What a brilliantly written essay. Concise and powerful. Essay like this help me understand the mental illness of my fellow Massachusetts residents that we politely call “Liberalism”. First, Liberals actually have a profound TRUST of government, instead of a healthy distrust and skepticism. Second, Liberals fundamentally misunderstand human nature, and believe that, if only given more government intervention and power, the failings of human nature can be perfected. Mamet displays an excellent understanding of the nature of The State and why we must be deeply mistrustful of it.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2013/01/28/gun-laws-and-the-fools-of-chelm-by-david-mamet.html
Karl Marx summed up Communism as “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” This is a good, pithy saying, which, in practice, has succeeded in bringing, upon those under its sway, misery, poverty, rape, torture, slavery, and death.
For the saying implies but does not name the effective agency of its supposed utopia. The agency is called “The State,” and the motto, fleshed out, for the benefit of the easily confused must read “The State will take from each according to his ability: the State will give to each according to his needs.” “Needs and abilities” are, of course, subjective. So the operative statement may be reduced to “the State shall take, the State shall give.”
All of us have had dealings with the State, and have found, to our chagrin, or, indeed, terror, that we were not dealing with well-meaning public servants or even with ideologues but with overworked, harried bureaucrats. These, as all bureaucrats, obtain and hold their jobs by complying with directions and suppressing the desire to employ initiative, compassion, or indeed, common sense. They are paid to follow orders.
Rule by bureaucrats and functionaries is an example of the first part of the Marxist equation: that the Government shall determine the individual’s abilities.
As rules by the Government are one-size-fits-all, any governmental determination of an individual’s abilities must be based on a bureaucratic assessment of the lowest possible denominator. The government, for example, has determined that black people (somehow) have fewer abilities than white people, and, so, must be given certain preferences. Anyone acquainted with both black and white people knows this assessment is not only absurd but monstrous. And yet it is the law.
President Obama, in his reelection campaign, referred frequently to the “needs” of himself and his opponent, alleging that each has more money than he “needs.”
But where in the Constitution is it written that the Government is in charge of determining “needs”? And note that the president did not say “I have more money than I need,” but “You and I have more than we need.” Who elected him to speak for another citizen?
It is not the constitutional prerogative of the Government to determine needs. One person may need (or want) more leisure, another more work; one more adventure, another more security, and so on. It is this diversity that makes a country, indeed a state, a city, a church, or a family, healthy. “One-size-fits-all,” and that size determined by the State has a name, and that name is “slavery.”
The Founding Fathers, far from being ideologues, were not even politicians. They were an assortment of businessmen, writers, teachers, planters; men, in short, who knew something of the world, which is to say, of Human Nature. Their struggle to draft a set of rules acceptable to each other was based on the assumption that we human beings, in the mass, are no damned good—that we are biddable, easily confused, and that we may easily be motivated by a Politician, which is to say, a huckster, mounting a soapbox and inflaming our passions.
The Constitution’s drafters did not require a wag to teach them that power corrupts: they had experienced it in the person of King George. The American secession was announced by reference to his abuses of power: “He has obstructed the administration of Justice … he has made Judges dependant on his will alone … He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution, and unacknowledged by our Laws … He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass out people and to eat out their substance … imposed taxes upon us without our consent… [He has] fundamentally altered the forms of our government.”
This is a chillingly familiar set of grievances; and its recrudescence was foreseen by the Founders. They realized that King George was not an individual case, but the inevitable outcome of unfettered power; that any person or group with the power to tax, to form laws, and to enforce them by arms will default to dictatorship, absent the constant unflagging scrutiny of the governed, and their severe untempered insistence upon compliance with law.
The Founders recognized that Government is quite literally a necessary evil, that there must be opposition, between its various branches, and between political parties, for these are the only ways to temper the individual’s greed for power and the electorates’ desires for peace by submission to coercion or blandishment.
Healthy government, as that based upon our Constitution, is strife. It awakens anxiety, passion, fervor, and, indeed, hatred and chicanery, both in pursuit of private gain and of public good. Those who promise to relieve us of the burden through their personal or ideological excellence, those who claim to hold the Magic Beans, are simply confidence men. Their emergence is inevitable, and our individual opposition to and rejection of them, as they emerge, must be blunt and sure; if they are arrogant, willful, duplicitous, or simply wrong, they must be replaced, else they will consolidate power, and use the treasury to buy votes, and deprive us of our liberties. It was to guard us against this inevitable decay of government that the Constitution was written. Its purpose was and is not to enthrone a Government superior to an imperfect and confused electorate, but to protect us from such a government.
Many are opposed to private ownership of firearms, and their opposition comes under several heads. Their specific objections are answerable retail, but a wholesale response is that the Second Amendment guarantees the right of the citizens to keep and bear arms. On a lower level of abstraction, there are more than 2 million instances a year of the armed citizen deterring or stopping armed criminals; a number four times that of all crimes involving firearms.
The Left loves a phantom statistic that a firearm in the hands of a citizen is X times more likely to cause accidental damage than to be used in the prevention of crime, but what is there about criminals that ensures that their gun use is accident-free? If, indeed, a firearm were more dangerous to its possessors than to potential aggressors, would it not make sense for the government to arm all criminals, and let them accidentally shoot themselves? Is this absurd? Yes, and yet the government, of course, is arming criminals.
Violence by firearms is most prevalent in big cities with the strictest gun laws. In Chicago and Washington, D.C., for example, it is only the criminals who have guns, the law-abiding populace having been disarmed, and so crime runs riot.
Cities of similar size in Texas, Florida, Arizona, and elsewhere, which leave the citizen the right to keep and bear arms, guaranteed in the Constitution, typically are much safer. More legal guns equal less crime. What criminal would be foolish enough to rob a gun store? But the government alleges that the citizen does not need this or that gun, number of guns, or amount of ammunition.
But President Obama, it seems, does.
He has just passed a bill that extends to him and his family protection, around the clock and for life, by the Secret Service. He, evidently, feels that he is best qualified to determine his needs, and, of course, he is. As I am best qualified to determine mine.
For it is, again, only the Marxists who assert that the government, which is to say the busy, corrupted, and hypocritical fools most elected officials are (have you ever had lunch with one?) should regulate gun ownership based on its assessment of needs.
Q. Who “needs” an assault rifle?
A. No one outside the military and the police. I concur.
An assault weapon is that which used to be called a “submachine gun.” That is, a handheld long gun that will fire continuously as long as the trigger is held down.
These have been illegal in private hands (barring those collectors who have passed the stringent scrutiny of the Federal Government) since 1934. Outside these few legal possessors, there are none in private hands. They may be found in the hands of criminals. But criminals, let us reflect, by definition, are those who will not abide by the laws. What purpose will passing more laws serve?
My grandmother came from Russian Poland, near the Polish city of Chelm. Chelm was celebrated, by the Ashkenazi Jews, as the place where the fools dwelt. And my grandmother loved to tell the traditional stories of Chelm.
Its residents, for example, once decided that there was no point in having the sun shine during the day, when it was light out—it would be better should it shine at night, when it was dark. Similarly, we modern Solons delight in passing gun laws that, in their entirety, amount to “making crime illegal.”
What possible purpose in declaring schools “gun-free zones”? Who bringing a gun, with evil intent, into a school would be deterred by the sign?
Ah, but perhaps one, legally carrying a gun, might bring it into the school.
Good.
We need more armed citizens in the schools.
Walk down Madison Avenue in New York. Many posh stores have, on view, or behind a two-way mirror, an armed guard. Walk into most any pawnshop, jewelry story, currency exchange, gold store in the country, and there will be an armed guard nearby. Why? As currency, jewelry, gold are precious. Who complains about the presence of these armed guards? And is this wealth more precious than our children?
Apparently it is: for the Left adduces arguments against armed presence in the school but not in the wristwatch stores. Q. How many accidental shootings occurred last year in jewelry stores, or on any premises with armed security guards?
Why not then, for the love of God, have an armed presence in the schools? It could be done at the cost of a pistol (several hundred dollars), and a few hours of training (that’s all the security guards get). Why not offer teachers, administrators, custodians, a small extra stipend for completing a firearms-safety course and carrying a concealed weapon to school? The arguments to the contrary escape me.
Why do I specify concealed carry? As if the weapons are concealed, any potential malefactor must assume that anyone on the premises he means to disrupt may be armed—a deterrent of even attempted violence.
Yes, but we should check all applicants for firearms for a criminal record?
Anyone applying to purchase a handgun has, since 1968, filled out a form certifying he is not a fugitive from justice, a convicted criminal, or mentally deficient. These forms, tens and tens of millions of them, rest, conceivably, somewhere in the vast repository. How are they checked? Are they checked? By what agency, with what monies? The country is broke. Do we actually want another agency staffed by bureaucrats for whom there is no funding?
The police do not exist to protect the individual. They exist to cordon off the crime scene and attempt to apprehend the criminal. We individuals are guaranteed by the Constitution the right to self-defense. This right is not the Government’s to “award” us. They have never been granted it.
The so-called assault weapons ban is a hoax. It is a political appeal to the ignorant. The guns it supposedly banned have been illegal (as above) for 78 years. Did the ban make them “more” illegal? The ban addresses only the appearance of weapons, not their operation.
Will increased cosmetic measures make anyone safer? They, like all efforts at disarmament, will put the citizenry more at risk. Disarmament rests on the assumption that all people are good, and, basically, want the same things.
But if all people were basically good, why would we, increasingly, pass more and more elaborate laws?
The individual is not only best qualified to provide his own personal defense, he is the only one qualified to do so: and his right to do so is guaranteed by the Constitution.
President Obama seems to understand the Constitution as a “set of suggestions.” I cannot endorse his performance in office, but he wins my respect for taking those steps he deems necessary to ensure the safety of his family. Why would he want to prohibit me from doing the same?
sangell says:
The caterwauling on the part of the gun control advocates to do ‘something’ to stop gun massacres by madmen is superficially appealing. No one wants a deranged man shooting 27 people to death including 20 children. Of course no one wanted Larry Mahoney to get drunk and drive his truck into a church school bus a few years back and kill 27 people including 24 children either but it happened.
Drunken drivers kill more people than madmen by far yet we do not have Dianne Feinstein or Joe Biden demanding every car have an ignition interlock installed on it of the sort the courts sometimes require convicted drunken drivers have placed on their automobiles. Why not we might wonder since it would undoubtedly save lives and we know people are a thousand times more likely to drive drunk than go postal with a firearm? The answer to this question might be because most everyone drives a car ( and quite a few do it after a few drinks too including politicians) and that making every driver spend a few hundred dollars to install the device and have to go through the inconvenience of blowing into a device before they can start their car would not be popular at all even if it could dramatically reduce drunk driving. Critics would point out as well that a drunk could always get someone else to start their car or, perhaps, buy a device that would defeat the interlock.
So, if we are not prepared to undergo a little expense and inconvenience to stop a very real and all too often deadly problem why go after millions of gunowners who don’t go on murder rampages with their firearms to stop the handful of madmen who do? The only answer I have is because people are irrational and guns scare many people. Never mind that the pretty college girl down the street is far more likely to injure or kill you coming home from a party in her Miata than the guy next door with his ‘assault rifle’. His rifle looks dangerous and, in truth it is if misused but a Mazda Miata on the wrong side of the road doing 70 mph is just as scary.
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26th January 2013 at 11:02 am
Bostonbob says:
Yohimbo,
This is a great essay. I will go out to friends and family. Here in Massachusets the is indeed some mental deficiency that eats away at so many of the populace. I have had to walk away from several frienships due to this disease. I had the “good fortune” to live in Barney Frank’s district for 22 years and I could not for the life of me get a reasonable answer as to why the people in this district continued to vote for him unless there job was directly affected by his being elected. They continue to willingly sacrifice there inalienable rights for the “good of the people”. I ask them what people, they tell me all of the people, I just shake my head and walk away. It is sad that a state so rich in history and with a wealth of educational institutions its vast majority fails to understand the basic the basic tenets of the constitution. It is indeed a sad state we live in, I will miss her when I have to leave, but I will not miss many of the mental patients that are her citizen/slaves.
Thank you,
Bob.
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26th January 2013 at 11:14 am
David says:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3guk8eFmsBo&list=UUvsye7V9psc-APX6wV1twLg&index=1
A Polish refugee who has seen and experienced a totalitarian government and what he sees now in the USA.
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26th January 2013 at 11:26 am
AWD says:
“The State will take from each according to his ability: the State will give to each according to his needs.”
The 100 milion people of Wal Mart using their SNAP and welfare benefits would laugh at you if you proposed we live in a socialist/communist state. The people paying half their income in taxes might chuckle, and liberals will forever push for more taxes, more redistribution, bigger government, and more spending.
We are living, today, in 2013, under the edicts of Karl Marx in the United States of America. Government has grown from a necessary evil to an all consuming, enslaving, controlling, 30 million employee monster of biblical proportions.
There is no choice left, the government will never reduce it’s size or consumption until it goes bankrupt. We will have to fight, or pray for bankruptcy. We will be unable to fight once our guns are taken away, the plan all along. Government has become God, the opiate of the masses. We are doomed, and one can only wonder “where is the real God?”. Oh yea, he abandoned this nation, after we abandoned him.
Conservatives sign the faces of checks. Liberals sign the backs of them.
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26th January 2013 at 11:27 am
Thunderbird says:
We need to go back to crafting our laws by conscience. The rule of law that we live under has been corrupted by the Uniform Commercial Code UCC. Values are not morals. Values are based on money and self interest, not morals or even in many cases principles.
Before the 1970s when the courts were not commercial courts, the plea of innocent could be used. The plea of innocent put the law on trial along with the person accused. Today the law is not looked at as relevant or irrelevant with the plea of guilty, not guilty, or no contest. In other words, conscience is not regarded as a defense in the courts.
Many people no longer sense conscience in their waking consciousness. Their conscience now resides in the sub-consciousness.
Conscience is influenced by morals and principles taught to us in our formative years. A balanced person then should be guided by their developed conscience when they reach their responsible age. But in many cases we don’t see this even in our leaders.
President Obama does not seen to understand the constitution. Knowing something and understanding your knowing are two different things. The US Constitution is common law. Common Law is only understood by those with a conscience.
Since the early 70s when Business Law was created and accepted in this country Administrative Law made for running the government & courts and Business Law made for running our corporations, has come out of the Developed Uniform Commercial Code, itself developed from Admiralty Law, has become the law of the land. This law has no conscience in it. Our laws, rules, and regulations are no longer made from Morals and Principles that take conscience to create and decipher it; but rather, they are created from self interest and arbitrary considerations coming out of the consciousness of the men that create them.
These new arbitrary laws, rules, regulations do not consider or bend to unintended consequences created by these laws, nor is there a mechanism for considering where these laws do not apply; or for exceptions in the real world. These laws are created to control rather than facilitate the smooth operation of society. These laws have made many criminals of the people and created the prison business.
President Obama is well versed in the UCC along with the Supreme Court Justices and numerous lawyer congressional representatives, so they look at the US Constitution through the lens of the UCC. Because they do not legislate and make laws by conscience the US Constitution gets in their way. The UCC is based on money and that is how they think.
If we don’t put a leash on the UCC and keep it in it’s rightful domain which is Business Law; not Administrative Law, it is going to ruin this country and our society; which is now happening.
President Obama may know the US Constitution but he certainly does not understand it. Or maybe he does understand it and wants to destroy it because it does not fit the ruling agenda? That seems obvious with what he is signing for legislation and his push for gun control.
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26th January 2013 at 11:32 am
AWD says:
“He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass out people and to eat out their substance … imposed taxes upon us without our consent… [He has] fundamentally altered the forms of our government”
Yet the multitudes trust Obama and the government. Very sad indeed.
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26th January 2013 at 11:53 am
underfire says:
” We need to go back to crafting our laws by conscience.”
If only we could. It’s too late, we’re now in the era of everyman for himself. It’s been that way for most of us for quite awhile, if you don’t realize that by now you’ve haven’t been paying attention.
We’re well down the path of consuming ourselves and our children and grandchildren. The jig is going to be up soon enough.
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26th January 2013 at 3:04 pm
underfire says:
We don’t need God and His edicts like the founding fathers did, we have “Social Engineering”. Conducted by a group of men and women sitting around a conference table.
Manipulate this, manipulate that, take from these, give to those, think positive thoughts, turn negative into positive and positive into negative, the state will take responsibility for us,don’t hurt anyone’s feelings, every kid gets a award, everybody’s beautiful.
Now we’re seeing the result of the last few generations of that….society is fractured beyond repair, there’s deep seated anger everywhere, we’re bankrupt morally and economically, our students can’t even start to compete on the world stage, we’re looking into the abyss. We’ve blown the fantastic wealth of this country and it’s freedoms in a mere few decades.
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26th January 2013 at 3:34 pm
sangell says:
If anyone had any doubt the Obama Administration is not serious about ‘gun control’ but is simply pursuing a political agenda I submit this real life case.
http://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/crime/no-charges-for-shotgun-straw-buyer-in-oldsmar-double-murder-case/1272436
In which the DoJ, is not prosecuting a ‘straw buyer’ who purchased a shotgun for his friend who could not pass a background check and was then used by the friend to murder his mother and her boyfriend.
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26th January 2013 at 4:41 pm
ragdouche says:
Good article from a resident of Taxachusettss. However, I do NOT concur that only cops or military should have select fire weapons. Any law abiding citizen should be able to purchase one at his/her gun store. Also a submachinegun is a fully automatic weapon that fires a pistol calibre bullet. 9mm, 40, or 45. It is not what the MSM thinks is an “Assault Rifle”
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26th January 2013 at 5:32 pm
sangell says:
LOL!
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Police chiefs in Central Texas say they’re having trouble arming their officers due to shortages of assault rifles and ammunition.
One police department has instructed its officers to try cutting back on ammunition used during training, the Austin American-Statesmen reported (http://bit.ly/XCXsTt), while another department has been waiting for new assault rifles for months.
Part of the problem, some say, is that gun stores are seeing strong sales in the wake of last month’s Connecticut school massacre that left 20 children dead, as well as talk that federal officials will try to pass new restrictions on gun sales.
“This is panic buying,” said Dayne Pryor, the chief in the Austin suburb of Rollingwood. “People don’t realize that it affects law enforcement just like the people buying guns at Academy.”
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26th January 2013 at 7:10 pm
ron says:
Ive been having my daughter read about agenda 21 lately.And funny how now she see’s little bits of it when im watching the news. I told her that this is the crap being slowly put into place.Kind of like the frog in the boiling pot of water kinda thing.I figured its in her future and she should see what all the elitist think is best for the little people who cant think for themselves.
Agenda 21 should be a must read for kids.
Im more afraid of dumb people in cars than people with guns.And terrorist arent even in my daily thinking,well maybe if i think about the government.
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26th January 2013 at 7:35 pm
Yojimbo says:
I have to admit I completely misread the part about “who ‘needs’ an assault weapon.”
I thought that he was describing a lunch with an stupid government official, and Mamet hypothetically asks “Who needs an assault rifle?”, and the foolish official both answers “No one outside the military and the police. I concur.”, because he assumes that the questioner meant that in his question.
That small part of this brilliant take-down of the state is truly disturbing. What was Mamet thinking?
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26th January 2013 at 7:59 pm
Yojimbo says:
For it is, again, only the Marxists who assert that the government, which is to say the busy, corrupted, and hypocritical fools most elected officials are (have you ever had lunch with one?) should regulate gun ownership based on its assessment of needs.
Q. Who “needs” an assault rifle?
A. No one outside the military and the police. I concur.
Oh, my God. This is stunning that Mamet is simultaneously arguing that only Marxists say that government should regulate gun ownership based on its assessment of needs, and in the very next two sentences, he himself declares who “needs” to own an “assault weapon”.
This is the most convoluted logical reasoning I have ever seen. Am I reading this correctly?
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26th January 2013 at 8:03 pm
Yojimbo says:
Good catch, ragdouche.
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26th January 2013 at 8:04 pm
Yojimbo says:
Now, with that single profound internal contradiction in his argument, I don’t understand this essay at all. What was he thinking?
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26th January 2013 at 8:15 pm
AKAnon says:
Yojimbo-I think Mamet’s agreeing that “no one needs an assault weapon” is a back-handed slap at the definition of “assault weapon” (or rifle). Which is a fair point, but poorly made. also, regardless of the definition of AW, his logic that “no one needs a full auto” is besides the point, as well as a matter of personal opinion. Point of fact-many folks do legally own full-autos (they must be registered to be legal), they have been used in essentially no crimes since the roaring 20s, and “need”, particularily someone else’s definition of “need” has nothing to do with the 2nd Amendment.
Re “need” (or at least sporting use justification) for what MSM calls “assault rifles”: The AR 15 is, by current MSM standard, the quintessential “assault rifle”. In CA and elsewhere, it is specifically identified by name as contraband item. It is also (by far) the most common and favored firearm for use in NRA High-Power rifle competition and become commonly used for a variety of hunting applications. Do those uses define a “need”? Depends on your definition of need, but by the same logic, no one needs the far more dangerous motor vehicle-thousands of Amish get by just fine w/ horse & buggy, thank you.
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26th January 2013 at 8:15 pm
AKAnon says:
Please pardon the syntax errors above-jumping around too much.
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26th January 2013 at 8:18 pm
Novista says:
Aside from that one flaw in the argument, no amount of logic and common sense will sway those who operate from their emotions and bias.
If you read comments on prog sites, you will find remarks like “Anyone who wants to own a gun must be crazy.” I’ve often wondered, if they find a democrat in their midst who admit to owning guns, do they vote them off the island? I guess keeping a low profile is the survival trait.
A prog’s rebuttal to statistics is, those numbers must be wrong, cherrypicked, or you’re lying. Just ask Sarah Brady.
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26th January 2013 at 11:09 pm
Makati1 says:
Keep in mind that gun owners in the US are a small (less than 16%) minority of Americans today. In a ‘Democracy”, the voters make the decisions and they have decided to put these people into office and in some cases have kept them there for decades. As long as they bring in the ‘pork’, all is well.
It will not be until the system collapses and the pork stops flowing that the sheeple will wake up. It will be too late. The gun battles are coming to your neighborhood. The gangs in the cities will roam the countryside when they cannot live in the cities and they will be armed with everything they can steal. Are you prepared when your neighbor tells them you have a stash?
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26th January 2013 at 3:56 am
pelhamlegal says:
I very do not post often and when I do it is usually about guns. I have mentioned before that I am probably a lot older than most of you.Having lived only in Alabama and Texas, I have never been restricted in any way from having rifles, shotguns or handguns. My father put a 22 rifle in my hands at age 7 and I found out how exciting it was to be with him with a couple of boxes of 22s in the woods of Alabama or the plains of Texas. I did not know it then but I was part of the gun culture. The Scouts taught me to be prepared and I took that seriously at age 12. Back in the 60′s, while in college I purchased my first 45. It was war surplus and in great condition. I believe it was less than $20. and came from the US Govt. thru the office of Civilian Marksmanship. Along with the 45 the Govt. sold me an M1 carbine. How things have changed. During this buying frenzy, I decided to sell most of my collection of military styled weapons. The anti gun lobby has stated that the buying is being done by those who already are well armed. NOT SO! Practically every call I received was from someone who didn’t know the difference between an AK and an AR. I will admit that most of the demand for ammo and magazines for those guns came from those who already own those weapons. What the liberals, progressives and marxists have not recognized, is that this buying frenzy is not about buying guns, ammo and high capacity magazines just because the left does not want them to have them. Based on my observation and conversations these buyers are preparing for war with our own government. They believe that they will have to fight for our freedom, not just their rights under the 2nd amendment. I believe that the guns I acquired over the last 50+ years are in good hands.
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26th January 2013 at 7:26 am
sangell says:
A madman facing murder charges speaks his mind on ‘gun control’ . He’s for it if you intend to shoot first graders but opposes it for madmen who are being attacked by ‘ghosts’.
http://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/crime/article1272438.ece
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26th January 2013 at 8:03 am
sangell says:
Gun-related homicides and injuries down as firearm sales soar
http://www.timesdispatch.com/news/local/central-virginia/gun-related-homicides-and-injuries-down-as-firearm-sales-soar/article_f573c648-2e22-5534-a2a8-56fa0fef0fdb.html
Gun control group caught using lies and fake statistics.
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26th January 2013 at 8:07 am
AKAnon says:
Makati-I cannot speak to your 16% stat definitively, but I suspect it is way low. FWIW here in AK, gun ownership is nearly universal. I can’t think of any adult/household that doesn’t own at least a gun or two. This includes some mighty liberal/progressive folks. I suspect this is the case in most of the western states (CA excluded). The urban cities in the south & midwest may be lower, but I’ll bet these states still have way more than 16%.
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26th January 2013 at 5:12 pm
AKAnon says:
Pelham-The CMP is still selling M-1 Garands and M-1 carbines to eligible folks, and ammo for 22, .410 (go figure?) 30 carbine, 223, 30-06 and 308. I did notice that they are no longer selling AP 30-06 (or are out of stock).
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26th January 2013 at 5:14 pm
KaD says:
A Mother just lost her FOURTH child to gun violence. But but but-isn’t Chicago gun FREE?
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/27/16725347-totally-lost-chicago-woman-loses-fourth-child-to-gun-violence#comments
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26th January 2013 at 6:08 pm
Administrator says:
He should have ducked.
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26th January 2013 at 7:02 pm
AWD says:
The four Chambers siblings that have been murdered in Chicago:
I’m sure banning weapons will put an abrupt end to the violence….
6 people shot to death, 1 stabbed on a violent Saturday in Chicago
http://now.msn.com/ronnie-chambers-and-others-killed-in-chicago-shootings
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26th January 2013 at 7:16 pm
sangell says:
Maybe I’m being harsh but if ALL your children are getting shot to death does it cross your mind that maybe you weren’t such a good parent?
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26th January 2013 at 7:35 pm
AKAnon says:
He should have ducked. Nice! For those with a little time to kill: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxpcZrQQM-4 Seems ironic to me (with apologies to the sister).
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26th January 2013 at 8:45 pm
KaD says:
Gun owners in New York are ‘going Gandi’ and refusing to register their arms:
“Gun owners and even some lawmakers are planning what has been dubbed potentially the largest act of civil disobedience in state history,” reports The New American. “Preparations are already being made for mass resistance.”
Let me state on the record that it is not merely a right to resist unlawful tyranny, but it is your DUTY to resist it and fight back via morally-justifiable means to restore constitutional law and the Bill of Rights in America. Anything less is a betrayal to the principles of America.
Any state government which would attempt to oppress the constitutional rights of its citizens and disarm them, making them absolutely defenseless against criminals and runaway government tyranny, is an illegitimate, unlawful government being run by criminals. That government must be thrown out of power and replaced with a legitimate, law-abiding government that honors the rights of citizens (and the limits of power placed on government).
Had Gandhi’s countrymen possessed arms, they would have fought back against the British empire’s illegal and imperial occupation many years earlier.
“I do believe that where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence I would advise violence,” Gandhi wrote in his famous work, Doctrine of the Sword.
He goes on to say:
I advocate training in arms for those who believe in the method of violence. I would rather have India resort to arms in order to defend her honor than that she should in a cowardly manner become or remain a helpless witness to her own dishonor.
Never heard these quotes from Gandhi? That’s because you’ve been taught a false history on Gandhi and most other topics. Martin Luther King, for example, also possessed many weapons for self defense and even sought a concealed carry permit to help protect himself from violence.
By “going Gandhi” with mass civil disobedience, New Yorkers are following in the footsteps of human history’s greatest freedom fighters and human rights activists. Self defense is a fundamental human right, and any who try to take this right from the People are, by definition, oppressors of human freedom and civil liberties.
http://www.naturalnews.com/038843_New_York_gun_owners_civil_disobedience.html
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26th January 2013 at 12:17 pm
KaD says:
And here’s your invitation: http://www.survivalblog.com/2013/01/nunc-pro-tunc-the-coming-day-of-burn-barrels-and-blessings.html
This is a standing invitation to my fellow Americans: If congress ever enacts a law mandating the registration and/or a production ban of detachable magazine semiautomatic rifles then you are hereby invited to the town square of your local community. There, burn barrels will be set up and we will publicly burn Form 4473s, FFL Bound Books, state and local registration records, and the sales receipts for every firearm in the United States. On that same day, FFL holders and public officials holding electronic firearms records will simultaneously erase those records, permanently and irretrievably. (Using special file erasure software such as Blancco, X-Ways, and Stellar Wipe, or though the physical destruction of disk drives.)
Spontaneous Gatherings, Spontaneous Combustion
This burn barrel day–likely to be held the day after the President signs any new draconian legislation–will include speeches, public prayers, and the blessing of those who have gathered by ministers, rabbis, and priests.
The core of the activities on that day will be stalwart public defiance of any new unconstitutional law(s), the open and notorious destruction of records that might be used to enslave us, and vocal public affirmations of solidarity of free men and women, in the face of tyranny. This will be a defining moment for America–a line drawn in the sand. We will forthrightly declare that we will not obey any unconstitutional law and that we will treat it dismissively, as if it had never been enacted — nunc pro tunc. We will pledge ourselves to the defense of liberty, both individually and collectively. We will vow that if ever called to jury duty, we will nullify any unconstitutional laws, vacating the charges against the accused, in accordance with our long-standing right as jurors. (See: http://www.FIJA.org.)
The Law is On Our Side
We will publicly re-affirm some long standing precepts of American jurisprudence, to wit:
“The General rule is that an unconstitutional statute, though having the form and name of law is in reality no law, but is wholly void, and ineffective for any purpose; since unconstitutionality dates from the time of it’s enactment and not merely from the date of the decision so branding it. An unconstitutional law, in legal contemplation, is as inoperative as if it had never been passed. Such a statute leaves the question that it purports to settle just as it would be had the statute not been enacted.
Since an unconstitutional law is void, the general principles follow that it imposes no duties, confers no rights, creates no office, bestows no power or authority on anyone, affords no protection, and justifies no acts performed under it…
A void act cannot be legally consistent with a valid one. An unconstitutional law cannot operate to supersede any existing valid law. Indeed, insofar as a statute runs counter to the fundamental law of the lend, it is superseded thereby.
No one is bound to obey an unconstitutional law and no courts are bound to enforce it.” – 16 Am Jur 2d, Sec 177 late 2d, Sec 256
Never Again!
Recognizing the many sad lessons of civilian disarmament and subsequent genocides in the 20th Century, we will make bold and forthright statement: Never Again! We will not submit to the unlawful decrees of tyrants. We will not meekly go their jails and internment camps. We will fight for our liberty, to our dying breath.
Come Armed, Come Masked
I recommend that all adults who publicly assemble at these burn barrel events do so armed, as is our right. And those who come armed should also wear masks, to protect themselves from malicious prosecution. I plan to wear a Guy Fawkes mask, but you can wear a bandana, face muffler, or the face mask of your choice. Joining you, also wearing masks, will be many mayors, sheriffs and their deputies, chiefs of police and their officers, town council members, clergy, and people of all walks of life. We vastly outnumber the tyrants. The tyrants deserve nothing but our scorn and derision. Their fate is already sealed.
Plausible Denial
After this fateful day has come and gone, FFL holders and public officials will be able to recount: “I had no choice. My records were taken by men with guns who were wearing masks!” (So they’ll have no excuse if they don’t cooperate with this nationwide display of civil disobedience.)
God Bless The Republic. Down with Tyrants. We Will Prevail!
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26th January 2013 at 12:24 pm
sangell says:
I’d suggest anyone in New York who the authorities arrest for failing to register their guns refuse any deals and insist on a jury trial if they are outside New York City. It unlikely you are going to find 12 normal people willing to convict someone for exercising their constitutional rights. Jury nullification can and hopefully will make Governor homo look the bag of shit he is.
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26th January 2013 at 12:36 pm
Thinker says:
Meanwhile, in Chicago, where gun laws are among the toughest in the nation:
Woman shot to death on Lake Shore Drive ramp
For anyone who isn’t familiar with Chicago, this is a major, clearly-lit highway right next to the Chicago convention center, McCormick Place. You can see in the windows of the convention center as you drive by.
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26th January 2013 at 10:51 am