On Gun Control
There has been so much written on the subject of banning pea shooters over the past week or two I thought Ol’ Muck ought to weigh in on the subject.
We have seen in the last three week or so, following the mass shooting of roughly 100 people and the killing of 49 (so far – as a few are still in critical condition at area hospitals), yet another sickening spasm of political bullshit and posturing about controlling horses and cows long after the barn doors have been ripped off and burned for firewood.
I am talking, of course, about gun control.
Considering that there are more guns in the hands of citizens in this country than there are citizens, any effort to prevent the buying and selling of weapons is far, far past its’ expiry date and total useless.
Adding requirements – reasonable ones – to be met in order to purchase new ones or even to transfer ownership of existing firearms from one person to another is not yet out of the barn but the total ineptitude of the Federal Government to do anything right will handicap any and all efforts along those lines as well.
As a law abiding gun owner and in possession of a concealed weapons permit, I’ve been vetted (according to the local PTB) from head to toe and deemed responsible enough to tuck a Glock under my shirt any time I want, except when entering a school, a bar that serves liquor or a government office – which, by definition are now free fire zones for anyone crazy or having a death wish (for others as well as himself). Which brings up another interesting question: Why are all mass shooters of only the male gender? I’ve know some violent females – but they favor frying pans instead of semi-automatic rifles.
In Florida, however, I am not permitted to strap the Glock on my thigh in a fast-draw holster nor carry a pistol of any sort in plain sight. The law was modified slightly some time ago to allow “open carry” when you bring you gun home (between car and front door) and carry it from car to house or from car to a gun shop for repair because under the original law, a police officer could be sitting in a car outside a gun shop and arrest anyone openly carrying a pistol from car to shop to get it repaired.
Yet another example of Government’s inability to do anything right – including writing laws, which, as we all learned in Civics Class (no longer taught in most schools – mores the pity and it should be reinstated NOW) is what Government is supposed to do now and then (at least the legislative branch – but that’s confusing these days when the Executive Branch writes his own laws and the Supreme Court of the Judicial Branch rewrites Legislative law to be legal).
I, personally, would never object to a background check prior to the purchase of a handgun or even a semi-automatic long gun. In fact, if the Federal Government could be trusted to change a wet diaper, I would not object to restrict the sale of said weapons to those on the “terrorist watchlist” or the “no fly” list. The problem with the terrorist/no fly watchlists is that they are ONE STEP removed from due process of law and names can be added to them on the whim of certain government drones and should your name get on it, there is not even a HARD way to get it removed. In two words: YOU’RE SCREWED!
In my humble way of thinking, the “terrorist watchlist” and “no fly” lists should be subject to the same lawful procedure of that of an arrest warrant being issued. Proof of probable cause to be on such list should be presented to a judge (or sworn magistrate) and vetted prior to being placed on ANY LIST FOR ANY REASON.
To get off the list, if you feel you were thereon and placed there by mistake, one should be able to petition said judge or magistrate , she would then rule on your petition and if you provide sufficient reason that the Government’s information was false or incomplete or arbitrary, your name would then be removed from EVERY LIST it happens to have showed up.
Any other way of arbitrarily sticking people on “no fly”, “no buy” and in the future, perhaps, “no travel”, “no hardware”, “no ANYTHING” lists is not to be tolerated in a free country. Governments are, by their very nature, very arbitrary in nature because every man and woman therein poop in the same kind of pot the citizens do, pull up their pant(ies) one leg at a time, stuff their faces with the same utensils (including “safe” use of a knife?), take a bath naked – well, at least most do – and have the same foibles and prejudices and preconceived notions that we all do. This make them all liable to snap judgements, mistakes and errors. Decisions made by government drones must be checked and double checked by a legal authority before summarily denying a citizen of a right provided by the Constitution or a common law right (like flying on an airplane).
The only legal way to “list” someone for something that takes away a Constitutional right (i.e. Second Amendment in this case) is by doing it in Court, before a judge or magistrate and be double-damned if “that’s too much trouble” or “we need to DO SOMETHING right now”.. No we don’t.. We need to do it right or not do it at all.
So it seems this Mucks’ Minute sort of covered two topics. Darn, I try to be more specific than that but tough luck. Boiled down to two things.
It doesn’t matter a rats ass who is in the Presidents office next January and it matters a lot to your freedom if you find yourself “listed” by some idiot you offended who has access to a pen. Be grateful you get two for one this time around!
Have a great week.
End
[email protected] (only if you have something private to say!)
Excellent.
Not so sure about living in a totally free country.
Muck you are insane on one point. Insane. Hillary clinton SAYS she intends to raise our taxess, erase the border, sign the trade deals that strip our sovereignty, roll back sentences for violent criminals, make abortion legal until the last day, and continue selling our country to foreign interests. I know you are a loud and proud liberal, but isn’t some of that just a teensy bit much?
@starfcker: Yes, I’m a liberal – but only as it used to be defined – Thus:
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Classical liberalism is a political ideology that values the freedom of individuals — including the freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and markets — as well as limited government. It developed in 18th-century Europe and drew on the economic writings of Adam Smith and the growing notion of social progress.
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As far as a “modern” liberal, they can all kiss my wrinkled old ass and unless you are being sarcastic, so can you! I still say it won’t matter a bit who’s elected because the disaster has already happened and there’s no way out of a Credit Crunch of massive proportions – see Von Mises on the subject of what happens next.
Muck
I did not mean that as an insult. I see you as a classic liberal, and that’s a fine thing. But hillary would sell her grandchildren if the price were right. And that’s a far different thing.
Every gun law is unconstitutional.
Don’t be to hard on yourself Muck , attempting to stay on point when explaining the basic inability of our federal and most state governments to do anything without pissing billions away while never really tending to the true business at hand is a lot like swimming in glue . Remember leave any accountability or responsibility out while never having enough funding and you have described everything our socalled representatives are up to at great expense
The other night the dogs were on to something for a good hour, very agitated until I finally got up to go check. I grabbed a flashlight and a pistol and went out to check. Sure enough down at the bottom of the hill there was a set of eyes looking back at me. It wasn’t a big bear, but it was a bear and we got within fifty feet of each other.
I know that there are plenty of people who have neither the interest nor the desire to own a firearm. These are same people who probably don’t own any power tools, know how to fix a toilet or change their oil and that’s okay by me, they can offshore every aspect of their life that they can write a check for and never need to worry about the cost. Some of us can’t afford that luxury and we shouldn’t be expected to have to foot the bill for the choices made by others with different values- that is the hallmark of the progressive narrative, isn’t it? Everyone can do their own thing and not be judged for their choices.
No, I didn’t shoot the bear. He went his way, I went back to the house, the dogs settled down- somewhat- and the world kept spinning. I am glad I had both the flashlight and the pistol and the next time I have an encounter where it’s me or my family or livestock versus a predator I will rely on myself and the tools I have at my disposal. That’s a choice. I guess that makes me pro-choice which I know is a good thing based on every NPR radio show I have ever heard.
You can’t guarantee everyone’s safety. Prisons are full of people who are raped and assaulted and they are the most heavily regulated and monitored environments under government control. People who believe that taking tools away from people in order to protect them are deluded in the extreme but they are entitled to their opinion even if it is infantile.
I’m going to hang on to my tools and use them for the benefit of myself, my family and my community regardless of the form they may take.
I’d give you two up arrows, were it allowed..
Enjoy. This is corkscrew swamp in Naples. Only 17 seconds.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/hawaii-becomes-first-u-state-place-gun-owners-210248882.html
Hawaii’s governor signed a bill making it the first U.S. state to place its residents who own firearms in a federal criminal record database and monitor them for possible wrongdoing anywhere in the country, his office said.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/oregon-mother-shoots-and-kills-intruder-she-discovered-in-childs-bedroom/ar-AAhFFqO?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=iehp
Muck
Seems like a proposal with good intentions. But as saying goes the road to hell was paved with them. This latest push looks to me like ground work for a Super highwway. Using due process to put people on terror list will never work because if they haven’t done anything illegal then there isn’t any process to do.
There was a movie about this starring everyone’s fave scientologist Tom Cruise called Minority Report. It would be a sad day if this was accepted as solution. Rights would be protected by shredding the Bill of Rights. Orwellian if you ask me.
Muck, point of fact, you ARE allowed to carry into a bar that “serves liquor”. Its a convoluted law, to be sure, but you aren’t allowed to carry into an establishment whose primary purpose is the serving of alcoholic beverages. You can carry in a place that serves liquor, I do all the time, since most places my wife and I like to have a scenic lunch out on the water also serve liquor. I just don’t drink while Im thee because I can’t while carrying. You can’t carry at a place whose primary purpose is the serving of alcohol, like a nightclub, but there are plenty of places that serve liquor(and food) that you can carry legally. You can’t sit at the bar, but just because a place serves liquor in FL does not mean you cant carry there.
I don’t bring this up to be an asshole or anything, I just want to make sure its made clear to people, especially people who read here but don’t do their own research.
It is incredibly simple to purchase a firearm on the black market. The crazier the laws get the more felons you create.
In a virtuous republic, the laws are few and simple. (Constitution, anyone?) In a degenerate, decaying republic, the laws are numerous and confusing. It then becomes simple for the State to frame anyone as a criminal, because the people are too busy earning a living to stay abreast of the minutiae of the laws written by liars, thieves and charlatans. Can you tell me with certainty that you are not, today, in violation of SOME law? If you were how would you know? Did you read everything in the Federal Register, your state code and local ordinances?
How any serious human being can state “Ignorance of the law is no excuse!” is a mystery to me. It IS an excuse now, when the laws are so numerous and confused that contradiction, succession by new laws and sheer incomprehensibility are facts of life.
Respect no legislator who refuses to repeal laws (without writing any new ones) for the next five decades until the laws are few, simple and clear again.
Mucky
Words are slippery things these days. Even with due process in place, the term “terrorist” meant exactly who in 2001? How about in 2008? 2016? 2020?
The only way our elected representatives can pass these “we have to do something now” insane laws is because the media stirs up the ignorant masses and we demand that our elected representatives create these “we have to do something now” insane laws.
People react with strong emotions to the stimulus created by the media and they sway us away from any logical thought, we have to do it now and it’s the other party that is trying to stop us from stopping the terror.
Year after year after year…..
Great article Muck.
Given the abuse perpetrated by the IRS on US citizen prior to the 2012 election, I will never support any government asshole having the authority to suspend a citizen’s Constitutional rights without due process…EVER! The obama regime has abused citizens for seven years and no one has been willing to stop this shitsain. I will take up arms to stop this action.
Have a nice day.
” ………. following the mass shooting of roughly 100 people and the killing of 49 ………..”
It should be called an Islamic Attack instead of a mass shooting, calling it a mass shooting diverts from its nature and allows blame to be placed elsewhere.
Unless we want to refer to things like, say, the American revolution as a “mass shooting”.
Maybe history could be changed to say America was born in a mass shooting event instead of a revolution?
FWIW, the real reason behind the gun control movement is to prevent the American people from raising their own army outside of government control if they deem it necessary, an independent peoples army usually being called a militia.
Look at Europe where it has already happened and the people disarmed and helpless on their own, now the talk is that the individual member nations will not be allowed to have their own Military forces.
Mr. Muck,
again, a thoughtful article as usual, and I have zero
criticism on it.
We have so many laws which are impossible to keep
up with, and warnings about plots to convolute laws,
eg, no fly lists and so forth.
We need to employ common sense with regard to weapons.
There may be some that want the open carry right. Well,
open carry seems a bit too controversial to go out on the
clothesline over. Seems to me that a city dweller may want
to include a weapon on their person, and they can just do it.
The cc permit process = another list. I say just do it and don’t
advertise the fact. Have a secure holster and use it.
We have bears around my place as well. It is good to have dogs.
And a weapon, should a bear try to breach your doors. Or if it is
hanging around creating a disturbance. Fire a warning shot or
2, secure your trash bins, and don’t put out bird feeders.
Livestock? It may be necessary to have a shot gun or long gun
at the ready.
Suzanna
Suzanna:
I hear you BUT it would be prudent to understand the severe Federal freedom penalty for getting caught doing so AND the astronomical odds of beating a rap persecuted by Federal prosecutors who wield virtually unlimited resources to burn. Merely attempting to lawyer up would bankrupt all but the 1%-ers.
🙁
4 ideas of many, that can be effective, and don’t get the feds involved so fast & furiously:
1 – pepper spray
2 – tactical pen
3 – espantoon, aka Baltimore Nightstick
4 – knife
YMMV
the no fly list is already a secret list,
and this alone should be cause for concern. When a govt. makes secret list that deny civil rights without due process, everyone should be concerned. But if you write your congressmen, you know damn well that you will be put on another list.
the republic is dead. The next prez will be a leather skinned lizard lady who will ban “ass alt gunz” just like her hubby did. (I hope I am wrong, but the deep dark side seems to always get what it wants, regardless of how many hanging chads are found)
No matter how you slice it. It is going to come down to personal non-compliance on a massive scale to stop these thugs. If they ask people to turn in specific weapons, and no one does, they are fucked.
Hillary is going to take your pistol away any then tax ammo away. Good luck using that frying pan .You can always move to Utah.
Good comments all. @Gator: You are correct and perhaps I was not specific enough in my statement. You can carry into a restaurant that serves booze but not into a bar that only serves booze and bar snacks. The law is written so that there’s “wiggle” room in it and it would not surprise me if the occasion arose, you might get squeezed into the squad car if a cop felt so inclined or you made an issue of your weapon in a place not specifically advertised as just selling liquor. Anyhow – you are quite right and the law is not black and white except for schools and Government offices (including Judicial Offices (like a Court House).
Our local Courthouse uses metal detectors and sheriffs deputies and will politely hold your weapon until you leave if you enter the Courthouse with a weapon. But they are indeed polite about it.
Muck
Ya there sheriffs deputies are quite polite here. Im still not a big fan of cops, but I have no complaints about the county guys here. Its Wayne Ivey, who recently made himself famous with a gun video, encouraging the residents of the county to carry concealed. His department also does an excellent CCW class thats geared towards women and inexperienced shooter. He goes out there at every class and talks, too. Seems like a good guy.
MuckAbout sez:
“I, personally, would never object to a background check prior to the purchase of a handgun or even a semi-automatic long gun.”
What did it take to fail a background check yesterday, what does it take today and what will it be tomorrow? Given the long and one-sided history of “mission creep” on this type of legislation, conviction first, then arrest and then suspicion is the way it goes and only rarely in the other direction.
Have you had hate speech removed from InstaFaceGoogleTwitBook, maybe that background check should come back as “Fail?” Owe back-taxes, child support, parking tickets or library fines? Maybe that should be a fail too because you shouldn’t be buying guns with your money, eh?
How about a really bad credit rating that prevents you from getting loans, renting apartments or getting a job? If you can just go buy a gun, maybe it is for purposes of violence against those who have denied you shelter and income so should this result in a fail?
Are you a recreational cannabis user in one of the recreation legal states but might be confused by what “illegal drug” on Form 4473 means? Should that be a background check fail?
If don’t have very good answers for these questions, you may want to reconsider your unconditional enthusiasm.
@Muzzle Blast: Read for comprehension, please. May I quote? I said, “I, personally, would never object etc, etc,”. I didn’t make a blanket statement, so don’t take me to task for so doing.
Try and respond to the post as written – not for what you read into it. I don’t think I could have been clearer.
Muck
Any form, permit, or registration is a list. Lists can be used to confiscate.
Can and probably will be.
I won’t dispute that, but a point should be made about CCW lists. Many people have pointed out that by getting a CCW you are just putting your name on a list of people who have guns that will be used to round them all up whenever “it” happens. This may be true, it may not be, but if you have bought a firearm from any place that ran a background check through NICS in recent years, you are already on that list anyway. The Background check has the serial number of the gun you are trying to buy on it. The Obama admin has, in an underhanded way, admitted to keeping that list, illegally. The records aren’t allows to be retained by the government, that was one of the things written into the law so the right would sign on to it. I believe the NRA signed off on it too, so remember that next time they ask you for money. So if you’ve bought a gun from a gun store in recent years, your name, that gun, it’s serial number, etc are already on a list. Getting your CCW after you buy a gun from a store with a NICS check doesn’t get you added to anything you aren’t already on. If you think every gun you’ve ever bought via NICS and every ammo/mag/whatever purchase you’ve made online or with a CC isn’t stored on some kind of list already, you are naive.
Unless you’ve made all your purchases with cash via private party transactions, you aren’t really risking or losing anything by getting a CCW. And it could save you or your families life.
Yes, this little Republic is in it’s end times. Can’t create artificial fiat wealth and accrue unbelievable massive debts without there being a reckoning.
Citizens are armed with pea shooters. Government is armed with military-style assault weapons, including A-10’s, Apache ‘copters, you know most of what’s on the list; you helped pay for it. Even Government agencies that shouldn’t need weapons (EPA &c.) are armed with more guns and bullets than there are citizens.
Expect this: a flash point, darkened major cities because the power grid is out for weeks (legitimately or ‘conveniently’), the various overpopulated slum burgs become killing fields. Of course, that will justify ‘intervention’, military law lock down, mandatory confiscation before the feedings. Resulting in more push back from rural citizens, armed with their pea shooters.
“And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!”
..but far too late to save this little Republic.
Most of these “mass shootings”, either attributed to terrorism or not, are most likely false flag attempts at gun control. Listen to Clif High for a few minutes about how to identify these questionable incidents (coincidences or not?):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBz7jeMSCW8&t=4m57s
It’s the person holding the gun. Kids need classes on what is considered normal civilized behavior.Maybe some adults also. If the gov. keeps this up they will bring about a second revolution. Part of why we have the second amendment. With half of the country supporting Hillary Clinton,I think we are screwed.
I heard someone curse, was offended and want the 1st Amendment repealed.
Is Paul Ryan going to sell us out?
http://www.rollcall.com/news/politics/ryan-plans-vote-guns-next-week