No Guns for you. . .Just guns for me!

Posted by NRA - 8/29/2014
In recent years, American gun owners have come under unprecedented attacks from a few billionaires willing to spend some of their vast personal fortunes to deprive others of their firearm rights. The most recent example of this is in the battle over Initiative 594 in Washington State. This initiative would expand the state’s handgun registration scheme, increase the current waiting period from 5 to 10 days, presumptively outlaw the private transfer of firearms, and divert scarce law enforcement resources that could be better spent combating violent crime.

Joining the chief funder of anti-gun efforts, Michael Bloomberg, tech billionaires Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer and Paul Allen, as well as entrepreneur Nick Hanauer have thrown their resources behind I-594. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported on August 25th that the Gates family has donated over $1 million in support of I-594. Earlier in the month, the Post-Intelligencer reported that the total contributions from the Ballmer family were $600,000. In addition, Allen donated $500,000. According to the article, with the help of these and other wealthy donors, the anti-gun activists have raised $6 million. (For an in-depth view of how the ultra-wealthy are bankrolling I-594 we encourage you to visit the website of Washington’s Public Disclosure Commission).

However, just because this handful of billionaires wants to make it harder for regular citizens to acquire the means of self-defense doesn’t mean they neglect to provide for their own security. A report from Seattle’s KIRO-TV regarding a 2014 break-in at the Gates’ mansion (often referred to as Xanadu 2.0) characterized the estate as, “[o]ne of the most secure private homes in the world.” An accompanying article stated, “The home has cameras, guards and sensors everywhere.” In 1998, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that Gates “usually travels with a phalanx of bodyguards.”

Paul Allen also has an extensive and sophisticated security service. In a 2013 article detailing problems he, his sister and their company, Vulcan, Inc., were having with their personal security personnel, the Post-Intelligencer revealed details about the scale of the protective force. It notes, “At least 15 former members of the Allens’ personal security detail have brought civil claims against Vulcan and its leaders.” The article also states that some of the force were “veterans of elite military units or longtime security specialists.”

Hypocrisy aside, another reason Gates’ attempt to manipulate Washington politics is noteworthy is that it departs from his previous philanthropic ventures to fight disease or poverty or to promote education. Obviously, spending money to curtail your fellow citizens’ right to self-defense isn’t really philanthropic, but his donations to I-594 supporters are different in another way. The Microsoft founder claims to be a proponent of maximizing the impact of giving. This supposedly involves directing money where it can do the most good and encouraging philanthropic organizations to behave more like the business world. This is a noble approach to noble goals when applied to fighting polio or malaria, but Gates abandons logic when it comes to his anti-gun giving.

First, I-594 doesn’t pass a simple cost-benefit analysis. So-called "universal” background check proposals can never actually be universal, as criminals intent on violence will not subject themselves to government scrutiny. Instead, violent criminals will continue to acquire firearms in the ways they always have: theft, straw purchasers, and illegal street sales. No effect on the murder rate can be expected.

Moreover, recent history proves that the anti-gun activists these billionaires have funded are grossly overestimating the extent to which people engage in private firearm transfers, and therefore the impact of legislation targeting these transfers. Their website is littered with the indefensible claim that private transfers account for 40 percent of all firearm transfers.

In the time period surrounding the enactment of a private transfer ban in Colorado, a branch of the state legislature released a report which anticipated that law enforcement personnel would need to conduct 420,000 additional background checks in the law’s first two years. The legislature reached this conclusion by relying on the bogus 40 percent statistic. As an Associated Press report noted, however, in the law’s first year there were only “13,600 checks between private sellers,” a figure that only comprised “4 percent of the state total” for firearms transfers.

In short, I-594 would impose costs on law-abiding Washingtonians without providing the purported benefit of keeping firearms out of the hands of those intent on violence.

These individuals can buy almost anything, and it’s clear they believe that includes the rights of gun owners in the Evergreen State. It is imperative that freedom-loving Washingtonians work to protect their rights by getting involved in the NRA’s grassroots organization, informing their friends and family of this attempt to curb gun rights and the hypocrisy behind it, and most of all, by voting against I-594 on November 4th.

You’ve Ever Wanted An “Evil Black Rifle,” Now Is The Time To Buy

 

 By Bob Owens - 8/29/2014         

Some basic AR-15s were running more than $1,500 during the post-Sandy Hook panic. Carbines with similar features can now be found for roughly half that price in many locations.

 

Business is a matter of supply and demand.

In recent years, the demand for the AR-15 modern sporting rifle has been at an all-time high, and manufacturers struggled to add multiple shifts and new equipment to meet that demand. It was a seller’s market.

Baton Rouge ordinance banning guns in bars violates Second Amendment, federal judge rules

A federal judge in Baton Rouge ruled a Baton Rouge city ordinance banning possession of firearms in places that sell alcohol, including in the parking lots of those establishments, was unconstitutional.

 

By Emily Lane - The Times-Picayune - 8/25/2014he Times-Picayune   

Chief U.S. District Judge Brian Jackson, in an order issued Monday (Aug. 25), struck down the city ordinance that was successfully challenged by a plaintiff who was arrested in 2012 after Baton Rouge Police Department officers pulled him over, searched his car and arrested him for violating the ordinance.

The plaintiff, Ernest Taylor, says that around 1:30 a.m. Oct. 13, 2012, he was pulled over for a traffic stop after exiting Romeo's Lounge parking lot. After telling the officer he had two rifles in his car along with the proper permits, the officer forcibly retrained him on the hood a car before arresting him.

Rejecting The Rule Of Law Means Inviting The Rule Of Guns

Kurt Schlichter - 8/25/2014

                 

              

What is the alternative to the rule of law? We may be on the verge of re-learning that ancient lesson the hard way. Of course, those of us who is served in places where there was no law, where leftists and other aspiring totalitarians ignored the rules and norms of civil society, already know.

The alternative to the rule of law is the rule of power. And the rule of power is always the rule of men with guns.

The disgraceful indictment of Rick Perry in Texas is just the latest example of this trend, albeit one that carries the seeds of hope. The judicial lynching under way in Ferguson offers less reason for optimism – our disgrace of an Attorney General and that clown masquerading as Missouri’s governor are practically salivating at the idea of sacrificing the police officer on the altar of indignation, facts and law be damned.

Police shoot, kill Ohio dad, 22, holding BB gun in Walmart

By: Raquel Okyay - 8/17/2014 

 

Family members, gun rights advocates are questioning how a young father was quickly shot and killed by police at Ohio Walmart after a complaint was made that he was carrying and waving around a firearm.

John Crawford III, 22, was fatally shot by law enforcement inside a Beavercreek, Ohio Walmart on Aug. 5 within minutes of a 911 call from a fellow Walmart shopper. The caller told a 911 operator, who was relaying the information to the Beavercreek Police Department that a man meeting Crawford’s description was walking around with a gun in the store – pointing it at people.

“He’s waving it around,” said the 911 caller. “It looks like a rifle, it looks like he was loading it, I don’t know.” Immediately thereafter, the caller reports gun shots in the store and police on the scene.

When a Psychiatrist Shoots to Kill

By Robert B. Young - 8/7/2014
  
        A doctor defended himself and others from a violent patient, but he had to break a no-gun policy to do so. 
    
"More might have died if doctor had not shot gunman” — so read the headline in the Philadelphia Inquirer on July 27. On the previous Thursday, a patient, Richard Plotts, entered the office of his psychiatrist, Lee Silverman, M.D., with his caseworker, Theresa Hunt. Plotts then became very upset and killed Hunt with two shots to her head. While this was happening, Dr. Silverman tried to take cover, drew his handgun, and shot the attacker three times. The doctor suffered slight wounds from bullets that grazed his head and hit his thumb. Staffers then succeeded in subduing the wounded Plotts. He was hospitalized in critical condition and now faces murder charges.

Detroit police chief: "No question in my mind" legal gun ownership deters crime

By Jessica Chasmar - The Washington Times - 7/16/2014
Detroit has experienced 37 percent fewer robberies than it did last year, and Police Chief James Craig is crediting armed citizens for the drop.

"Criminals are getting the message that good Detroiters are armed and will use that weapon," said Chief Craig, who has been an open advocate for private gun ownership, the Detroit News reported. "I don't want to take away from the good work our investigators are doing, but I think part of the drop in crime, and robberies in particular, is because criminals are thinking twice that citizens could be armed.

Judge Says Second Amendment Doesn't Protect AR-15s

 By Investors Business Daily - 8/14/2014

 

A federal judge rules that the AR-15 and similar weapons commonly used in self-defense "fall outside Second Amendment protection as dangerous and unusual arms," and we have no right to keep or bear them.

 

Nobody looted the gun shop and tattoo parlor that share a storefront in a strip mall less than 10 minutes from Ferguson, Mo., where riots followed the police shooting of Michael Brown.
According to the local Riverfront Times, the owners of County Guns and Tattoo Studio arrived with friends to protect their businesses. One owner carried a rifle and pistol and wore a vest, while the other had his own rifle.

Locked and Loaded Ladies

More women carrying guns for protection

 

By Anna Lockhart - 8/10/2014

 

With her cropped silver hair, white orthopedic slip-on shoes and a silver cross and a Virgin Mary pendant around her neck, you'd never suspect that Pat Bagley is packing heat.

 

But nestled in a zippered pocket of her black leather purse, Bagley's matte-black Ruger .38 pistol goes with her almost everywhere. It's loaded with a five-cartridge clip of hollow-point bullets, the ones capable of tearing huge chunks out of whatever they hit, especially flesh.

 

"If I need more than that, I figure I'm already dead. But those things will tear you up," says Bagley, almost 70 years old, a retired nurse, grandmother of four and known to nearly everyone as "Miss Pat."

Straight Shooters: Meet the Gay Gun-Rights Activists

It's not just macho Bible thumpers who treasure their Second Amendment rights.

By Marin Cogan - 8/6/2014

Four years ago, Chris Cheng's Chinese-Japanese-Cuban-American Google employee' started watching Top Shot, a History Channel reality show where contestants shoot their way through a series of complex competitions. Cheng, who as a kid had sometimes gone shooting with his Navy veteran father, started getting into the show.

One day, while watching season two with some of his Google coworkers, Cheng told them: "Hey, everyone, this is gonna sound crazy, but I think I'm going to apply for Top Shot." He remembers his colleagues thinking he was nuts. "They looked at me like, 'You barely shoot, you don't have any accolades or trophies or awards or anything in the shooting world. What makes you think you'd even stand a chance with some of these lifelong, seasoned professional marksmen?' "

But Cheng had a sense of what he could do. He'd been going to the range and hitting his marks; the best way to put his skills to the test, he figured, was to sign up and try out. He got in. Then he beat out veterans, police officers, and an Olympic shooter en route to winning that season's competition. The first thing he did after his victory was take some of the $100,000 prize money and upgrade his National Rifle Association membership to lifetime status.

11 YR OLD SHOOTS ILLEGALS . . . .

BUTTE, MONTANA

Shotgun preteen vs. Illegal alien Home Invaders... 

Two illegal aliens, Raphael Resindez, 23, and Enrico Garza, 26, probably believed they would easily overpower

Home-alone 11-year-old Patricia Harrington after her father had left their two-story home. 

It seems the two crooks never learned two things: they were in Montana and Patricia had been a clay-shooting champion since she was nine.

Ivy Leaguer plagued by stalker may drop out over school’s anti-gun policy

 

By Perry Chiaramonte - 8/6/2014                 

 

Despite being victimized by a stalker, Taylor Woolrich was told by Dartmouth officials that she was not allowed to carry a gun on campus after inquiring about a concealed carry permit.

A 20-year-old Dartmouth student says she may have to give up her Ivy League dream and drop out of school because the prestigious college won't allow her to carry a gun -- to protect herself against a predator.

Taylor Woolrich, a junior, says Dartmouth administrators told her they won’t let her carry a gun on campus, even though she lives in fear of a man who has been stalking her since she was a high school student in San Diego.

North Carolina Sheriff’s Response to Explosion in Violent Crime: Be Armed and Ready Until the Police Arrive

By Jason Howerton - 8/5/2014

                                                                                                            

Responding to an explosion in violent crime in Harnett County, North Carolina, Sheriff Larry Rollins told about 130 residents at a community meeting on Monday that they need to “be able to take care of business” until police arrive.

 

To put it bluntly, Rollins wants his residents to be armed and ready to protect themselves and their families.

 

“I do not go anywhere without a gun,” the sheriff told residents at Spring Hill Methodist Church in Lillington, North Carolina, on Monday.

Pro-Second Amendment picture book for children draws mixed reactions

 

By Guardian Web - 8/4/2014  

Sporting a cover image of a blue-eyed family with guns clipped to their belts, a new American children's picture book is setting itself out as the solution for all those parents who "carry a gun and sometimes struggle with how to best explain the reasons" to their children.

My Parents Open Carry, by Brian Jeffs and Nathan Nephew, co-founders of the pro-gun Michigan Open Carry, has been released by small US publisher White Feather Press. The picture-book fellows a "typical Saturday running errands and having fun together" for 13-year-old Brenna Strong and her parents, say the authors. "What's not so typical is that Brenna's parents lawfully open carry handguns for self-defense."