“A woman who demands further gun control legislation is like a chicken who roots for Colonel Sanders.”
– Larry Elder
A Safe Space
“Those gun control activists advocating exchanging a liberty for safety should recall that the safest place on earth is solitary confinement at Leavenworth.”
– Rand T. Lennox
God Grants Liberty
“God grants liberty only to those who love it, and are always ready to guard and defend it.”
– Daniel Webster
Reaping What Was Sown: Canada Edition
Controls on civilian use of firearms date from the early days of Confederation, when justices of the peace could impose penalties for carrying a handgun without reasonable cause.[4] Amendments to the Criminal Code between the 1890s and the 1970s introduced a series of minor controls on firearms. In the late 1970s, controls of intermediate strength were introduced. In the mid-1990s, significant increases in controls occurred. Only 2.3% of households possess a handgun.
And now this in the news: Canada’s national homicide rate last year was the highest it’s been in a decade because of a spike in gang-related violence and shootings. Much of the increase was linked to a dramatic rise in the number of gun-related killings, which itself was driven by more gang-related violence.
“Gang-related homicides committed with a firearm represented 12 per cent of all homicides in 2015,” Statistics Canada said. “By 2017, this proportion had grown to 21 per cent.”
In a report released Wednesday, the agency said there were 660 reported homicides in Canada last year.
Not only was that an increase of nearly eight per cent from 2016, it also pushed up the homicide rate to 1.8 victims for every 100,000 people — the highest since 2009.
Gun Wisdom
“Do not harm, but if someone has a gun and is trying to kill you … it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun.”
– Dalai Lama
This is the Lunacy We Are Up Against
Meanwhile, there is a good read about Nina and kneepads at Victory Girls. It’s worth the read
Gun Logic
A Moral Impossibility
“It is a lesson of history that it is ethically, morally, and philosophically impossible to have too many personal weapons, whether they be edged, impact or projectile.”
– David W. Loeffler
WDC Concealed Carry Up 1440 Percent
Importantly, we are talking permits and not applications.
The number of Washington D.C. concealed carry permit holders skyrocketed over 1440 percent since the District lost a key legal battle. Its previous restrictive gun permitting process at the was challenged and overturned at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia last year.
The Metropolitan Police Department confirmed that 1,896 concealed carry permits were issued by MPD for the calendar year 2018 (to date).
MPD noted that several hundred approvals came from applications submitted in late 2017.
Prior the court ruling only 123 people had active D.C. concealed carry permits and MPD previously denied CCP applicants and MPD denied 77 percent of applicants for not providing a “good reason” to carry.
Meanwhile, House Democrats announced last week their caucus will aggressively push for more gun control measures in the new Congress.
Gun Logic
“Keeping and bearing arms is not only a fundamental right; it is a fundamental duty upon which all liberty and sovereignty is based.”
– Donald L. Cline
Common Sense vs Utopia
“When the law disallows both the means and moral authority to defend one’s self and property, crime and violence fill the void between common sense and the hoped for utopia.”
– JD Filkins
Licensing as Part of the Plan
“A system of licensing and registration is the perfect device to deny gun ownership to the bourgeoisie.”
– Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
Gun Control Philosophy
Teenagers are roaring through town at 90MPH, where the speed limit is 25. Your solution is to lower the speed limit to 20.
Self Defense Quote Du Jour
“The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance,enable the people to resist and triumph over them.”
– Joseph Story
Thus and Not Otherwise
“The great body of our citizens shoot less as times goes on.We should encourage rifle practice among schoolboys, and indeed among all classes, as well as in the military services by every means in our power. Thus,and not otherwise, may we be able to assist in preserving peace in the world… The first step – in the direction of preparation to avert war if possible, and to be fit for war if it should come – is to teach men to shoot!”
– President Theodore Roosevelt
The Experience of all Ages
” … for it is a truth, which the experience of all ages has attested, that the people are commonly most in danger when the means of insuring their rights are in the possession of those of whom they entertain the least suspicion.”
– Alexander Hamilton
Gun Logic
“In England, if you commit a crime, the police don’t have agun and you don’t have a gun. If you commit a crime, the police will say ‘Stop,or I’ll say stop again.’”
– Robin Williams
To Preserve Liberty
“To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them.”
– Richard Henry Lee
A Good Act
“Without doubt one is allowed to resist against the unjust aggressor to one’s life, one’s goods or one’s physical integrity; sometimes, even ’til the aggressor’s death…. In fact, this act is aimed at preserving one’s life or one’s goods and to make the aggressor powerless. Thus, it is a good act, which is the right of the victim.”
– Thomas Aquinas
Worse for the Assaulted and Better for the Assailants
“The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes…. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.”
– Thomas Jefferson (quoting 18th century criminologist Cesare Beccaria)
A Disarmed Populace
“A government resting on the minority is an aristocracy, not a Republic, and could not be safe with a numerical and physical force against it, without a standing army, an enslaved press and a disarmed populace.”
– James Madison
They Mean to be Masters
“Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority … the Constitution was made to guard against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters.”
– Noah Webster
Complete and Inevitable Failure of Gun Laws
“If gun laws in fact worked, the sponsors of this type of legislation should have no difficulty drawing upon long lists of examples of crime rates reduced by such legislation. That they cannot do so after a century and a half of trying — that they must sweep under the rug the southern attempts at gun control in the 1870-1910 period, the northeastern attempts in the1920-1939 period, the attempts at both Federal and State levels in 1965-1976 —establishes the repeated, complete and inevitable failure of gun laws to control serious crime.”
– Senator Orrin Hatch
Qualitative Difference in Firepower
“One of the arguments that had been made against gun control was that an armed citizenry was the final bulwark against tyranny. My response had been that untrained, lightly-armed non-soldiers couldn’t prevail against a modern army. I had concluded that the qualitative difference in firepower was such that all of the previous rules of guerilla war no longer applied. Both Vietnam and Afghanistan demonstrated that wasn’t true. Repelling an armed invasion is not something that American citizens are likely to face, but the possibility of a despotic government coming to power is not wholly unthinkable.One of the sequellae of Vietnam was the rise of the Khmer Rouge and slaughter of perhaps a million Cambodian citizens. Those citizens, like the Jews in Germany or the Armenians in Turkey, were unarmed and thus utterly and completely defenseless against police and paramilitary. An armed minority was able to kill and terrorize unarmed victims with total impunity.”
– Paul Hagar
Justly Considered
“The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them.”
– Joseph Story
Rack It ?
Here is another video that highlights different preferences for CC folk. While the presenter does an adequate job of expressing his side of the argument there are two additional considerations. The first supports his ‘chambered’ approach, it being the speed at which an attacker can close the distance (say 10 yards) between himself and a defender; it’s incredibly fast. So fast that most would be hard pressed to rack a round and get into a reasonable stance. The argument against the ‘chambered’ carry is based on the selection of the weapon. I, for instance, have chosen a Ruger LCP (I’ve already/ elsewhere expressed why). Now if you have an LCP, or have ever fired one, you’re aware that there is no exposed hammer and no safety on the weapon. Essentially, if you rack a round on the LCP and stick it in your pocket you are primed to blow a nasty hole through your own leg.
So what is your preference; rack-it or not?
A Message for Nancy
“The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops.”
– Noah Webster
How Not to Die by Being Stupid
Palladium of Liberty
“This may be considered as the true palladium of liberty…. The right of self defense is the first law of nature: in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible. Wherever standing armies are kept up, and the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any color or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction.”
– St. George Tucker
Fanning the Flames
A few days ago I posted a video that discussed the merits of a pocket pistol over a ‘strapped on’ concealed carry. Each choice has its merits and each its own downside that are independent of the caliber of the weapon, including; accuracy, dependability, ease of use, ease of carry, capacity, etc.
But what is the best caliber?
Upon Their Ruins
“What, Sir, is the use of a militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty …. Whenever Governments mean to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise an army upon their ruins.”
– Rep. Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts
Sufficient Arms
“A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government.”
– George Washington
Pocket Pistol Defense
I now carry a pocket pistol instead of a side arm. My reasons are simple:
-I should be able to get out of any bad situation with 12 rounds (including a magazine exchange).
-I can carry without dressing like I’m carrying
-I can carry and no one knows, and thus less likely to try and separate me from my weapon
-A well placed shot from a 380 is just as lethal as any other round.