For one thing, defensive firearms are meant to be “equalizers,” force multipliers that can allow one good person to defend against multiple evil people. To allow one good person to defend against a single evil person so much stronger and/or bigger and/or more violent than he or she, that the attacker’s potentially lethal assault can be stopped. History shows that it often takes many gunshots to stop even a single determined aggressor. Most police officers have seen the famous autopsy photo in the cops-only text book “Street Survival” of the armed robber who soaked up 33 police 9mm bullets before he stopped trying to kill the officers. Consider Lance Thomas, the Los Angeles area watch shop owner who was in many shootouts with multiple gang bangers who tried to rob and murder him. He shot several of them, and discovered that it took so many hits to stop them that he placed multiple loaded handguns every few feet along his workbench. That’s not possible in a home, or when lawfully carrying concealed on the street: a semiautomatic pistol with a substantial cartridge capacity makes much more sense for that defensive application.
[First it’s worth reading the whole thing. My usual response currently about why do you “need” currently is, “It’s a bill of rights not a bill of needs.” Massad does a fantastic job of destroying their “need” argument. As Massad points out: If semiautomatic rifles and pistols with high-capacity magazines are so ineffective for defense, why do police carry them? If all they can do is aid in criminal activity, why are the police allowed access?
Our opponents will admit a gun in the right hands is a net positive. They will not argue to disarm representatives of the state. So how does taking a firearm from an innocent law-abiding citizen, the right hands, fix the negative of criminals gaining possession.
Ultimately gun control has nothing to do with crime and everything to do with control. Crime has been decreasing even with an increase in firearms ownership in America. There is no causation despite what they claim. Never mind that the numbers say this is quite unlikely to occur. That isn’t to say it isn’t a tragedy, it’s just not worth throwing freedom and liberty away for ineffective measures to try to stop a statistically unlikely event.
So in the end, why would anyone want to limit access to that effective equalizer? -B]
Those in power, the ones telling you that you are kinder and more gentle if your turn in your weapons, they are not going to take it. The President isn’t going to take it. He has armed security because he feels that his life is far more valuable than yours or mine. Of course, he should be protected by the the best of the best at tax payers expense. Again, in all fairness, if we are going to compare lives of worth, his does rank at the top. He is after all the leader of the Free World…well, semi-free world, well, America. We are free right?
[I am reminded of a lecture I listened to quite recently. One that I will more than most likely give next year.
The Level reminds us that we are descended from the same stock and partake of the same nature, yet no eminence of station should make us forget that we are brethren and that he who is places on the lowest spoke of fortune’s wheel may be entitle to our regard; because the time will come, and the wisest knows not how soon, when all distinctions but that of goodness shall cease, and death, the grand leveler of Human greatness reduces us to the same state.
One cannot argue that their life is worthy of armed defense while arguing to disarm others of the tools to do so. In that hypocrisy one shows they do not actually view their fellow man as equals, but rather slaves. –B]
Now a couple observations, this is their current absolute wish list. This thing is so over the top to “garner compromise”. They shall receive none from me. Write, call, and show up. Seriously folks, you all can most certainly write. If you’re unsure what to write, Robb has a wonderful starting point.
Don’t just do this yourselves, get EVERYONE else you can to do it too. Do not just go quietly into the night, make your voice heard. Make them realize the beast that they want to tangle with. Make them understand that there will be no compromise from us on this subject. Know someone who just bought a new AR in the panic, get them to write in! I’ve heard many people lately bitch about it but not a one of them has bothered to write in and complain.
Do not just sit on the side lines and expect this to turn out for the best. If you want to see the future, create it! There is no doubt that the NRA stepped in it last week, but as Sebastian said:
The NRA, like it or not, is the most effective and biggest legislative lobbyist we have on our side. Honestly they are the only one’s that we can effectively use against our enemy. If you doubt their ability, why do you think our opponents are so enthralled with attacking and attempting to discredit the NRA and its members? The one thing that bugs me more than anything though are the people who bitch about the direction of the organization but they do not get active themselves. As I have said already, “If you want to see the future, make it.” That does not happen by sitting on your ass and complaining on your blog or to your friends. It happens by going out and getting active, at least at the local level. Do you think the NRA would ignore a large section of it’s membership if that section actually stood up and said something? No, but that section has sat quite for so long they forget they’re there.
If you sit around and do not even bother to lift a finger in this fight and we loose, you have no one to blame but yourself.
For those of you who may not understand, I give you this:
I spent last night in conversation with my mom regarding the current state of affairs and the political fallout from the actions of a mad man that shall not be named.* I find the shirt fitting because I’m not going to run, I am not going to cower, I am going to stand and fight against the coming onslaught.
I am going to fight against those who would disarm the law abiding, I will fight those who think that one more law would magically stop a mad man, I will fight against those who think that the appearance of a weapon is some how related to its effectiveness, I am going to fight against those who use the tragedy and misfortune of innocent children and families to further their own political agenda. Ultimately I am fighting against those who would disarm the victims to ensure they are incapable of mounting the most effective response and defense.
Ultimately in the words of Malcolm Renyolds, “I aim to misbehave.” Because my stepping up to the plate is exactly what our opponents would say is misbehavior. They would rather I just shut up and sit in the corner so they could then use my silence as an indication that I feel guilty for the actions of another.
No. I aim to misbehave. I aim to act and pursue this in ways they couldn’t imagine. I aim to help the big dogs in this fight to take control of the conversation and pummel our opponents into the ground. I aim to make this their last stand. I aim to put them into the dust bin of history next to the KKK.
Me thinks I’m going to have to watch [amazon_link id=”B000BW7QWW” target=”_blank” ]Serenity [/amazon_link]when I get home tonight.
*Seriously, if you put his name in the comments I will perma-ban you, I will not aid in giving these people fame for their atrocities.
So, take a quick, deep breath. Write, call, show up. But for Browning’s sake, clear your head, focus your mind, and do not give an inch. We’re in the right, we are the good guys here, and there’s no room to compromise. Let them break against our wall, don’t preemptively open a door or two for them.
[Make no mistake people, we’re in a fight and we must not get complacent. Just because there are valid points being made about how we will survive doesn’t mean that it’s a done deal. The points being brought up across the board are good news. There is a pile of facts that indicates that no, the sky will not fall on us overnight. We can fight and win, there is no question on this. The problem is we need to act in a manner to guarantee our victory.
Bug every last gun owner you can, get them to write, call, or even meet in person with their representatives. This is serious folks, the more active we are up front the less work it will take at the final push. We need to take the initiative, we need to take control of the conversation.
So yes, there is good news on the horizon, much like I talked about last night. We must fight, we must win, we must brush our opponents into the dust bin of history! We can seal Joe’s wish in one fell swoop, do not back down, do not cower, do not get angry or upset, merely fight, the deck is not stacked against us like our opponents would have you think. -B]
[On my way home tonight I stopped by to chat with Chris and see how things were doing at my local gun shop. Here’s how it looked as I walked in:
I walked in as the last AR on the shelf was being bought. The few remaining that look like they are are really just dedicated .22 LR. The one sole carbine on the right is a 9mm carbine which was also liberated by the same individual who bought the last AR. Notice how there are no Glock mags, AR mags, or just about any other standard capacity magazine. Yeah the last of the P-Mags were leaving as I arrived. They moved, in the middle of no where mind you, in a store that’s mainly known as a golf shop, over 50 rifles in the past 4 days they were open for business.
So here’s what it looked like as I left from the purchase of a single individual:
To give you an idea of how serious this rush is, he was asked if he had any SCARs or other high end rifles and was offered cash for purchase. Think about that for a second folks, people were arriving cash money in hand to buy these.
I don’t think our opponents have fully realized what they have done. I can guarantee you that those who have bought rifles over the past weekend aren’t planning on turning them in if they’re outlawed. I went through all the pistols he had left. Most were single stack or revolvers. Every other normal capacity Glock, S&W, and XD was gone.
People are seriously afraid and I cannot say that the fear is ungrounded. But as piece of good news I do think that Sebastian is right in this following statement:
There’s no question though folks, this is going to be a fight. Do not underestimate the power of our enemy, especially with emotions on their side. Do not get cocky, do not think that magically we are just going to win this. It is going to take work and effort. Write or otherwise contact your legislators starting immediately. If you’re not sure what to do, follow this write up from Robb. Sadly again unlike our paid competitors I have to work for a living and I will be busy through the weekend. My goal is to sit down Sunday afternoon or take the day off Monday and write up an improved form letter based off of Robb’s. At the same time I’m going to work on creating a simple way to automate the whole process of contacting the necessary people.
I offered my help to Chris on arming customers on the political front and got him hooked with with Sebastian’s primer. My goal is to arm every last customer with the knowledge necessary to help win this fight.
Now is the time to fight. To those that argue for a ban on assault weapons I say, “Molon Labe!” –B]
So already I’ve seen comments and even got an email from a friend about a particular comment that was left, below is what the comment said (emphasis mine, spelling his).
We all here want to feel safe and do what we can to protect our families & loved ones: we are parents to our children, wives to our husbands, true friends to our friends. More than this we are neighbors and members of our community, in church, club, workplace and park.
I honor the Bill Of Rights and welcome the freedom the Second Ammendment gives me. I also recognize that this was written 221 years ago against the backdrop of our emerging nation. At this sad time and remembering past atrocities I will now seek a complete ban on assault rifles – I will continue to proudly keep and carry my little Ruger. While I dont know many of you here I know that you are no different to my own neighbors; good people living in difficult times. We all need to do the right thing and show leadership.
Here’s the thing folks, you either have a right to arms or you don’t. There is no negotiating on this, we did that in 1994 and look what happened. Further the current atrocity pulling at everyone’s heart strings happened within a state with an assault weapons ban!
If the ban didn’t stop him there what makes you think it would somehow work in the future? Please inform me how “just one more law” would have altered the course of events given the litany of laws he broke before he even started shooting children. Explain to me how the law-abiding gun owners are at fault and the sacrifice of their rights will somehow make the world a safer place. Even law-makers admit that an assault weapons ban wouldn’t have changed anything, you must know something the rest of us don’t.
But lets destroy your BS regarding 221 years ago shall we? At the time people owned cannon, artillery, and during the American Revolution the Kentucky Long Rifle was the AR-15 of the era. Read that again, the Kentucky Long Rifle was the AR-15 of the era. It was a military arm that was quite excellent at striking targets at long distances. By todays standard our bolt-action rifles could be compared with muskets. Muskets, lacking rifling, were less accurate but quicker to reload. So there’s a trade-off yes, overall the technology was quite similar, however there was a considerable difference between the two.
Lets move forward not even 100 years to the civil war and the advent of the henry repeating rifle as well as the percussion-cap revolver. Both of which greatly increased the available firepower of a single individual, yet by your argument we should have nothing more than what we had 221 years ago when it was written. So no revolvers, no repeating rifles, this destroys cartridge firearms, thus kiss your bolt-action rifles and shotguns good-bye seeing as they couldn’t have conceived of this 221 years ago.
Because they couldn’t conceive of the advances in technology 221 years ago, because they didn’t see the immediate benefit of the printing press, you argue for a complete ban on an inanimate object, that you don’t use, thinking that will somehow stop evil. You are however more than happy to continue carrying your “little Ruger” which, by your argument, should be outlawed since we should only take into account what they had at the time.
So if you want to carry a defensive pistol and you want to carry on this argument, you will carry nothing more than a single shot flint-lock pistol. For you see, you should only ever need one round! If you need more than one, obviously you need to practice your aim more! No one needs a 10 shot magazine, the size of the Ruger LCP, or even a six shot revolver, for our fore-fathers survived on 1 shot flint locks and that is what they had in mind when they wrote the 2nd Amendment, at least that’s what you claim. You cannot have it both ways, you cannot just embrace technology you like and throw away that you dislike.
Our opponents would be happy to take away every semi-automatic pistol, who needs them right? You can carry a revolver, it has six rounds, more than enough for anything you might encounter! Then one day someone goes on a spree, reloading while the response takes 20 minutes and you hear cries that we need blanket revolver ban. It’s a slippery slope my friend and the first assault weapons ban proved that along with another important fact.
Now you could say I’m over stepping and taking this too far to which I would reply, how do you set the bar then? George Washington didn’t cross the Delaware to get to his duck blind and by god the Second Amendment was not written with the aspect of hunting in mind. No, at the time the American public maintained it’s own supply of military arms and while some would say that is no longer necessary, I would point out that to this day the United States has an unorganized militia that can be called upon to defend her. As well as the fact that our government has committed atrocities against her own people and you wish to give that same government a sole monopoly on force. Merely ensuring that her own citizens cannot resist if they feel it necessary to do so.
Lastly your argument for an assault weapons ban also completely ignores the fact that the majority of the features banned are purely cosmetic and safety related. Tell me, what good does it do to ban a collapsible stock? You know that thing that allows you to adjust the length of pull for different sized shooters. That thing you adjust to make sure the shooter doesn’t get scoped, or otherwise suffer injury. The pistol grip, which is quite beneficial for disabled shooters allowing for a more natural grip angle and thus preventing further damage to the wrist because of recoil. Also my personal favorite, banning a barrel shroud. Really!? Banning an object who’s sole purpose is to prevent the user from burning themselves. That’s like banning suppressors, because we all like hearing damage!
Your statement above is nothing but pure hypocrisy no matter how you cut it. You either support the individual right of self-defense, including their right to choose what they think is the best arm for them, or you don’t. You cannot just say, well I don’t like evil black rifles so their bad but leave my pistols alone. What happens to the disabled woman who cannot easily deploy a pistol but can a rifle? Must she be stuck with a bolt-action rifle that she cannot effectively operate the bolt on? Ok, so you’ve left semi-auto rifles now with the necessary features to aid in ease of use. Now are you going to limit her to 10 rounds? That operator as I said lacks normal dexterity so while you can quickly and easily reload a magazine you’ve still limited the disabled shooter. And for what? It’s not like the magazine bans really matter to a determined individual:
Remember it was 20 minutes for the police to respond, so short of banning metallic cartridges, people can reload guns, again and again, using them for evil. The answer is to step up and stop evil when it appears, that is best done by allowing people to retain the best tools for doing so. That is not done by banning the otherwise law-abiding and turning them into felons overnight. I find it ironic though that you claim we should do the right thing and show leadership and you do so by blindly following the talking heads. The right thing is stepping up and doing what needs to be done, even if it seems difficult. The right thing is protecting the rights of others despite the actions of a lone mad man. By the way sir, you lead from the front, not from the rear as you kiss the boots of your future masters begging forgiveness for something that wasn’t your fault.
In the words of Samuel Adams:
If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace.
We ask not your counsels or your arms.
Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you.
May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.
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