#NeverHillary — Gun Rights

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#NeverTrump folks, friends, do you care about gun rights?

Or do you prefer virtue signaling about how much you hate Donald Trump, and pretending he is no worse than Hillary Clinton?

Do you want the American people to become a disarmed civilian population, rendered helpless in the face of violent crime and government oppression? The kind of defenseless population that was the prey of state power in the last century?

If Clinton is elected, she will pick Scalia’s successor. When that happens we will rapidly see 5-4 SCOTUS decisions reversing Heller and McDonald.

Legally, it will be over. Repeat it will be over. The Second Amendment WILL BE GONE. Your legal right to possess lethal force to defend yourself, your family and your property WILL BE GONE.

Forever, beyond recall.

Gun confiscation is a major campaign point for Clinton. There is zero doubt about her intentions in this regard.

We will then see the Clinton Administration begin a series of actions leading to widespread gun confiscation, perhaps initially by executive order. Citizens will have zero legal recourse.

Most law abiding people will hand over their guns, rather than face arrest and imprisonment.

But here and there we will see armed resistance. That resistance in turn will justify any type of executive, emergency measures the President wants, including further eroding of civil rights against police power. This is a downward spiral which will be ruinous for freedom.

This is going to happen in America if Hillary Clinton is elected.

If through inaction and moral preening people who don’t want this outcome help to put Hillary Clinton into the White House, that is what is going to happen.

Whether or not you like Trump is irrelevant.

The only way to stop the destruction of our Second Amendment rights is to elect Donald Trump. Trump is solid on gun rights. Trump has shown a personal commitment to the right to keep and bear arms. He has a concealed carry permit, and he carries.

Disappointment is part of adult life. I have never once had the opportunity to vote for a Presidential candidate I actually liked. I gagged as I did it, but I voted for such clowns as Bob Dole and John McCain, as the only way to vote against a worse candidate.

Face the binary reality.

Third options are imaginary.

Choke down your pride.

Choose the lesser evil — if you believe Trump is evil.

Work to defeat Hillary Clinton.

#NeverHillary

51 thoughts on “#NeverHillary — Gun Rights”

  4. This is my last comment on Chicago Boyz for the duration. The will to believe that Trump will make different policy or personnel choices than Hillary is the will to believe six impossible things before breakfast. The substantive difference between Hillary and Trump, is that Trump will be more able to divide and paralyze Republican opposition more readily.

    #NeverTrump

    #NFWTrump

    “Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.”
    РCharles Mackay LL. D. Ӣ Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (1841) Ӣ Preface to the Edition of 1852

    “Per me si va ne la citta dolente,
    per me si va ne l’etterno dolore,
    per me si va tra la perduta gente.
    Giustizia mosse il mio alto fattore;
    fecemi la divina podestate,
    la somma sapienza e ‘l primo amore.
    Dinanzi a me non fuor cose create
    se non etterne, e io etterno duro.
    Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate.”

    “Through me the way to the city of woe,
    through me the way to everlasting pain,
    through me the way among the lost.
    Justice moved my maker on high.
    Divine power made me,
    wisdom supreme, and primal love.
    Before me nothing was but things eternal,
    and eternal I endure.
    Abandon all hope, you who enter here.”

    http://etcweb.princeton.edu/dante/pdp/
    Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri,
    Book Inferno, Canto III: 1-9

  5. In a post a few days ago Sgt. Mom referred to the thugs that tried to keep Trump and his fans from using their first amendment rights as “A..holes”. They are worse than that. I think Trump is an A..hole, but I’ll happily cast a vote for him rather than the candidate that those thugs would/will vote for.

  6. “This is my last comment on Chicago Boyz for the duration.”

    If you change your mind I’ll delete your comments.

    Stay off of my posts.

  7. “This is my last comment on Chicago Boyz for the duration.”

    OK. So far all I have seen is anger and complaints about the “stupid voters” who put Trump into the nomination. David Brooks would be proud of you.

    I’m sure George Will agrees with you but Will, no doubt, lives in a building with security.

    I have stayed away from Patterico since he went all in on Cruz a few months ago and seems to have no tolerance for other opinions.

    Maybe you could go over there and find friends.

    I’m avoiding it because I like Patrick and know him personally and would like to stay friends.

    I don’t know you but you are welcome to come back if you recover.

  8. So which New York liberal are we supposed to vote for? Hillary or Trump?

    “If we must have an enemy at the head of Government, let it be one whom we can oppose, and for whom we are not responsible, who will not involve our party in the disgrace of his foolish and bad measures.”
    ”• Alexander Hamilton

  9. ” to believe that Trump will make different policy or personnel choices than Hillary is the will to believe six impossible things before breakfast.”

    Robert, that seems like an extreme statement. Do you believe that Trump in conspiratorial concert with the Dems? That he is someones complete puppet? Do you have some inside info not available to the public?

    To say that he has been or IS “liberal” is a far cry from saying he’ll be no different than HRC.

  11. No thanks. I’ll vote libertarian or a write-in candidate. You should have thought of this before you backed Trump. I also don’t believe, like some other commenters before me, that there would be any substantive difference between Trump and Hillary, including 2nd Amendment concerns or Supreme Court nominations.

    I truly believe Trump will get <40% of the vote in a tiny turnout. This will probably hand the Democrats both the Senate and the House as well as the Judiciary, the Bureaucracy, Education, the Press, etc. The Democrats will then do whatever they want. Subotai Bahadur's tea party group will soon have more problems than just the IRS.

    And by the way, Trump has still refused to back the GOP nominee if he doesn't get the nomination so I guess it's do as I say not as I do? He was a Clinton plant from the start.

  12. I have little to add except a fresh plea to buy a modern scoped rifle of common caliber — any action, any manufacture, although I do recommend Burris scopes. You should also salt away a minimum of two hundred rounds of ammunition, above and beyond what you use for practice. Buy fresh ammo to go shooting with; keep your reserve of two hundred in the closet. The market is in a nice soft state right now, having fully recovered from the ginned-up hysteria of Sandy Hook and Berdoo. It will start to rumble and get uneasy again after Hillary is nominated. Things will get scarce and expensive again at seeming random. Even if Trump wins, if you are a city dweller you may still have to defend yourselves against black, brown, or white-liberal mobs stoned on their own sense of grievance in the days and weeks after. Get an inexpensive little handgun and get your CCW, if you live in a free state. Even a pepper fogger is better than nothing. Wear it on your belt, not in your purse or pocket.

    If Hillary wins… well… that will mark the beginning of the transition of the United States from a Republic (fractured and fouled-up as it is) to a blue-city-state dominated oligarchy. There will be a government manufactured drought in everything to do with the shooting sports and it will never end. Here in California Gavin Newsom (our next governor) has just succeeded in getting ballot initiatives passed that would, among other outrages, require a license to sell ammunition and a background check to buy the stuff, and happy volunteers are all over the state vacuuming up signatures for them. I don’t need to wait for my government to disenfranchise me; the blue-state suburbanites will do it for them. Giving a fresh box of .22’s to my godson so he can go plinking will become a crime, punishable by fines and jail time. If you possess a previously-grandfathered magazine for any centerfire weapon over ten rounds, that too makes you anathema. They will be confiscated and destroyed, and you will be fined and jailed. You will have to admit that yes, you are a criminal, on every job application you fill out for the rest of your life. Background checks to purchase a new, legal, registered-at-point-of-purchase gun will fail.

    And that is merely salt in several open wounds. A ban on lead hunting ammo will kick in within the next three years, with the impact you would expect on the shooting sports. 80% of the California Dept. of Fish & Wildlife comes from hunting licenses. That will evaporate, and the environazi NGO’s will move in to fill the vacuum. They can already seize your firearms on the basis of a phone call from a family member saying you are dangerous and/or unstable, and hold them for up to 21 days. And so it goes. What was legal last year will get you shot or imprisoned this year. Ammo control seems to be the new meme. And California has always been the test bed for new legislation. They are already making noises about passing this wonderful progressive legislation in Oregon and Washington, both rural states in thrall to one or two blue urban blobs on the map, and doubtless many East Coast states will follow.

    California is your crystal ball. This is your future at the national level. And I will not forgive those who put ideologic perfection above the fate of our nation and threw me and what was left of their country under the bus.

  13. “You should have thought of this before you backed Trump.”

    I am amused by these heated statements as if anyone disagreeing with you is the enemy, You would fit in well at Amherst College.

    I quit Ricochet because, although it is supposed to be a good conservative site, I was assailed by young earth creationists who were distraught that I said I would not write a letter of recommendation to medical school for a student who did not believe in evolution.

    “Well that’s a glowing example of inability to actually argue the point. When you encounter indications that people disagree with your conflating micro and macro evolution, imply that anybody who doesn’t believe in the warm puddle or whatever the popular origin of life theory is this week is incompetent. ”

    Do you see yourself in comments like that ? Those people think I control who gets into medical school. You think that someone who supports Trump, for whatever reason, will destroy the country.

    I have been posting observations on the Trump Phenomenon for months.

    That didn’t mean I was a supporter and, if anyone else had adopted his issues on immigration and Muslim immigration, I would have likely supported them.

    But they didn’t.

    I have studied the French Revolution and think I see where it went wrong. Blind opposition by those who were being displaced as the ruling class was much of it.

    Be careful what you seek.

  14. #NeverTrump folks, friends, do you care about gun rights?

    If America began as a nation today, with its existing population, we would have no gun rights. Our gun rights exist because those who began America so long ago had different ideals, were a united people, and recognized the value of an armed population against a tyrannical government. The Revolution was fresh in their minds.

    Hillary’s agenda is to disarm and to dilute. Any gains she makes on gun control will never be reversed because she will also dilute the population which opposes her gun control efforts. Diluting the population is exactly the strategy that all liberal parties around the world follow. Britain’s Labor Party found that rising prosperity meant it was losing control over the working class voters and so they imported millions of new voters from the 3rd world. The Democrats have done the same. Same up north, same across Europe, same in Australia.

    The last thing that liberals want is a population which is united and has the means to keep liberal totalitarianism in check. Disarm and dilute are foundational requirements for liberals.

    #NeverTrump people think that “normality” will come again after Trump leaves the scene and that Hillary won’t be so bad. They’re wrong. The only reason we have gun rights is historical inertia and once that inertia is stopped, we won’t be able to get it moving again because the nation has changed.

  15. Mike K–

    You’re probably right that I’m irrational. Fortunately for you there are all those Trump Democrats out there who can more than offset my one measly vote. Not to mention all those Bradley effect voters you keep talking about.

  16. “You’re probably right that I’m irrational.”

    It will pass as you see the polls in October.

  17. Gun rights are only a part of it. If the Left has the Presidency and the Supreme Court, who controls the Senate and/or the House becomes kinda irrelevant. Executive orders and Court approvals are all that will be necessary. We’ve seen this start already and it will just get worse.

    Hold your nose and vote for Trump.

    It is indeed an either/or situation.

  18. >Hold your nose and vote for Trump. <

    i'll do that if the trump supporters will join us tea party types in making the 2018 the year of the article v convention at the state level. this article v convention will deal with 2 issue: 1) term limits of 12 years for all federal employees 2) the debt of the us gov't can only be raised by 3/4 of state legislatures affirming.

  19. Hold your nose and vote for Trump.

    Over time people will come to realize that there is no need to hold one’s nose in order to vote for Trump in that, going forward, the Republican Party will have to redefine itself and Trumpism is going to be seen as a primary pillar of future political ideology much like social conservatives made peace with gun rights and capital gains tax cuts.

    As others have noted this year provided a test for exactly how many “true conservatives” inhabited the Republican ecosphere and the result is “not that many.” This is, not surprisingly, a dispiriting answer to the people who see themselves as “true conservatives.” They’re in shock, hence the “hold your nose” sentiment but time will heal the fresh wound, the intellectuals will come out of the woodwork and rationalize and intellectualize the nativism and populism which are pulling so many people into the Trump camp and as the legitimization of the new direction takes root, the naysayers will make peace with the inevitable and convince themselves of the merits of this new political world view.

    Overturning existing orders is always a messy business.

  20. “term limits of 12 years for all federal employees ”

    I doubt that is Constitutional. Maybe elections but not employees.

    The bureaucracy is too big and cannot get anything useful done. The Obamacare web site is one example. The TSA is another.

    The GOP is hated and Trump will be lucky to survive because the unions will fight for their rice bowl.

  21. >I doubt that is Constitutional. Maybe elections but not employees.<

    well the "let's make shit up about the constitution" clowns agree. otherwise employees of the fed gov't aren't mentioned in said document. eff all fed employees and mostly the "elected" ones.

  23. “… term limits of 12 years for all federal employees …”

    Congress can make whatever rules it wants for Federal employees.

    It is not a matter of “term limits.” The phrasing is confused, but the intent is sound.

  24. >The bureaucracy is too big and cannot get anything useful done<

    maybe the main battle in this war?

  27. I think you are crazy people when it comes to guns. No matter. I would far rather have Trump win because the Hildabeast may kill us all.

    Trump is not crazy when it comes to foreign policy, quite sane in fact, and that is all I need from an American president.

  29. Doubt the term limit thing would get anywhere. Unions have these agencies sewn up and have for decades. A vast percentage of management comes directly from the ranks, and it’s an incestuous relationship. It’s very, very difficult to get rid of employees, and the arbitration, hearings, etc. go on forever. Motivated individuals usually get tired of the nonsense and move on. Before leaving, we (those of us held to account) figured that only 15-20% actually were working at any given time.

    This is old news, but it illustrates what any reformer is up against:

    http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/08/24/dhs-employee-behind-website-promoting-race-war-on-paid-leave.html

    That said, a determined and and clever administration can and has made differences:

    http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2014/11/05/gops-charlie-baker-defeats-martha-coakley-in-massachusetts/

    Charlie is a Republican, but a Mass Republican, which really has nothing to do with Conservatism. I did however, talk to a state employee recently, who was “working on Saturday” which, during my time, would have never, ever happened.

  30. I have to admit I’ve been leaning towards Gary Johnson lately. I understand Trump’s professional wrestling-style tactics of negotiation and outrageousness, but I wasn’t sure the presidency was the place for it.

    However, this is a good point. If you watched Sotomayor’s and Kagan’s confirmation hearings, you saw what the plan is. Neither believes in or cares about natural rights, but they do believe government creates culture and, by extension, bestows rights. As Reagan said, the government strong enough to give you whatever you want is also strong enough to take it all away.

    Ensuring both security and civil liberty was and is America’s most challenging accomplishment. The 2nd Amendment is the linchpin of this balance of power because it naturally strengthens both. If Trump’s platform is to preserve the 2nd Amendment while Hillary’s is to weaken it then the choice is clear.

  31. To quote Lex:

    Face the binary reality.
     
    Third options are imaginary.

    That sounds like the refrain from a ’60s folk song but it is exactly right. Do I vote for a statist, crony-capitalist bully who is also an unabashed American nationalist and at least claims to support the 2A? Or do I vote for a corrupt tranzi hack with a long record of failure and abusive behavior in govt, the co-figurehead of a political machine that operates at odds with our national interests, whose secrets are known to every hostile intelligence service in the world, and who advocates pushing the country even further to the left? This isn’t a pleasant choice but it’s not a difficult one either.

  32. “Or do I vote for a corrupt tranzi hack with a long record of failure and abusive behavior in govt, the co-figurehead of a political machine that operates at odds with our national interests, whose secrets are known to every hostile intelligence service in the world, and who advocates pushing the country even further to the left? This isn’t a pleasant choice but it’s not a difficult one either.”

    is a great sentence (could be a blog header for the duration, if there were a header). I am a bit obsessed re. the Bengazi/video tape business and might wish you had included a bit re. the Orwellian propensity of the woman.

  33. There is no constitutional right per se to government employment. There are contractual rights. There are federal Constitutional rights applicable to everyone which are often used in an employment context, such as due process of law.

    Federal courts have held it is proper for governments to offer different varieties of pensions to different employees which are dependent on hiring dates.

    Here it might be constitutional to adopt a rule terminating all or specified federal civil employment after a specified period of years, but it would be wildly implausible, to the point of “never happen”, to apply this to national security agency employment. It is definitely constitutional to apply this to new hires in some specified agencies and possibly Departments.

    And be careful of overly sweeping statements. Termination at a certain age has always been constitutional – commmonly age 65.

  35. How do we know that Trump is such a great “American nationalist”? From the baseball caps? Or his kissing of Putin’s rear end?

  36. He says he wants to make America great again, and he hasn’t (AFAIK) done anything to hurt this country. That’s what we have to go on. With Hillary there’s a long record of self-dealing while in office, and of flagrant unconcern about the national interest when her personal political interest was at stake. Trump and Hillary are the only choices. Which window would you rather jump from?

  37. “To be sure, Hillary Clinton, who in turn has been attacked for her paid speeches to Goldman Sachs, also has a high-ranking Goldman official in her ranks, former CFTC commissioner Gary Gensler, who is the former secretary of state’s chief financial officer and whom she is grooming for a potential Treasury Secretary.”

    When Gensler was head of the CFTC, he stonewalled an investigation of the big banks manipulation of precious metals prices during the market turmoil in 2008. At the same time he initiated a ban on spot trading of precious metals by independent retail investors, essentially sacrificing innocent citizens to cover up the crimes of cronies.

    I realize this election is a choice between bad and worse, but in this case it’s a choice between bad and the very, very, very worst.

  38. Do I vote for a statist, crony-capitalist bully who is also an unabashed American nationalist and at least claims to support the 2A? Or do I vote for a corrupt tranzi hack with a long record of failure and abusive behavior in govt, the co-figurehead of a political machine that operates at odds with our national interests, whose secrets are known to every hostile intelligence service in the world, and who advocates pushing the country even further to the left? This isn’t a pleasant choice but it’s not a difficult one either.

    Taking your unflattering characterizations as a given, I’m not really seeing how this election is any different from any election I’ve experienced in my voting life. I could write descriptions of Bush, McCain and Romney that are just as unflattering as how you’ve described Trump.

    Your conclusion is sound. I voted for Bush, McCain and Romney and it wasn’t a difficult choice considering the alternatives.

  39. The best comment on Trump I’ve seen was at Althouse yesterday.

    BLOG COMMENT OF THE DAY: “Once you’ve allowed the barbarians through the gates, any swashbuckling ruffian who is willing to pick up a sword and push them back out again is an ally.”

    Sort of how I feel. Jefferson also said, the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. it is it’s natural manure.

    I prefer the blood of the ruling class but we might run out of trees and lamp posts.

  40. “He says he wants to make America great again, and he hasn’t (AFAIK) done anything to hurt this country.”

    He hasn’t done anything to help this country, either, other than maybe building a skating rink in Central Park. Any idiot could say he “wants to make America great again.” Bernie Madoff told people he would make them rich. I see no indication, either from Trump’s past history or the incoherent blather coming out of his mouth in this campaign, that he has any idea of how to make America “great” or even what it means for a nation to be “great.” As far as I can tell, he has never done anything “great” in his career up to the present, unless you consider a talent for manipulating banks into improvident extensions of credit a species of “greatness.”

    If you think Trump’s personal behavior in this campaign bespeaks greatness, I feel sorry for you.

  41. If you think Trump’s personal behavior in this campaign bespeaks greatness, I feel sorry for you.

    Truman had to drop the bomb on Japan in order to win the war. Do you feel sorry for him because he ordered the deaths of civilians?

    In war and politics, we do what we must in order to win, for losers have no control over society.

  43. If you think Trump’s personal behavior in this campaign bespeaks greatness, I feel sorry for you.

    I recommend you listen to the Sheila Liaugminas podcast with Lex. He does a good job laying out the case for why Trump is the only viable choice. This isn’t about greatness, it’s about making real life choice. And if you need that explained to you, as an adult, I feel sorry for you.

  44. >I think you are crazy people when it comes to guns.<

    are you afraid of staplers? same machine.

  46. newrouter Says:
    May 4th, 2016 at 8:01 pm

    An Article V convention is dangerous. I’d rather Amendments were proposed individually.

    Of the remaining likely candidates only Trump is 100% behind medical cannabis and the 2nd. Both are very big deals for me. And despite what Trump says – medical is a stalking horse for full legalization.

    My unsolicited opinion? The Drug Cartels own Hillary.

    Look what Alcohol Prohibition did to gun rights. The current situation is worse.

  47. MSimon,

    You misconceive the nature of an Article V constitutional convention. It can propose individual amendments AND a whole new Constitution at the same time, on separate days, or over however long a period it remains in session, along with any silly things a majority votes for.

    But it can’t enact any of them. Only states can do that, by their legislatures, or any individual state conventions if those are convened to consider amendments. 3/4 of the states have to approve any one amendment, or any one entire new Constitution. Plus ALL of them have to agree on anything which ditches a Senate composed of an equal number of Senators for each state.

    I have no idea where people got the idea that an Article V convention could do things by itself, and ignore the states. The requirements are plainly written out in Article V of the Constitution. Lots of people have this crazy idea. I suppose they think they’ll turn inside out and explode if they read the Constitution.

  48. “If you think Trump’s personal behavior in this campaign bespeaks greatness, I feel sorry for you.”

    Don’t worry, I have many concerns besides his “personal behavior,” but while we are on the subject, he seems to have raised pretty good kids.

    If our government was working the past 20 years we would not need a revolution.

    Read, “The Collapse of Complex Societies.”

    He then lays out his theory of decline: as societies become more complex, the costs of meeting new challenges increase, until there comes a point where extra resources devoted to meeting new challenges produce diminishing and then negative returns. At this point, societies become less complex (they collapse into smaller societies). For Tainter, social problems are always (ultimately) a problem of recruiting enough energy to “fuel” the increasing social complexity which is necessary to solve ever-newer problems.

    We are far along the curve.

  50. Tom Holsinger: the Philadelphia Convention of 1787-1788 was convened to propose changes to the Articles of Confederation, which could be enacted only by the unanimous action of all states. Instead it created a wholly new instrument, which took effect with the consent of only nine states.

    A new convention could run away just as easily. Suppose it generates a radically revised Constitution, and Congress sets up a national referendum, which ratifies it by 51%-49%. Who is going to stand up afterwards and say it isn’t in force?

  51. Trump is being advised by Chris Christie, whose record on judicial appointments is disastrous: flaming liberal Democrats and dubiously qualified cronies, but no principled conservatives.

    I predict that at some point during the campaign, by way of showing how statesmanlike he can be, Trump will pledge that if elected, he will renew Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court.

    BTW, I would accept Garland as Obama’s replacement for Breyer or Ginzburg, if one of them had died before this year. He’s an experienced federal jurist who knows the law and hasn’t done anything crazy on the bench. Many SCotUS cases are about technical questions of law, not liberal talking points, and he’d be good on such cases. Also, even the current liberals usually join in reversing nonsense from the likes of Steven Reinhardt, and I think he’d be even sounder there.

    Having that kind of rep would make Garland attractive to Trump and Christie – and by replacing Scalia with Garland, Trump would hand the liberals key cases on major issues.

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