nobody is supposed to have a firearm, gun free zones are nothing more than risk-free environments where every criminal and lunatic with an axe to grind or a desire to become famous can stack up a quick body count with little concern about resistance from an armed citizen.

Nineteen-year-old gunman Robert A. Hawkins had no intention of surviving his bloody rampage. Despite what the gun control camp will argue, there is no way to prevent a person from committing a violent act when he is willing to die in the process. Hawkins, who had a criminal record, could not legally possess a firearm but he evidently stole the murder weapon, a semi-automatic rifle, from his stepfather.

If there is a true outrage in this incident, it is the prohibition of legally concealed firearms at Westroads Mall. One hell of a lot of good that prohibition did for Hawkins’ eight victims. Undoubtedly such bans make anti-gunners – who fought bitterly and hysterically against passage of a concealed carry law in Nebraska – feel good about themselves, but the reality is that such prohibitions cost lives.

In our new book, America Fights Back: Armed Self-Defense in a Violent Age, we detail the failures of gun-free zones, and how their only “contribution” has been to raise homicide statistics that gun control proponents can use in their ceaseless campaign to deprive law-abiding citizens of their gun rights.

Recall the Trolley Square shooting in Salt Lake City earlier this year, or the 2005 shooting at the mall in Tacoma, Washington. The shooters in both of those incidents were stopped by people with guns. In Salt Lake City, an off-duty policeman from another jurisdiction happened to be in the mall with his wife, essentially as a private citizen. Fortunately, officer Kenneth Hammond ignored the “no guns” signs at Trolley Square and had his pistol. He traded shots with Sulejman Talovic, sending the gunman running for cover until uniformed officers arrived and killed Talovic.

In Tacoma, gunman Dominick Maldonado was confronted by a courageous armed citizen named Brendon McKown. Although Maldonado seriously wounded McKown, he quickly stopped shooting and ultimately surrendered to police. The Tacoma Mall also prohibits firearms.

Remember Luke Woodham, who shot up Mississippi’s Pearl High School in 1997? His rampage was stopped by Assistant Principal Joel Myrick, who had rushed to his car to retrieve a .45-caliber pistol. Myrick aimed the gun at Woodham’s head and held him until police arrived.

In January 2002, gunman Peter Odighizuwa, who had just murdered three people on the campus of the Appalachian School of Law in Grundy, Virginia was confronted by two armed students who had rushed to their cars to retrieve handguns. He dropped his gun and was wrestled to the ground.

Unfortunately, at Virginia Tech this year, there were no armed students or teachers to interrupt Seung-Hui Cho before he killed 32 defenseless people. Sadly, nobody ignored the ridiculous prohibition at Westroads Mall in Omaha.

The strategy of gun control extremists is to rob people of their right of self-defense by stripping them of the tools to defend themselves. They alone are responsible for the gun free zone loophole that leaves us all vulnerable to this kind of senseless attack, and it is time that America tell these fools that we’ve had enough.

Alan Gottlieb is founder of the Second Amendment Foundation (www.saf.org) and Dave Workman is senior editor of Gun Week (www.gunweek.com). They are authors of America Fights Back: Armed Self-defense in a Violent Age, published by Merril Press.

Ted Nugent Speaks Out!

Ted Nugent Speaks!

WACO, Texas (CNN) — Zero tolerance, huh? Gun-free zones, huh? Try this on for size: Columbine gun-free zone, New York City pizza shop gun-free zone, Luby’s Cafeteria gun-free zone, Amish school in Pennsylvania gun-free zone and now Virginia Tech gun-free zone.

Anybody see what the evil Brady Campaign and other anti-gun cults have created? I personally have zero tolerance for evil and denial. And America had best wake up real fast that the brain-dead celebration of unarmed helplessness will get you killed every time, and I’ve about had enough of it.

Nearly a decade ago, a Springfield, Oregon, high schooler, a hunter familiar with firearms, was able to bring an unfolding rampage to an abrupt end when he identified a gunman attempting to reload his .22-caliber rifle, made the tactical decision to make a move and tackled the shooter.

A few years back, an assistant principal at Pearl High School in Mississippi, which was a gun-free zone, retrieved his legally owned Colt .45 from his car and stopped a Columbine wannabe from continuing his massacre at another school after he had killed two and wounded more at Pearl.

At an eighth-grade school dance in Pennsylvania, a boy fatally shot a teacher and wounded two students before the owner of the dance hall brought the killing to a halt with his own gun.

More recently, just a few miles up the road from Virginia Tech, two law school students ran to fetch their legally owned firearm to stop a madman from slaughtering anybody and everybody he pleased. These brave, average, armed citizens neutralized him pronto.

My hero, Dr. Suzanne Gratia Hupp, was not allowed by Texas law to carry her handgun into Luby’s Cafeteria that fateful day in 1991, when due to bureaucrat-forced unarmed helplessness she could do nothing to stop satanic George Hennard from killing 23 people and wounding more than 20 others before he shot himself. Hupp was unarmed for no other reason than denial-ridden “feel good” politics.

She has since led the charge for concealed weapon upgrade in Texas, where we can now stop evil. Yet, there are still the mindless puppets of the Brady Campaign and other anti-gun organizations insisting on continuing the gun-free zone insanity by which innocents are forced into unarmed helplessness. Shame on them. Shame on America. Shame on the anti-gunners all.

No one was foolish enough to debate Ryder truck regulations or ammonia nitrate restrictions or a “cult of agriculture fertilizer” following the unabashed evil of Timothy McVeigh’s heinous crime against America on that fateful day in Oklahoma City. No one faulted kitchen utensils or other hardware of choice after Jeffrey Dahmer was caught drugging, mutilating, raping, murdering and cannibalizing his victims. Nobody wanted “steak knife control” as they autopsied the dead nurses in Chicago, Illinois, as Richard Speck went on trial for mass murder.

Evil is as evil does, and laws disarming guaranteed victims make evil people very, very happy. Shame on us.

Already spineless gun control advocates are squawking like chickens with their tiny-brained heads chopped off, making political hay over this most recent, devastating Virginia Tech massacre, when in fact it is their own forced gun-free zone policy that enabled the unchallenged methodical murder of 32 people.

Thirty-two people dead on a U.S. college campus pursuing their American Dream, mowed-down over an extended period of time by a lone, non-American gunman in possession of a firearm on campus in defiance of a zero-tolerance gun ban. Feel better yet? Didn’t think so.

Who doesn’t get this? Who has the audacity to demand unarmed helplessness? Who likes dead good guys?

I’ll tell you who. People who tramp on the Second Amendment, that’s who. People who refuse to accept the self-evident truth that free people have the God-given right to keep and bear arms, to defend themselves and their loved ones. People who are so desperate in their drive to control others, so mindless in their denial that they pretend access to gas causes arson, Ryder trucks and fertilizer cause terrorism, water causes drowning, forks and spoons cause obesity, dialing 911 will somehow save your life, and that their greedy clamoring to “feel good” is more important than admitting that armed citizens are much better equipped to stop evil than unarmed, helpless ones.

Pray for the families of victims everywhere, America. Study the methodology of evil. It has a profile, a system, a preferred environment where victims cannot fight back. Embrace the facts, demand upgrade and be certain that your children’s school has a better plan than Virginia Tech or Columbine. Eliminate the insanity of gun-free zones, which will never, ever be gun-free zones. They will only be good guy gun-free zones, and that is a recipe for disaster written in blood on the altar of denial. I, for one, refuse to genuflect there.

You tell em … Ted!

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Guns, Kids, Medics and the Left

February 18, 2008 By 1 Comment

I found this post on a blog by Cap’n Bob & the Damsel and thought it was pretty interesting. I got his permission to copy it here and have included a link to the Cap’n Bob blog. Enjoy!

Certain pediatricians now employ the practice of asking kids if “Daddy has a gun,” and, if the answer is “yes,” they follow-up with questions about weapons in the home – legitimate or not. I infer from this that they must think children with gun-owning parents have some sort of health risk.

Let’s consider some numbers:

In the U.S. in 2003, there were 28 accidental gunshot deaths among 10 year old or younger children. There were an estimated 90 million gun owners and about 277 million guns nationwide at that time. There also were 40 million (or so) kids under the age of 10 in 2003. So actually a small percentage of children were killed or about 0.00007 percent (1 child for every 1.4 million) – still way too many, but a small percentage. This also translates that only one gun out of every 100 million guns was involved in the death of a child that year.

warthog

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1400 kids are killed yearly by automobile accidents, either as passengers or as pedestrians. Why not ask if Daddy owns a car? 90 kids are drowned in bathtubs annually – should we put locks on tubs? Space heaters, swimming pools, bicycles, toxic cleaning agents, skateboards and a host of other common articles are factors in child fatalities. When you add all these “health” risks together, the health risk of a gun in the household is not only dwarfed, but practically eliminated. Why not ask about other known-to-be-dangerous items?

Kids are not so much at risk from guns as they are from parents with habitual substance abuse, violent criminal records, domestic violence and such. Pediatricians should zero in on whether children have parents who are people who would use guns violently, not if “Daddy has a gun.”

Of course anti-gun fanatics and leftists are arithmetically challenged, preferring hyperbole to statistics. Crusading for children, it seems, is a favorite ploy by the left, except when it comes to crusading for abortion wherein children are intentionally killed for the sake of “health” or “convenience.”

Interview your health professionals (after all, they work for you) and see if they have an anti-gun agenda – if they do, FIRE THEM!

And OBTW (oh, by the way) if the country goes to a national health care system, certain anti-gun politicians (Hillary!) will assign a health professional(?) to you – you will have NO choice in the matter, since free trade and competition are the enemies of socialism.

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Clinton & Obama Wage War On Law-Abiding American Citizens!

February 18, 2008 By 14 Comments

You would expect that, in America, if a violent criminal broke into your home with the intent of robbing or killing you, our government would defend your right to defend yourself. You might also expect that our police would arrest that criminal, our criminal system would prosecute and sentence that criminal, and then our prison system would lock him up. But, unfortunately, that is simply not the case.

Home Invasions

Thousands of armed, violent foreign criminals are crossing our borders and entering our country. According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, more than 595, 000 criminal aliens have crossed our borders into America and they are still here. These criminals are not immigrants working hard to make a living for their families. These criminals are violent and deal in drugs, human trafficking, prostitution, grand larceny, brutal attacks, rape, murder, and vendetta killings of anyone who stands in their way. They may even be smuggling terrorists across our borders.

To make matters worse, Federal prosecutors can’t even deport them if they come from certain countries. It seems that we have laws on our books that prohibit the deportation of violent criminals to countries that do not have an extradition treaty with the U.S.; … this includes countries like Iran, a known exporter of criminals and terrorists. … El Salvador, which refuses to take back ultra-violent MS-13 gang members, … and others like Cuba, Jamaica, and Nigeria

MS-13

Someday, hopefully, our government may wake up and pass a real and comprehensive illegal immigration bill and take real steps to secure our borders … but don’t hold your breath! It won’t happen under the current administration and it definitely will not happen under a Clinton or Obama administration.

Politicians like Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Chuck Schumer, Dianne Feinstein, and Ted Kennedy believe that the answer to the criminal alien problem is taking away your right, under the Second Amendment, to defend yourself with a firearm.

Schumer, Feinstein, Kerry, Kennedy

Clinton, Obama, and Kennedy work to block “Castle Doctrine” laws that protect your right to defend your home and family with a firearm. They work to oppose laws that give you the right to carry, and they work to prevent a nationwide law that validates your right-to-carry permit in every state. They even support efforts to give local officials the power to confiscate your guns in time of emergency.

That, my friends, is purely and simply, a violation of our constitutional rights as Americans … and … pure insanity!

After Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans officials went door-to-door confiscating guns from law-abiding citizens, leaving them defenseless while the 9-1-1 system was down and useless, and violent criminals, including known criminal aliens, were running rampant.

1775 & 2005

Hillary Clinton’s answer was to be one of the sixteen Senators who voted to allow the government to come into our homes and confiscate our guns. Somehow she always manages to turn violent crime perpetrated by criminals into an argument for taking guns away from law-abiding citizens … but has she ever taken tough action against criminals, or criminal aliens? Of course not!

In the seven years Hillary Clinton has been a Senator, she has not supported one piece of legislation to put criminal aliens, and other violent criminals behind bars. When it comes to criminals, the only bill she has sponsored was a bill to restore voting rights to pedophiles, rapists, murders, robbers, and other violent felons.

And New York Governor Elliott Spitzer who, like Hillary Clinton, has done nothing to take violent criminals off the street … joins Hillary Clinton in this lunacy. His get tough on crime answer is to give them driver’s licenses!

In the 40 states where law-abiding citizens have the right to carry, crime has dropped, and citizens have the means to protect themselves from criminal aliens … but not in New York!

Right to Carry Map

And if Barack Obama gets his way … not in Illinois either. When Obama was a State Senator, he sponsored a bill requiring law-abiding citizens to appear before a police chief to receive permission to purchase a gun. Obama also served on the board of directors of the Joyce Foundation, a rabid anti-gun money machine.

Obama, Schumer, Clinton, Kennedy, and Feinstein are all the same. Anti-gun politicians always pretend they can’t hear you when you ask about violent criminals and criminal laws. But with over 595,000 violent criminals already in the country, these anti-American, gun-hating politicians are actually putting American lives in danger.

Of the 595,000 foreign criminals roaming our streets, the Federal government says that approximately 226,000 have previous U.S. convictions. They average 13 prior arrests … the majority of the crimes involving shocking acts of violence and depravity.

In 2006 alone, a frightening 26,000 criminal aliens attempting to enter our country were linked to violent crimes previously committed on U.S. soil. And what was their punishment? Border agents have no power to arrest them under current law, so they send them home … giving these dangerous criminals another chance to sneak into our country to commit further crimes against Americans.

Today, we are confronting the most dangerous criminals to ever enter our homeland. Our borders can’t stop them. Our prosecutors can’t try them, and our laws say we can’t put them away for good in U.S. prisons. All we can do is send them back home, leaving them free to re-enter our country and commit more heinous crimes. And … these politicians want to leave law-abiding Americans like you and me disarmed and defenseless against their violence.

I say that a politician, or a government, that values the rights of illegal immigrants and violent criminals more than the rights of its law-abiding citizens, and actively works to suppress the rights of citizens affirmed and guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution, does not have a legitimate right to be in power and may, in fact, be guilty of crimes against the citizens of this country … including treason! And … in fact, Hillary Clinton, and her philandering husband Bill, have been associated with criminal activities and “mysterious” deaths since their days in the Governor’s mansion in Arkansas.

Obama Is No Patriot!

These left –wing, secular-progressive liberal democrats are working to make over 80 million law-abiding Americans … outlaws … with their unconstitutional assault on American rights and American sovereignty. That may truly end up being a grave mistake on their part!

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Calm Down People

February 15, 2008 By Leave a Comment

By now we know that 18 people have been injured and reports are saying 5 dead in a shooting at Northern Illinois University. Ok … people calm down and take a few deep breaths. Got it under control now? Good. Let’s calmly think this over. So an individual walked into a lecture hall which can hold up to 200 people, armed with a shotgun and pistol, and opened fire.

Now I can hear the speeches already by certain “liberal” politicians who are seeking office, they will say something along the lines of “This is a great tragedy and my heart goes out to all of the people who are affected by this event.” (or something along those lines) They might even take the time to express their support for increased handgun legislation, or put forward a plan of their own that they would promise to implement as soon as they get elected. However, I am a college student, I am familiar with these type of lecture halls, and I know that If a person walked into a lecture hall on my campus and started opening fire one person from any point in that hall has an almost perfect shot to another part of that hall, so if that one person was a licensed handgun carrier and was allowed to carry on campus, then that person could help to stop a shooter before he injured many people.

As a counter to the “liberal” outburst I foresee, I would throw my support behind a Congressional bill that makes it legal for any college student, or employee to carry their legally licensed firearm on campus. As a method of enforcement, if there is a school that ignores this new law then Congress should then have the power to withdraw Federal funding from this school. I am tired of “liberals” screaming about their constitutional rights and the supposed rights of the Guantanamo detainees while ignoring the rights of actual US Citizens.  I should be able to exercise my right to defend myself, and my friends the right to defend themselves, without having to worry about getting kicked out of school for exercising our basic Constitutional rights.

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Another Reason To End U.S. Support For The United Nations

February 11, 2008 By 2 Comments

While Rebecca Peters and the United Nations work diligently to trample the Second Amendment Rights of free American citizens, they also turn their backs on the abused Karamojong tribesmen in Uganda fighting a brutal dictatorship to keep their only means of self-defense and survival.

Under the guise of stopping arms related human rights violations, international gun ban groups are working hard to push an Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) through the United Nations. They argue that this treaty is needed because arms are often used as a tool to violate human rights.

This is true, but more often than not, the violations are perpetrated by the governments … not the citizens! The Burmese government, a military dictatorship, has been torturing and killing Buddhist monks and other pro-rights activists. Burma, by the way, has a strict gun control law dating back to 1951. The Burmese president can ban any gun by fiat, and any person caught possessing a banned gun is presumed guilty of high treason … and must prove his innocence.

Anti-Semitic UN

What the anti-gun media won’t tell you, however, is that an important goal of the Arms Trade Treaty is an international ban on the sale of arms, including components for making guns to Israel … a steadfast and long time American ally.

Nor does the anti-gun media point out that another target of the ATT is the United States … because our gun and self-defense laws are, according the UN Human Rights Commissions, a violation of international human rights. According to the UN, allowing a woman to save herself from rape by shooting the rapist is a human rights violation.

However, the most glaring omission by the anti-gun media is its complete silence about how the gun control agenda itself has so often been used as a tool and a means to violate human rights.

In the borderlands of Uganda, where cattle rustlers have become a serious problem, the Karamojong tribesmen have learned, the hard way, that cows and guns are equally indispensable – a gun needs to be readily accessible in order to protect their cattle herds.

Yoweri Museveni

Controlled by Ugandan strongman, Yoweri Museveni, the UPDF (an acronym for the wildly inaccurate title of Ugandan Peoples Defense Forces) has, at the urging of the United nations, commenced what anti-gun-lobbies euphemistically call “forced disarmament.” These “forced disarmament” techniques include rape, torture, killing, and the systematic looting and destruction of Karamojong homes.

So … let me see … according to some at the UN … and global gun-ban movements like Amnesty International, Control Arms, Oxfam and IANSA … the raping, torturing, killing and looting perpetrated by the UPFD is somehow not a violation of human rights … but the American woman who shoots a rapist to save herself from being raped is somehow violating human rights … go figure!

The UN’s new service did eventually admit, in May of 2007, that efforts to “forcibly disarm” about 20 million pastoralists in the Horn of Africa, who possess an estimated 5 million firearms, have failed … and that forcible disarmament has been an abject failure.

Karamojong Tribesman

The few UN personnel who have reported on the gross human rights abuses perpetrated by the government and the UPDF in Uganda’s gun control campaign deserve, at least, some respect. However … Amnesty International, Control Arms, Oxfam and IANSA each remain strangely silent about the issue … even though each group was hand delivered a report on the abuses at the UN gun control conference in July of 2007.

In the meantime, the UPDF continues its human rights violations of killing, rape, torture, looting, and destruction … all in the name of gun control … not only in Uganda, but now … also in Karamojong regions of Kenya.

If the true purpose of the proposed Arms Trade Treaty is protect human rights … rather than set the stage for arms embargoes against the U.S. and its ally, Israel … the ATT will need to address the problem of arms possessed by armies like the UPDF and the Burmese government, and the many human rights atrocities they commit in the name of gun control.

Cahrlton Heston

It does not seem likely that a single Karamojong man, woman or child has ever heard of former NRA President Charlton Heston … yet somehow they certainly seem to share in his sentiment: From my cold, dead hands.”

How does the United Nations justify human rights atrocities committed under the auspices of its “forced disarmament” international gun control policies and its anti-semitic policies …. and where does it think it derives the authority to take away the rights of American citizens under our own U.S. Constitution.

It is just another example of the corruption and pandering of the UN to anti-American agendas. It is time for the UN to go … the $3 billion a year the U.S. (the largest contribution of any member nation) is constantly being used against American interests … and would certainly be better spent somewhere else!

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UT Student Speaks Out For Concealed Carry Permits on Campus

February 3, 2008 By Leave a Comment

University of Tennessee

Due to recurring attacks on UT’s campus, I have become concerned about people’s overall safety while on campus. So I come to the community to push for the legalization of handgun carry on our campus.

When I interviewed people around campus and off campus, they seemed to recognize the dangers of campus life and armed robbery. One person who asked not to be identified said, “UT police need to put their big girl panties on and hire more officers.” Then he went on to support the idea of handguns on campus.

As I was interviewing people, 55 percent of them were for handguns on school property, but the person had to have a handgun carrying permit. Another lady who also wanted to be unnamed went on to say, “I want people to carry, but the gun safety course is a must. My sons went through the course and it gave them a new-found respect for firearms.”

Then there was the other 45 percent that I interviewed who very bluntly said they were against handguns on campus. Yet, as I talked to them, I began to realize that they were lacking in things to back up why they felt so strongly about handguns on school property. There was another guy who actually got really offended and actually only said, “Guns should never be part of school.”

This close-minded way of thinking towards guns on the school campus leaves students unable to defend themselves if they felt the need or desire to carry. The idea of this letter is to invoke a change of mindset and to get people to question why they fear guns.

It’s not the guns that are dangerous; it’s the person holding it. With a handgun carrying permit, this is addressed by teaching the gun owner the proper respect needed to handle a gun in a public setting. Along with this training, they do a 90-day federal background check on that person’s history, checking for mental illness or crimes.

My handgun carrying permit instructor pointed out something very eye-catching and that is the fact that a person is less likely to go to a place where he knows someone else has a gun. By not being able to carry on the campus with a permit, the campus then becomes a prime place to attack someone, because those people who are going to do the crime obviously do not follow the campus guidelines for guns.

So I would just like to ask people who read this to question why they are for or against guns on campus and to ask themselves how they would feel if their friend or family member had a permit and couldn’t carry and then got robbed, shot or killed.

Johnathan Haley Lynch

Sophomore in finance

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Clinton, Obama, UN, Verichips, and Australia!

January 24, 2008 By 24 Comments

Sorry to be away for a few days. I have been slammed at work. Anyway … here is just a few random thoughts:

Hillary Clinton & Barack Obama

If anyone out there in voter land truly believes that either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama are supporters of your Second Amendment rights … it is time to wake up and smell the bull#&@$!!

The “Clinton Political Machine” is in the pocket of radical progressive left-wing billionaire George Soros, and good friends with anti-Second Amendment political activist Andrew McKelvey. McKelvey is the money man behind several radical anti-Second Amendment groups that hide behind innocuous names like “Americans for Gun Safety” and “Third Way.” Their recent ploy, having learned that the term “gun control” has become too loaded, is to focus the issue around common sense sounding terms like “gun safety” and “smart gun laws.”

Gun owners can remember the barrage of attacks we come under while President Clinton was in office … and our “newly professed” friend of the Second Amendment, Hillary Clinton, voted in support of one of the most egregious violations of Second Amendment rights in this country’s history … the confiscation at gunpoint, by rogue New Orléans police officers, of the firearms of honest, law-abiding citizens seeking only to protect their homes in the chaotic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina while crimes like murder, looting, and rape were rampant … and police protection was no where to be found! Who in the heck does she think she’s fooling?

And what about Barack Obama? Obama voted in favor of mug-shots and fingerprints for law-abiding gun owners and against a bill that would have provided an affirmative defense for homeowners forced to use a firearm to protect themselves and their families during a home invasion or burglary.

However, more indicative of his stance on the Second Amendment is the fact that he served on the 10-member board of directors for the radical anti-gun money machine, the Joyce Foundation.

If either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama are elected President of the United States, you can be sure that the future of the Second Amendment will be imperiled by a new barrage of anti-gun laws written by George Soros, Rebecca Peters, and maybe even Rosie O’Donnell.

But … what really “frosts my cookies” is the attempt by Rebecca Peters and the global gun ban movement to use the United Nations as a vehicle to trample American rights under the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The UN has no right of sovereignty over American citizens … and has proven itself to be a corrupt and inept organization riddled with scandal. The UN should be disbanded. Any financial support of the UN by the United States is a waste of our tax dollars and ending it would go along ways toward easing the financial burdens on the American tax payer … to the tune of about $3 billion a year (based on 2004′s contribution).

And yes …. absolutely … we must secure and control our borders! We must know who is crossing into our country … that is simply common sense. If we need immigrant farm workers or other labor … issue a temporary worker’s ID. Let them come here, work, pay taxes, and go home. Let them apply for legal citizenship if they so choose … but they should choose to become Americans!

Issuing a temporary worker’s ID is, however, a long long way from a “verichip” being planted in every American’s hand! There will never, and I repeat … never, be a “verichip” planted in my arm! I will not bow down to the UN … or a global New World Order government … or even a corrupted non-Constitutional American government! I am an American … free … and proud of it. My ancestors fought in the French & Indian War, the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, the Spanish American War, and World War II, and an uncle served in Vietnam. I came from a long line of American patriots. They can take away my rights only after they “pry my gun from my cold dead fingers!”

Australian Flag

God … I love those Australians. They have balls! What happened to Americans with balls like that?

Here is what I am talking about:

Quote by Australian Prime Minister Howard:

  • “We have a right to know whether there is, within any section of the Islamic
    community, a preaching of the virtues of terrorism, whether any comfort or harbour is given to terrorism within that community.”

And here are two quotes from Australian Treasurer Peter Costello:

  • “… this is a country, which is founded on a democracy. According to our Constitution, we have a secular state. Our laws are made by the Australian Parliament. If those are not your values, if you want a country which has Sharia law or a theocratic state, then Australia is not for you. This is not the kind of country where you would feel comfortable if you were opposed to democracy, parliamentary law, independent courts and so I would say to people who don’t feel comfortable with those values there might be other countries where they’d feel more comfortable with their own values or beliefs.”
  • “… clerics who are teaching that there are two laws governing people in Australia, one the Australian law and another the Islamic law, that that is false. It’s not the situation in Australia. It’s not the situation under our Constitution. There’s only one law in Australia. It’s the law that’s made by the Parliament of Australia and enforced by our courts. There’s no second law. There’s only one law that applies in Australia and Australia expects its citizens to observe it.”

And lastly, a few quotes from Education Minister Dr. Brendan Nelson:

  • “If you want to be an Australian, if you want to raise your children in Australia, we fully expect those children to be taught and to accept Australian values and beliefs,”
  • “We want them to understand our history and our culture, the extent to which we
    believe in mateship and giving another person a fair go, and basically if people don’t want to support and accept and adopt and teach Australian values then, they should clear off.”

God Bless Those Australians!!!!

Now, if they could just get their act together on their draconian gun control laws!!

 

This is America … folks … the land of liberty! If you want to immigrate here … fine … we welcome you as long as you do it legally!

You need to understand our history, our values, our love of freedom and liberty, what it means to be an American … and adopt those values as your own! You can still maintain your own culture and history as well … worship as you please … but, understand, I have, and will protect, the right to do the same.

However, be warned … if you come here to change us … to undermine us … and not to become productive American citizens; … if you are uncomfortable with democracy, liberty, personal responsibility and respecting the rights of others, if you fear freedom of speech, and the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, then by all means, please feel free to “clear off!”

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Fred Thompson Accuses Bush Administration in Second Amendment Court Case

January 17, 2008 By 5 Comments

This post is an overview of an article on RedState, a conservative blog site. A link to RedState can be found on my blogroll under My Favorites.

The article starts by stating that gun rights advocates were “understandably dismayed” by the brief the Bush Administration’s Justice Department submitted in District of Columbia v. Heller. Being a gun owner, I am understandably dismayed as well. This is the biggest Second Amendment case to be argued since 1939.

The Department of Justice’s brief called for a remanding of the case for the reconsideration of D.C.’s gun laws under a “less demanding” constitutional standard. Given the Bush Administration’s stated support for an “individual rights” view of the Second Amendment, I too would find it “incomprehensible” that the Bush Administration would not support the D.C. Circuit Court’s decision holding that Washington, D.C.’s draconian gun restrictions are unconstitutional.

Although I certainly agree that the Department of Justice’s brief is a potentially unwelcome development in the 2008 Presidential race, I do not really think it will have much effect on American gun owners’ support for at least two of the GOP candidates.

I think Fred Thompson’s position on the Second Amendment is crystal clear to everyone:

“I strongly support the Second Amendment of the Constitution, which protects an individual’s right to keep and bear arms. Gun control is touted as a major crime-control measure. But some of the places with the strictest gun-control laws also have high violent-crime rates. Disarming law-abiding citizens does not prevent crime. The answer to violent crime is smart, effective, and aggressive law enforcement. The real effect of these gun-control measures is to place onerous restrictions on law-abiding citizens who use firearms for such legal activities as self-defense, sport shooting, hunting, and collecting.”

I am committed to strictly enforcing existing laws and severely punishing violent criminals and protecting the rights individual Americans enjoy under the Second Amendment.

Fred Thompson also asks:

“How is it that one man with two handguns could reload time & time again, and go from classroom to classroom on the Virginia Tech campus without being stopped. Much of the answer can be found in policies put in place by the university itself.”

“Virginia allows citizens with training and legal permits to carry concealed weapons. That means that Virginians regularly sit in movie theaters and eat in restaurants among armed citizens.”

“The statistics are clear. Communities that recognize and grant Second Amendment rights to responsible adults have a significantly lower incidence of violent crime than those that do not. Incarcerated criminals tell criminologists that they consider local gun laws when they decide what sort of crime they will commit, and where they will do so.”

“But Virginia Tech administrators overrode Virginia state law and threatened to expel or fire anybody who brings a weapon onto campus. Those “Gun-free Zone” signs don’t mean much to the sort of man who murdered 32 people.”

And … although I personally have some other issues with Mike Huckabee as a candidate, his position on gun control is also pretty clear:

“My position on the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution is as clear for me as the position held by most journalists toward the 1st Amendment. While I do not consider myself a “gun nut,” I proudly own a variety of firearms and enjoy hunting as well as sports shooting. But even if I were not a hunter or did not enjoy shooting, I would still be a firm believer in the 2nd Amendment right of Americans to own firearms for self-protection and as a matter of principle.”

Gov. Mike Huckabee said that he would support legislation in Arkansas for a law like one passed in Florida last year to protect citizens who use deadly force in self-defense against criminal prosecution and civil liability. Huckabee told a caller to his monthly radio show that he has a permit to carry a concealed weapon and believes “there is an absolute right that people have to protect themselves and even their property.”

According to the article on RedState, Fred Thompson is the only GOP candidate that has taken notice of the Department of Justice’s brief (We already know where the Democratic candidates stand). The article states that Fred Thompson has “accused the administration of ‘overlawyering’ the case.”

The author is absolutely correct when he states … if an individual rights view of the Second Amendment cannot prohibit an outright ban on handgun possession, there is certainly not going to be much left of the other rights it purportedly protects.

Fred Thompson stated that he opposed the remand and that he feels the case should simply move forward in the U.S. Supreme Court.

The D.C. District Court, in an opinion written by Justice Silberman, struck down the D.C. ban on the possession (even in one’s own home) of handguns . Silberman ruled that the Second Amendment protected an individual’s right to protect one’s self and one’s home and … that right pre-dates the Constitution.

Good for Justice Silberman … the right to protect yourself, your loved ones, and your property does exist simply as a “God-given” or “natural” right.

The article goes on to say that strict scrutiny would already allow regulations to prohibit arms of mass destruction, simply as a compelling public interest, and that, there is no need for “fact finding.” The article states that “fact finding” is simply a ruse … a delaying tactic. The U.S. Supreme Court can and should decide this issue based on the relevant constitutional principle.

The author stating that, while he himself has never owned a gun, he has always considered it obvious that it is a right granted by God to defend one’s self and family. You know … one of those pesky “inalienable rights” that trouble left-wing secular-progressive liberals so much!

I do not, however, agree with the article that the meaning of the second amendment is debatable from a lot of angles, I think it is pretty cut and dried if you read the writings of many of the Founding Fathers about the Second Amendment:

“The right of the people to keep and bear…arms shall not be infringed. A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the best and most natural defense of a free country…” (James Madison, I Annals of Congress 434 [June 8, 1789])

“Americans have the right and advantage of being armed – unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.” (James Madison, The Federalist Papers #46 at 243-244)

“The right of the people to keep and bear arms has been recognized by the General Government; but the best security of that right after all is, the military spirit, that taste for martial exercises, which has always distinguished the free citizens of these States….Such men form the best barrier to the liberties of America” – (Gazette of the United States, October 14, 1789.)

“No Free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms.” (Thomas Jefferson, Proposal Virginia Constitution, 1 T. Jefferson Papers, 334,[C.J.Boyd, Ed., 1950])

“Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself. They are the American people’s liberty teeth and keystone under independence … From the hour the Pilgrims landed, to the present day, events, occurrences, and tendencies prove that to insure peace, security and happiness, the rifle and pistol are equally indispensable . . . the very atmosphere of firearms everywhere restrains evil interference – they deserve a place of honor with all that is good” (George Washington)

“A militia, when properly formed, are in fact the people themselves…and include all men capable of bearing arms.” (Richard Henry Lee, Additional Letters from the Federal Farmer (1788) at 169)

Those founders who signed the Declaration of Independence would certainly not deny We the People the MEANS to preserve our lives, liberty and pursuit of happiness, and certainly that would be the case if only criminals and our government were armed.

We must, in fact, never let the left-wing liberal elites get by with the claim that only they can tell us what the Constitution means. Left-wing liberal elites do indeed like to construct an edifice of words to make things much complicated than they are simply as a means to give themselves more power.

The U.S. Constitution is not that hard to understand as written … if you take the time to carefully read it. It is not even very long … and I agree that Fred Thompson certainly does get it.

As a humorous (or ironic) side note:

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, there are 700,000 physicians in the US and the number of accidental deaths caused by them per year is about 120,000, making the accidental death rate per physician 17%.

Using that same logic, there are about 80 million gun owners, and the number of accidental gun deaths per year among all age groups is 1,500. The same calculation reveals the number of accidental deaths per gun owner to be 0.00188%.

In other words, statistically, doctors are approximately 9,000 times more dangerous than gun owners. Yet, I hear no one suggesting we ban doctors.

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