Archive for the 'RKBA' Category

KIA in America’s first battle:

John Brown
Samuel Hadley
Caleb Harrington
Jonathon Harrington
Robert Munroe
Isaac Muzzey
Asahel Porter
Jonas Parker

God bless America.

A thoughtful interview, here.

(WRT this.)

I noticed a few months ago that a newly installed beach-rules sign in Miami specified no weapons, contrary to state law. I’ve seen signs like this before. Until recently local officials faced no costs for promulgating local rules that violated Florida’s preemption law.

I happened to pass that sign a few days ago and the weapons line had been whited out.

It is progress. It takes a long time, sometimes. Tea Party sympathizers should keep this in mind.

James C. Bennett, author of The Anglosphere Challenge (Rowman & Littlefield, 2004), and Michael J. Lotus (who blogs at Chicagoboyz.net as “Lexington Green”), are proud to announce the signing of a contract with Encounter Books of New York to publish their forthcoming book America 3.0.

America 3.0 gives readers the real historical foundations of our liberty, free enterprise, and family life.  Based on a new understanding of our past, and on little known modern scholarship, America 3.0 offers long-term strategies to restore and strengthen American liberty, prosperity and security in the years ahead.

America 3.0 shows that our country was founded as a decentralized federation of communities, dominated by landowner-farmers, and based on a unique type of Anglo-American nuclear family.  This was America 1.0, as the Founders established it.  The Industrial Revolution brought progress, opportunity and undreamed-of mobility.  But, it also pushed the majority of American families into a new, urban, industrial life along with millions of unassimilated immigrants. After the Civil War, new problems of public health, crime, public order, and labor unrest, on top of the issues of Reconstruction, taxed the old Constitution.  Americans looked for new solutions to new problems, giving rise to Progressivism, the ancestor of modern liberalism.

America 3.0 shows that liberal-progressive solutions to the challenges of America 2.0 relieved some problems, and kicked others down the road.  But they also led to an overly powerful state and to an overly intrusive bureaucracy.  This was the beginning of America 2.0, the America we grew up with, which dominated the Twentieth Century.

America 3.0 argues that the liberal-progressive or “Blue State” social model has reached its natural limits.  Even as it continues to try to expand, it is now dying out before our eyes.   We are  now living in the closing years of the 20th Century “legacy state.”  Even so, it has taken the shock of the current Great Recession to make people see the need for change.  As a result, more and more Americans are calling for a return to our founding principles.  Freedom and individualism are on the rise after a century-long detour.

America 3.0 shows that our current problems can be and must be transcended with a transition to a new America 3.0, based on modern technology, decentralized communities, and self-reliant families, and a reassertion of fiscal responsibility, Constitutionally limited government and free market economics.   Ironically the future America 3.0 will in many ways be closer to the original vision of the Founders than the fading America 2.0.

America 3.0 gives readers an accurate, and hopeful, assessment of our current crisis.  It also spotlights the powerful forces arrayed in opposition to the needed reform.  These groups include ideological leftists in media and the academy, politically connected businesses, and the public employees unions.  However, as powerful as these groups are, they have become vulnerable as the external conditions change.  A correct understanding of our history and culture, which America 3.0 provides, shows their opposition will be futile.  The new, pro-freedom, mass political movement, which is aligned with the true needs and desires of Americans, is going to succeed.

America 3.0 provides readers a program of specific “maximalist” proposals to reform our government and liberate our economy.  America 3.0 shows readers that these reforms are consistent with our fundamental culture, and with our Constitution, and will make Americans freer and more prosperous in the years ahead.

America 3.0 provides a “software upgrade” for the Tea Party and for all activists on the Conservative and Libertarian Right.  It provides readers with historical evidence and intellectual coherence, to channel the energy and enthusiasm of the rising mass political movement to renew America.

America 3.0 shows that our capacity for regeneration is greater than most people realize.  Predictions of our doom are deeply mistaken.  We are now living just before the dawn of America’s greatest days.  Within a generation, positive changes beyond what we can currently imagine will have taken place.  That is the America 3.0 we are going to build together.

(Cross-posted from the America 3.0 blog.)

Courtesy of Isegoria, the correspondence of Geoffrey Boothroyd, 31, English, unmarried, and member of the National Rifle Association, Great Britain, English Twenty Club, National Rifle Association of America (nonresident member), West of Scotland Rifle Club, and Muzzle Loaders Association of Great Britain and Ian Fleming, author, journalist, and birdwatching enthusiast.

With violent crime in New York on the rise, nanny mayor Bloomberg has involved himself in Virginia’s internal legislative process in an attempt to restrict the Second Amendment rights of the people of Virginia. His rationale for doing so is that New York criminals buy guns in Virginia, and since Bloomberg can’t control those criminals in New York itself, the law abiding citizens of Virginia have to give up some of their rights.

In reality, Bloomberg is just another impotent and incompetent big city mayor with a expensive, bloated, unionized, dysfunctional and often corrupt police force who cannot provide basic civil order to many parts of the city they notionally “serve and protect.” Rather than admit that he can’t actually perform the most basic duty of his office, Bloomberg desperately tries to shift the blame to some group outside his jurisdiction over which he can plausibly claim he has no control.

Bloomberg’s message boils down to: “Hey, you can’t blame for me runaway crime in New York because it’s all the fault of those ignorant rednecks in Virginia over whom I have no control!”

Blaming outsiders for internal woes is the oldest political trick in the book.

Read the rest of this entry »

Friend of a friend, used to be on a local SWAT team, retired and spends a lot of time at the range. My buddy has been shooting with him and says he’s extremely good. He showed us this photo taken at a range session. That’s two shots touching. He’s got YouTube videos showing him performing similar feats. He has big hands, and while the gun looks like a little S&W Model 60 it’s really a huge .460. He shoots .454 Casull ammo in it for the moderate recoil. My hands hurt from thinking about it. Is this a great country or what?

That is a post from Herman Cain’s Facebook page. Hard to say how involved Herman is in this medium, I would assume just a little.

But I like this post. I really love it when people don’t waste time and just say exactly where they stand. Why beat around the bush?

I have a friend who is a zany believer in the well disproven vaccines = autism deal. She plainly says that there is absolutely nothing that I can say or show her that will change her mind on the issue. I respect that much more than someone who wastes my time trying to show them how stupid their stance is, but are in the end someone who’s mind could never be changed in the first place, with regard to the subject of vaccines = autism.

To me, there really isn’t a vast “presidential matrix” of issues that most people vote on. It is nice every once in a while to see exactly where someone comes down on an issue.

Clearly, Cain doesn’t care about the pro-abortion vote (some may call this pro-choice).

As a side note – to me, this issue isn’t a make or break, I am much more of a guns and money guy.

At this point, I am a Cain guy, although this fight will be decided well before our primary here in Wisco. And that is why I am not paying too much attention to it.

The Second Amendment Foundation’s annual Gun Rights Policy Conferencee for 2011 will be held at the Hyatt Regency hotel at O’Hare airport this coming Friday, Saturday and Sunday, September 23, 24 and 25. This conference is held in a different city each year, so if you’re anywhere near Chicago this is your chance to attend. Click the link for more info.

Recently I saw this ad at a Chicago train subway line and of course the answer is… yes. Unfortunately Illinois governor Quinn, who barely won the Democratic primary and barely won the general election, views his mandate as unstoppable and refuses to recognize this reality.

In this article from the Chicago Tribune, Quinn says he will oppose concealed carry, making Illinois 1 of only 2 states that have no form of this in the United States.

“The concept of concealed, loaded hand guns in the possession of private citizens does not enhance public safety, on the contrary it increases danger for everyday people as they go about their lives,” Quinn said.

It is immensely frustrating that a governor whose largest city leads in the nation in absolute number of murders (even though we are third in population) can’t see that strict gun laws do nothing to deter criminals.

The state of Indiana, right next door to Chicago, in fact part of the metropolitan area, has a very flexible concealed carry law and they don’t see that public safety is diminished.

It is hopeful that the downstate Democrats that support responsible firearms laws (by responsible meaning allowing responsible citizens to have firearms, rather than just criminals) will join with Republicans in passing this law. Quinn has proved to be a doctrinaire “classic” liberal Democrat, banning death row (I guess he would have rather had Gacy live out his life on the public’s dime the same way Speck did), raising taxes 67% and siding with unions at every turn. Literally I cannot think of a single thing that Quinn has done that hasn’t been straight out of the most liberal playbook, even though Illinois is a moderate state.

Cross posted at LITGM

Dear Legislator:
Could you please help me decide which of my kids lives to save? Here’s the problem:

Last night yet another of my kids found himself on the goodbye end of a robber’s gun as the robber slowly counted down
 
“5 . . . 4 . . . 3 . . . 2 . . . ”
 
I know you politicians told us “if it saves one life, then keeping guns away from law-abiding citizens is the right thing to do!” but I’m having a little trouble figuring out which life is the one to be saved. I’ve had most of these kids for 20 years or more, and I’m rather fond of them all.
 
My kid last night? It was his third time facing armed robbers in Chicago, in Illinois. Can you tell me how many times is just right and how many times is too many?
 
The one last night was in a convenience store at the time. He and his friend had gone into the store to buy soda, and they hid as the robber stuck his gun in the face of the store clerk and began counting down.
 
Do you give classes in hiding? Wait, that can’t be right, cause many kids get found anyway, and it’s not always easy to stay quiet if your heart is thudding and you’re afraid. Maybe you give classes in what kids should do if they find themselves around guns. No, that’s not right. State Sen. Annazette Collins proposed that idea, to keep kids safe and deglamorize firearms, and she was roundly trounced for the idea.
 
[. . .]

Read the whole thing.

(The author’s Facebook page is here.)

From the Illinois State Rifle Association:

Last year the ISRA won McDonald v Chicago. This year, with your assistance, it will be concealed carry!
 
We need your help, now more than ever. We need everyone concerned with firearm rights in Springfield on March 10th for our Gun Owners Lobby Day, (IGOLD)! Each year we have built on the success of previous’ years events and this year promises to be the biggest and best ever IGOLD. We are growing towards 10,000 people! Don’t sit home, we need you there!
 
With the major wins of Heller v DC and McDonald V Chicago, added into the recent midterm elections, the political tide is changing, but as close as we are, we can’t get concealed carry legislation passed in Illinois without your help. We need you, your friends, your relatives, anyone that agrees with you that “It’s Time” for concealed carry in Illinois. In 48 states private citizens currently enjoy the ability to carry a defensive firearm outside their home. Wisconsin, where it is legal to openly carry firearms, has a new Governor and their legislature has made it clear that they will pass concealed carry this session. That will make 49 states where the concealed carry of firearms for personal defense is legal. “It’s Time” that Illinois ends its ban on the ability of its honest law abiding citizens to carry the same firearms. Criminals have had the advantage long enough as they have been carrying concealed in Illinois for ages! The law abiding should not be put at a deadly disadvantage because of convoluted political rhetoric.
 
Join me in Springfield on March 10th. Once you get there, (buses are available from all corners of the state), we’ll show you the who, what and where you need to know to effectively lobby your own state representative and state senator!
 
I’m looking forward to seeing you there and with all of your help, this will be the year that Illinois joins the rest of the country in celebrating the Second Amendment’s right to carry!
 
Continue below this letter for important IGOLD information.
 
Respectfully,
 
Don Moran
President
Illinois State Rifle Association
www.isra.org

Read the whole thing for more information about this event.

An op-ed in Time magazine seems to be a refutation of claims to a growing terrorist threat from Muslims in the United States, but uses that pretext to push one of the Left’s most cherished and discredited agendas.

The author does get a few things right, pointing out that those of the Islamic faith here in the US are more integrated and moderate than anywhere else in the Western world. He also states that the vast majority of wannabee Jihad Johnnies are disgruntled loners that act without backing from any terrorist organization. The only time he goes off the rails is when he handwaves the horrific attack carried out by Major Hasan at Fort Hood in 2009. It wasn’t terrorism because Hasan wasn’t shooting civilians, you see!

That single gross and deliberate distortion of the issue aside, the author does make a pretty good case for his premise that claims concerning an ever escalating level of terrorism from the Muslim population in the US are overblown. But, even though he is very clear that a significant threat has yet to emerge, he is very clear as to what should be done about it.
Read the rest of this entry »

Looking at Christmas cards. Seeing pictures of Mary and Joseph on the road, or in the stable with the baby. They did not get into the inn. They had to make the most of very rough conditions. Some thoughts occurred to me so I decided to share.

Even if they had gotten into Herod’s palace, or even somehow became the guests of Caesar himself, what I have here is unimaginably superior. In my modest house (it’s old, and it’s drafty, and it’s not that big) I have: insulation and central heating, hot and cold running water, flush toilets, electric power, telephone, internet, cooking gas, refrigerated and frozen food, medicine as needed in the cabinet, more than sufficient clothing, a piano, and 5,000 or so books. I can communicate with anyone I want to anywhere in the world instantly. I am within walking distance of two pharmacies where I can get antibiotics if needed. I and my children are a short drive away from emergency medical care. Dentists and physicians know about germs, and soap, and can give me anesthesia. If I had to, I could get in my car and drive anywhere in North America in a matter of hours or days. If I absolutely had to, I could get on a plane and go almost anywhere in the world within hours or at most days. This is wealth beyond the wildest dreams of Caesar, or Herod, or Charlemagne, or Louis XIV, or Queen Victoria.

There is no immediate prospect of a hostile group or gang, or my own rulers, driving me out of my home, taking my stuff by force, or murdering me or my family. If I have a dispute, I have enforceable rights, though the system is far from perfect. I am in no immediate danger of attack for practicing my religion. I can possess lethal force to defend myself and my family. I can vote, speak, publish, protest, petition, assemble, meet and organize to have an impact on the government I live under, without much likelihood of personal danger. Political disagreements, even over matters of great consequence, rarely lead to blows. This is a level of freedom and security which has been known to a tiny fraction of one percent of the people who have ever lived.

I have gratitude to all who came before us and gave this to us. And there are many defects and failures and challenges ahead for us, and much of what we have could be lost, and some of it is in the process of being lost. But we have it good, and even better things are within our grasp. Let’s keep it going.

Chicago’s experiment in blaming others for their incompetent self-governance continues with this result:

It has been a violent weekend in Chicago: in a 30 hour period, 25 people were shot, and one man died from his injuries.

I guess it’s the Texan in me but I found myself morally offended that with all that lead flying only one of those numbnuts managed to hit a center of mass. If you’re going to abuse your basic right to self defense the least you could do is have the good grace not to spray and pray (especially in a crowded urban environment!)

Read the rest of this entry »

A lot of the big urban areas of the Northeast have turned into war zones. Virtually, without exception, they place the blame on lax “gun control” (really, people control) laws for their sky-high murder rates. I wonder if their voters have ever asked themselves why their mayors are so obsessed?

I think the answer is simple: It give the mayors external actors to blame so they don’t have to answer for their own incompetence.

Think about it. What is every one of those mayors really saying when they talk about disarming the citizenry? They’re really saying, “Hey, it’s not my fault our city has become a shooting gallery, it’s the fault of those rednecks three states over! You can’t blame me because I can’t control what those rednecks do! Oh, if only we could overturn two centuries of Constitutional law we would have safe streets! Until that happens, don’t even think of voting me out! It wouldn’t be fair!”

Read the rest of this entry »

Sometime this spring, the U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether the Second Amendment to the Constitution applies to state and local governments. Many enthusiasts of gun rights might still be surprised to learn that the Second Amendment has never applied to state and local governments. It has protected, at least recently, the right to keep and bear arms against infringements by only the federal government and its enclaves, like the District of Columbia.

Actually, none of the Bill of Rights applies to the states, but the Supreme Court has decided that many of the rights it provides are protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment (“nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law”), which does apply to the states. Advocates of gun rights are very interested in whether the Court will incorporate the right to keep and bear arms into the Fourteenth Amendment. But many conservative legal activists and academics are more interested in whether a different clause of the Fourteenth Amendment is used for that purpose. In their view, the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment intended that the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment (“No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States”) would protect substantive rights while the Due Process Clause, as its name implies, would protect procedural rights. The gun control case that the Supreme Court is about to decide, McDonald v. City of Chicago, is seen as an opportunity to right an historical wrong, and so much more.     

In some circles, it is an article of faith (and partly superstition) that the Privileges or Immunities Clause was fatally misinterpreted at the outset by the Slaughter-House Cases and if only that case could be overturned economic liberties, which the Supreme Court has ignored since the New Deal, could enjoy a new springtime under a reborn Privileges or Immunities Clause.

The Supreme Court’s 1873 decision in the Slaughter-House Cases was the first time the Court interpreted the Fourteenth Amendment, which had been ratified just five years before. In that case the Court decided that an amendment whose purpose was “the freedom of the slave race [and] the security and firm establishment of that freedom” did not prevent the state of Louisiana from requiring New Orleans butchers to slaughter livestock at a location downriver from the city. The Court said that the Privileges or Immunities Clause  protected only rights of national citizenship, which did not include the right to butcher animals anywhere in New Orleans free of regulation. The examples the Court then gave of what were rights of national citizenship weren’t very helpful; the only one that has had any practical use has been the right to travel interstate.

As a result, the Privileges or Immunities Clause is the last frontier of the Constitution. Conservatives as well as liberals have been eager to open it up for the cultivation of new rights—and old ones. The libertarian Institute for Justice, which filed an amicus brief in McDonald, had previously tried without success to get the Slaughter-House Cases reversed in a series of cases in which they argued that the Privileges or Immunities Clause protected a right to earn a living. (I represented their opponent in one of them.)

This time the right to keep and bear arms is the vehicle, but the objective of eventually regaining protection for economic liberties seems to be the same. Alan Gura, counsel for the petitioner in McDonald, hinted at that objective in his brief by complaining that “[s]tate violations of rights understood and intended by the ratifying public to receive significant Fourteenth Amendment protection are not meaningfully secured by federal courts.” At oral argument, the justices struggled to get Gura to divulge what those insecure rights might be. Finally, at the very end of the argument Justice Alito got him to admit that they included the right to contract.

A remark by Justice Thomas in an earlier case encouraged this Privileges or Immunities project, but he has also said that while the clause should be reconsidered it shouldn’t be used expansively. There didn’t seem to be any other enthusiasm for the Privileges or Immunities project on the bench during oral argument. Justice Scalia said to Gura, “what you argue is the darling of the professoriate, for sure, but it’s also contrary to 140 years of our jurisprudence.” 

If the Supreme Court does incorporate the Second Amendment, I suspect it will do it the old-fashioned way and leave the Privileges or Immunities Clause and the Slaughter-House Cases in peace. That is probably just as well given that the Supreme Court and the lower federal courts will soon be  getting more Obama appointees who may be expected to have designs of their own for the Privileges or Immunities Clause. There is no reason to believe that the federal judiciary will be any more protective of economic liberties and property rights under the opaque Privileges or Immunities Clause than it has been under the Due Process, Takings, and Contracts Clauses, which actually contain the words property, liberty, and contract.

Reviving the Privileges or Immunities Clause has intellectual and historical appeal, but it is no substitute for the harder task of convincing judges and the politicians who select them that property rights are human rights.

The key to freedom is the ability to be able to defend yourself. And if you don’t have the tools to do that then you are the mercy of whoever wants to put you away. And the tools for that are guns.

– Marc Heim, ProTell