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Posts Tagged → gun control

America’s tradition of gun ownership runs deep

Visiting the National Museum of American History in Washington, DC, over the weekend, it was tough not to wonder how anti-gun activists get their ideas.

Displays at the museum about the 1750s French and Indian War, and the 1775-1783 American War of Independence, have an awful lot of individually owned, military-grade firearms on display.

On April 19, 1775, after the American militia faced off against the professional British soldiers in Lexington, Massachusetts, and after they fired on the long British retreat back to Boston, a British commander wrote “Whoever looks upon them [the American militia] as an irregular mob will find himself much mistaken, as they have men amongst them who know very well what they are about.”

Meaning, the American militia men were darned good shots, brave, and thoughtful about tactics.  Those privately owned rifles created the personal freedoms and liberty that American citizens now take for granted and which are the goal of would-be immigrants the world over.

Today, the American tradition of personally owning firearms that the government has neither approved nor knows about lives on among about 100 million citizens.  It is the ultimate liberty, and we will not give it up.  Nor will we allow government bureaucrats to watch us, monitor us, and decide for us if we should or should not own guns.  The Second Amendment means what it says: “Shall not be infringed.”

Which is why I wonder why one political party has made gun control such a singular goal.  It is an increasingly loser political issue, with little to no return on investment.  If that one political party would give up on this one issue, they would be a lot more successful.  I should know, because the spirit of Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill lives on among so many Americans.  How others are missing that spirit makes you wonder if they really understand what America is all about.

Westgate Mall, Kenya….a “gun free zone”

Islamic activists attacked the Westgate Mall this week, challenging the oddly dressed and poorly equipped Kenyan police and military to take time off from beating civilians and assert armed force against armed forces.

By all accounts the attack and counter attack were a horrible mess. The Muslims racked up a dandy accounting, murdering about 65 women, children, and old men in cold blood, often challenging their victims to recite parts of the Koran to prove that they were Muslims, and thereby deserving of life.

One thing is for sure, those “gun free zones” and all the disarmed gentle people in them seem to attract a lot of crazies with guns. Westgate is the most recent, but malls, movie theatres, and schools are all similar in their distaste for legally armed civilians. Their taste for illegally armed lunatics is proving to be quite high.

Hopefully at some point, this “If I can’t see it, it doesn’t exist” attitude driving the gun-free zone policy will evolve into some expression of self-preservation, which means having the ability to meet force with force.

Certain people have hero complexes. Among them are police officers who want to disarm civilians and maintain militarily armed “rapid response” teams. Problem is, when seconds count, these rapid response guys are at best minutes away. Consider also that countries where only the police have effective guns are called police states.

Want to see my rapid response team? It’s right here. I’m looking at it. It’s my trigger finger, and I would stake my life on it, and yours, long before I’d expect the cops to show up after the shooting started.

You’ve got your own rapid response team, too. Start exercising it, it might come in handy. And if it does, you can enjoy being a hero while the hero-wannabes are just starting to show up.

Facts be damned, gun control full speed ahead

Aaron Alexis shot about twenty people at the Navy Ship Yards in Washington, DC, not with an AR-15, but with an off-the-shelf shotgun and handguns he captured from security staff.

He was recently being treated with psychiatric drugs, and may have been on them during the shooting.

He was deeply unhappy with America, according to his friend, and was feeling politicized enough to move away. He was often angry.

He had been arrested for illegally shooting guns in Washington State and in Texas, both times out of anger.

Alexis was heavily into violent video games, playing them non-stop for years. Col. Dave Grossman of West Point Academy says that his studies demonstrate a direct link between violent video games and violent behavior.

Alexis was hearing voices.

All of these facts demonstrate that Alexis was crazy when he went on his shooting spree. His Secret clearance to a supposedly secure facility allowed him to get into the building, where he used his plain vanilla shotgun to capture two handguns, which he then used on his victims.

None of these facts have stopped anti-freedom activists like US Senator Dianne Feinstein, leftist political commentator David Frum, and others from immediately leaping on a band wagon for more gun control (not crime control).

A US media that refuses to report these facts, but instead lets stand erroneous reports and opinion columns promoting gun control based on incorrect reporting has bolstered these efforts to disarm Americans.

And it is this disregard for facts that makes me and so many others like me absolutely unbending in our refusal to submit to illegal gun control schemes. All the red flags were available to get Alexis incarcerated and receiving the help he needed. But so many different filters and systems failed. That has zero to do with the lawful ownership of guns.

Leave our Constitutional rights alone. Solve the actual problems.

Condolences to the victims of the Navy Yard rampage

While it is presently unknown who is behind the deadly rampage at the US Navy Yard, it is a fact that innocent people have been killed and wounded in the attack.

Whether this is another act of domestic terrorism by Islamic crazies, like the Fort Hood Massacre and the Boston Marathon bombing, or if it is some workplace politics vendetta, remains to be determined.

The fact is also that most US military installations are disarmed, surprisingly. The lesson from Fort Hood has not been learned, namely, that properly armed workers are safer. Workers who have concealed carry permits should be able to carry at a federal work site, and especially a military one, so that they are better able to defend themselves in situations like this. Gun control proponents will use this to try to promote their gun confiscation plan, when in fact the opposite policies are needed.

My heart goes out to the innocent and brave people who died or who were injured in this tragic event.

Boston Marathon: A Bomb-Free Zone, Right?

Not that reason or logic is guiding the anti-Second Amendment crusade right now, but it’s helpful to my own peace of mind to point out that the Boston Marathon is a bomb-free zone. And several bombs were exploded there, anyhow. The point being that only law-abiding people follow laws. Passing laws that infringe upon the Constitutional rights of law abiding citizens, while doing nothing about crime, are by definition bad laws.

Drawing a parallel here with gun control laws, obviously. Not advocating bombs for everyone, obviously.

My heart goes out to the victims of today’s bombing. Hopefully, this administration will focus on Islamic terrorists and stop trying to prove that everyone else is really the threat to America.

“Obama Cop” Tom Hyers Has Some Explaining to Do

Nick-named the “Obama Cop” because of his recent role in promoting gun control with US VP Joe Biden, York County, Springettsbury Township police chief Tom Hyers now has some big-time explaining to do.

I met Chief Hyers when we debated gun control at the WITF studio last month. Hyers was quick to promote gun control, quick to dismiss armed citizens and teachers, and quick to draw imaginary images of heroic rapid response police who bust down doors and shoot bad guys.

Strangely, Chief Hyers called my observation that, when seconds count the police are only minutes away, a “smoke screen.” It’s no smoke screen; it is a fact that the laws of physics cannot overcome. After our debate, we spent some time off camera chatting, getting to know one another, and exchanging views on gun control and culture.

Now, Chief Hyers has police officers on his force accused of using wildly excessive force. One of the officers is accused in at least two different incidents. The incidents are all on camera, and they explicitly show men in uniform out of control, sadistically hurting the defenseless citizens they are sworn to protect.

My own takeaway from this is that policemen like Hyers are super into their jobs, and we both support them and cast a wary eye. On the one hand, we admire men and women who put their lives on the line to bring order to our society, who confront dangerous humans and risk their health to do a job. On the other hand, Hyers believes too much in the power of police. He practically worships it, to the point of dismissing the effectiveness of armed citizens, a silly thing to do. When I mentioned during our debate that concealed carry holders are extremely safe and have been observed to have a lower accident rate than uniformed police, Hyers bristled and demanded to know where such ‘outrageous claims’ came from.

No wonder Chief Hyers loves gun control so much. He also knowingly employs cops who beat the heck out of innocent citizens and face no internal corrective action. Police deserve our respect, and their power deserves watchfulness. Chief Hyers is very much the face of gun control. He is a man to watch, all right…watch out, America!

It Takes a Democrat Strategist & a Conservative Republican to Say What the GOP Establishment Can’t & Won’t Say

CPAC is going on now and through the weekend. CPAC is the annual conservative gathering held around America that pressures the GOP establishment to make sounds of conservativism.

Political strategist Pat Caddell sat on a panel at CPAC yesterday and chided the Republican Party for not fighting to win. Caddell said that the Democrats fight to win, and win they do, and he laughed at how gentlemanly Republicans and conservatives like to be, even at the cost of winning. He listed many examples that I will not reproduce here.

Caddell is a Democrat.

Slip over to the US Capitol around the same time, where US Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) was being asked simple questions about her view of the US Constitution by US Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX). You can easily look up the exchange. Cruz asked Feinstein if her approach to gutting the Second Amendment would apply to the First and Fourth Amendments to the US Constitution, where, by her kind of legislation the US citizens could be told which books they could read and which parts of their homes were open to warrantless searches.

Feinstein had a snit and “took offense” to the question, instead of answering it. Liberals always, always, always take offense to anything that they don’t agree with. Being offended is silly, and is no grounds for dismissing an issue. If someone is offended, so what…keep going.

Recall that until very recently, Cruz was the outsider Republican, excluded by the GOP establishment and undermined by them at every turn in his quest for elected office. Conservatives like Cruz are always on the outs with the GOP establishment, because they say things that aren’t considered polite by GOP moderates.

In a nutshell, Thursday, March 14, 2013, was a significant milestone in the internal reformation of the GOP. A Democrat laughed openly in the faces of the GOP for being such weenies that they willfully lose races, and a conservative Republican asked a simple question not asked by any establishment R’s, highlighting the gulf between traditional conservatives and moderate Republicans.

Fortunately, Pennsylvania has US Senator Pat Toomey, a real American with basic American values representing our views in Washington. How sad it was and remains today that the PA GOP tried to promote Steve Welch as the GOP alternative to Bob Casey, instead of staying out of the primary race and letting the candidates contend among themselves. We might today have Tom Smith as our second US Senator, instead of the leftwing Bob Casey.

What the Militia Was in 1776

A very brief, historic review of what some American militias were in the 1770s, including their purposes and makeup:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323468604578251780957727750.html

Josh appearing on WITF tonight

Josh will be appearing as a guest on tonight’s live WITF Smart Talk TV program hosted by Nan McCormick Abom. On Channel 33-5 in the Harrisburg, the show runs from 8:00 pm to 9:00 pm and will take calls.

Pennsylvania Hunters: Army of The Republic

Pennsylvania Hunters: Freedom’s Bulwark
By Josh First

Like it or not, the Obama administration’s failed gun-running scheme, “Fast and Furious,” is viewed by tens of millions of Americans as the tip of the administration’s ice berg aimed at sinking the American tradition of gun ownership.

You’d only be kidding yourself if you stated that the Obama administration supports Second Amendment rights. This administration has done everything it can to hamstring legal gun ownership. Growing up in Central Pennsylvania, where Democrats strenuously, overwhelmingly, even defiantly promoted Second Amendment rights, it saddens me to see the party having lost so much ground on this issue. To tens of millions of Americans, with many regional exceptions across rural Pennsylvania, that political party increasingly represents a direct threat to the greatest Constitutional right we have, the one right that guarantees all the others.

Last week marked the beginning of another two-week Pennsylvania deer hunting season, using firearms, and about 750,000 licensed hunters are afield here during this time, down from a high of over one million twenty years ago.

Every year I am one of these licensed hunters, toting around a Remington 700 BDL in .30-06 in our steep, majestic mountains. It is extremely accurate out to hundreds of yards and it has taken countless deer, and one bear, when called upon at a second’s notice. Its open sights are designed to acquire the target quickly.

Having my rifle across my shoulder, cradled in my arms, slung over my back, clutched in my hand, or at my shoulder, ready to fire, is one of the most natural and comforting feelings I know. Along with my beautiful custom hunting knife made by John Johnson (JRJ knives, in Perry County) and bullet wallet on my belt, and a pack on my back containing food, water, drag rope, and survival essentials, I feel as ready to hunt as Oetzi the Snow Man of the Alps felt the day he died while hunting over 5,000 years ago. As we modern humans are essentially dolled-up Pleistocene hunter-gatherers in fancy clothes, it is as natural a feeling as a human can have. It is who we are at our core, like it or not.

Like many guys out there now, I enjoy hunting alone, stealthily reconnoitering remote cliffs and washes, or with one or two other friends stalking independently of one another, knowing that any of one us could connect with our quarry, or bump them to a buddy. About a zillion years of programming goes into this heightened sense of anticipation and satisfaction when it happens. Until a hundred and fifty years ago, failing to kill a deer meant the family went to sleep hungry, so there should be no surprise that successful hunting evokes the strongest feelings of pride, and happiness. Eating and living to see another day is pretty much the happiest thing a person can do. Today, we just take it for granted, and contract out the inconvenient killing to a hitman, more or less.

However, most of my deer and bear hunting is spent in the company of many friends, Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Disaffected. As we move around and across the landscape, carefully coordinating with one another in long lines designed to drive game forward and to stay out of one another’s shooting lanes, I am re-amazed every year at the proficiency with which our guys move across that rough terrain, at the way they safely handle their high powered rifles, at the way that they snap that rifle to their shoulder and kill a far-off deer in only a second or two, before the window of opportunity closes. These folks are shooters, serious, excellent woodsmen. Focused. Formidable. Impressive. I’m proud to be among such company.

These are real men out there, and real women, challenging themselves to succeed in ways that most modern humans have no idea about, sadly. However, there is another group out there that can somewhat relate to how we live during this period, and that is the men and women in combat uniform.

If Pennsylvania hunters were an army, they would be the fifth largest in the world behind China, North Korea, India, Russia and the United States, the last of which has an army only fractionally made of actual shooters. Although I did not receive military training, and although most of my experience with firearms has been rooted in hunting and target shooting, my attitude about my right to own an assortment of firearms is pretty damned militant. And that same attitude is shared among the other 749,999 licensed hunters here, not to mention the other few million Pennsylvanians who stopped hunting years ago but who retain homes full of firearms and bullets. We are a bulwark of freedom, a silent army that need not say anything nor give word to what it represents. Its shadow is faint but long.

In that context, and in the shadow of “Fast and Furious,” one of the thoughts that repeatedly crossed my mind over the past few weeks in our beautiful mountains was, “Mr. Obama, if you want our guns, then come and take ‘em. Really, give it a try, pal.”

It ain’t happening. Our army is bigger than yours.