Yes, Elisjsha Dicken Is a Good Samaritan—and He Deserves a Medal

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On Sunday evening—July 17, 2022—at the Greenwood Park Mall in Indiana, a gunman opened fire in a food court. He killed three people and wounded two others. He might have murdered many more but for the quick work of a man named Elisjsha Dicken, who pulled out his own gun and blew away the assailant.

Dicken, who was legally carrying a firearm under the state’s constitutional carry law, was hailed as a “Good Samaritan” for saving lives. The next day, the Greenwood police chief added, “Many more people would have died last night if not for the responsible armed citizen.”

Gun control advocates immediately condemned the police chief for his “Good Samaritan” reference, drawn from a famous parable told by Jesus Christ. A local reporter exclaimed,

The term, ‘Good Samaritan’ came from a Bible passage of a man from Samaria who stopped on the side of the road to help a man who was injured and ignored. I cannot believe we live in a world where the term can equally apply to someone killing someone.

Who is correct here, the police chief or the reporter? A related question is, Did Jesus support self-defense, or the taking of a guilty life to save the lives of innocents?

In Chapter 10 of the Book of Luke in the New Testament, Jesus tells his parable of the Good Samaritan. The Samaritan is judged “good” because when he came upon a man who was beaten and robbed, he chose of his own free will to help the injured man with his own resources. As I wrote in my 2020 book, Was Jesus a Socialist?, if the Samaritan had ignored the man or expected the government to help him, we would likely know him today as the “Good-for-Nothing” Samaritan.

The Good Samaritan in Jesus’ parable did not commit a violent act himself. The injured man’s assailants were presumably long gone. He stepped in to assist the assailed. So strictly speaking, the Greenwood police chief’s reference was not entirely analogous to Elisjsha Dicken’s action in taking down the shooter at the shopping mall.

For centuries, many people have employed the term “Good Samaritan” to describe anyone who isn’t compelled to come to the aid of the innocent but takes the initiative to do so anyway. A Good Samaritan takes charge of a bad situation, improves it as best he can, and prevents further harm. That is exactly what Elisjsha Dicken did in Greenwood.

Undoubtedly, the critical reporter in this instance is a person of good intent. He can’t imagine Jesus endorsing Dicken’s action because Jesus was a man of peace. He might even cite Matthew, chapter five, in which Jesus urges us to “turn the other cheek” if someone insults us or physically slaps us in the face.

“The question of rendering insult for insult, however, is a far cry from defending oneself against a mugger or a rapist,” writes Lars Larson in Does Jesus Christ Support Self-Defense?. To “turn the other cheek” means to refrain from a needless escalation of a problematic situation. Elisjsha Dicken did not escalate anything; in fact, he dramatically and decisively de-escalated it in the only possible way, given the circumstances.

The reporter likely shares the widely-held, radically pacifist or “namby-pamby” view of Jesus—the view that he would never endorse an act of violence for any purpose, even if it’s necessary to save lives. It implies that Elisjsha Dicken should have run for cover and allowed the Greenwood shooter to kill another dozen or two people. That’s wrong, if not downright blasphemous.

When Jesus dined at The Last Supper, he gave his disciples specific instructions, including this one (Luke 22:36):

He said to them, “But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one. 

Note that he did not advise anyone, then or at any other time, to stand idly by and allow wanton slaughter of innocents. And he offered support for the threat of force to prevent the theft of property as well. In Luke 11:21, Jesus said:

When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are safe. But when someone stronger attacks and overpowers him, he takes away the armor in which the man trusted, and divides up his plunder.

This is the same Jesus who, in Luke 12:39, says, “If the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into.” It’s the same Jesus who never criticized anyone for possessing a lethal weapon such as a sword, though he certainly condemned the initiation of force or the impetuous and unnecessary use of it.

In Jesus, Guns and Self-Defense: What Does the Bible Say?, Gary DeMar maintains that

Being armed and willing to defend ourselves, our family, and our neighbors is not being unchristian or even unloving. Self-defense can go a long way to protect the innocent from people who are intent on murder for whatever reason.

The Greenwood reporter’s errant perspective is not untypical of people who think they know Jesus and Christianity but spend more time criticizing them than learning about them. I see evidence of this all the time, most recently from a speaker at an April 2022 conference in Prague, Czech Republic.

“When it comes to the source of individual rights,” the speaker pontificated with misplaced confidence, “there are only three possibilities.” One, he said, is a Creator (God), which he summarily dismissed as a ridiculous, untenable proposition. The second is government, which he ruled out as equally ridiculous and untenable. The only logical option, he said, was “nature”—something which he suggested evolved out of nothing from nobody. As I listened with the largely student audience, I thought to myself, “This supposed expert hasn’t even considered a fourth option, namely, a combination of the first and third—which is to say that God, as the author of nature, is in fact the author of individual rights as well.”

The speaker added another uninformed dig at Christianity by claiming it was stupid for Jesus to ever suggest you should love your neighbor. “What if your neighbor is an axe-murderer? How much sense would that make?” he asked derisively. If he had known of the passages I cite above, he would have been embarrassed by his own ignorance. As a general principle, Jesus argued, you should love your neighbor but the same Jesus would urge you to arm yourself if your neighbor threatens your life or property.

In The Life and Death Debate: Moral Issues of Our Time, Christian theologians Norman Geisler and J. P. Moreland write:

To permit murder when one could have prevented it is morally wrong. To allow a rape when one could have hindered it is evil. To watch an act of cruelty to children without trying to intervene is morally inexcusable. In brief, not resisting evil is an evil of omission, and an evil of omission can be just as evil as an evil of commission. Any man who refuses to protect his wife and children against a violent intruder fails them morally.

When Elisjsha Dicken pulled out his gun to stop a shooting spree, he had every reason to believe he might attract the shooter’s aim and be killed himself. Fortunately, he was not, and he is among the living whose lives he saved.

If Elisjsha Dicken had been killed, the rest of us could at least take comfort in the words of Jesus as quoted in John 15:13. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

Elisjsha Dicken is not only a Good Samaritan. He’s a very good one. Give him a medal.

Science is Affirming Creation, Not Accident by Lawrence W. Reed

What Does the Bible Say About Self-Defense?

Was Jesus a Socialist? by Lawrence W. Reed

AUTHOR

Lawrence W. Reed

Lawrence W. Reed is FEE’s President Emeritus, Humphreys Family Senior Fellow, and Ron Manners Global Ambassador for Liberty, having served for nearly 11 years as FEE’s president (2008-2019). He is author of the 2020 book, Was Jesus a Socialist? as well as Real Heroes: Incredible True Stories of Courage, Character, and Conviction and Excuse Me, Professor: Challenging the Myths of Progressivism. Follow on LinkedIn and Like his public figure page on Facebook. His website is www.lawrencewreed.com.

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EDITORS NOTE: This FEE column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Law Firm Forces Out Own Lawyers Who Won Landmark Supreme Court Gun Case

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There is a reckoning coming. These fascists are pushing Americans too far.

Law firm forces out own lawyers who won Supreme gun case

‘We were given a stark choice’

By Art Moore, WND, June 27, 2022:

Two lawyers who successfully argued the landmark Supreme Court case affirming a constitutional right to be armed outside the home have been forced out of their Washington, D.C., law firm.

Amid pressure from clients and other attorneys at the firm, Kirkland & Ellis LLP, no longer will handle Second Amendment cases, Politico reported.

Former Solicitor General Paul Clement and Erin Murphy, who argued successfully before the Supreme Court in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen, said they had to resign.

“We were given a stark choice: either withdraw from ongoing representations or withdraw from the firm,” Clement said in a statement reported by Politico.

“Anyone who knows us and our views regarding professional responsibility and client loyalty knows there was only one course open to us: We could not abandon ongoing representations just because a client’s position is unpopular in some circles.”

Kirkland spokesman Jon Ballis told Politico he hoped the firm could continue to work with the two attorneys on matters not related to guns.

The announcement of the dropping of gun cases and the resignations took place on the day the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 to strike down New York’s law requiring anyone who wishes to obtain a concealed-carry permits to demonstrate a “proper purpose” to have weapons outside the home.

Politico noted that one decade ago, Clement left Atlanta-based King & Spalding after the firm distanced itself from Clement’s work to preserve the Defense of Marriage Act. Signed by President Bill Clinton in 1996, DOMA defined marriage as the union of one man and one woman and allowed individual states not to recognize same-sex marriages recognized by other states.

At the time, Clement explained: “I resign out of the firmly held belief that a representation should not be abandoned because the client’s legal position is extremely unpopular in certain quarters. Defending unpopular clients is what lawyers do.” The Supreme Court overturned DOMA in 2013 in a 5-4 ruling.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Responding to the Risk Protection Article in The Lakeland Ledger

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Reference the article below on Risk Protection Orders in the Lakeland Ledger. While I don’t subscribe to the Lakeland Ledger—this article was sent to me by a friend.  I think it was published on July 15th, 2022.  It illustrates several points we  have been making about the unconstitutional Florida’s Risk Protection Order (RPO) or Red Flag Law codified within SB 7026, Marjory Stoneman Douglas Public Safety Act signed into law in June 2018 following MSDHS, school shootings in Parkland, FL.

See our points in BOLD letters below. As always, your comments are welcomed.

Florida judge denies ‘red flag’ request over gun at Polk County

Polk Sheriff’s Office makes first appeal of RPO denial

by Gary White  –  The Ledger

Three weeks before the slaughter at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, a school resource deputy at Kathleen High School received an anonymous tip that a student had brought a gun to campus.

The deputy found the student, a senior, in a reading class on the afternoon of May 4. He asked the student to give him his backpack, and the student replied, “Why?”

When the 18-year-old student finally handed over the backpack, the deputy found another pack inside it that contained a Glock 42, a subcompact, semi-automatic pistol, loaded with four rounds, according to an arrest affidavit. The deputy also discovered two boxes of ammunition holding 43 rounds, the report said.

The student, Terrance Broome, made the unprompted statement, “I’m scared. Someone is trying to kill me,” according to the deputy’s report. He didn’t elaborate.

After the arrest of the student on multiple charges, the Polk County Sheriff’s Office decided that the circumstances fit the state’s guidelines for seeking a risk-protection order. Under a law passed in 2018 in response to the killing of 17 people at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School, law-enforcement agencies can petition a court to have weapons temporarily removed from someone deemed to be a danger to themselves or others.

Two weeks after the incident, the request for a risk-protection order went before Judge Ellen Masters, the chief judge for the 10th Judicial Circuit, based in Bartow. Masters denied the petition, writing that the allegations the PCSO presented were “insufficient to establish by clear and convincing evidence that the Respondent poses a significant danger of committing personal injury to himself or others by having in his custody or control or by purchasing, possessing or receiving, a firearm or any ammunition”

The Sheriff’s Office has appealed the denial to Florida’s Second District Court of Appeal, which has administrative offices in Lakeland and holds hearings in Tampa.

The case illustrates the limits that law-enforcement agencies face in seizing weapons from citizens under the 2018 legislation, often described as a “red-flag law.” All petitions for risk-protection orders, or RPOs, must be approved by a judge, and judges don’t automatically concur with the arguments agencies make.

Not So – the power of the RPO is almost unlimited including ignoring Due Process.  Shows how bias Gary White is.

The Polk County Sheriff’s Office reported filing for 984 RPOs since the law took effect in 2018, with 858 petitions granted. That means that 12.8% have been denied or dismissed.

This means that 126 of those respondents accused of being a threat had to go thru the nightmare of  receiving a no notice ex parte seizure without Due Process and were later found not to be a threat. 

 It also means they most likely incurred the personal expense of hiring an attorney to represent them at the Hearing which took place 2 weeks post-seizure  to counter the evidence presented by the PCSO attorney before the Judge.  LE attorneys have a definite edge without private attorney’s present to defend the respondent.  White is mistaken when he implies they get to attend the “compliance hearing”.

 The accused person (“respondent”) also must go thru a bureaucratic procedure to be removed from state and federal criminal data bases and retrieve their property without any guarantee in the law that their property be returned in same condition found.

126 people having their property seized without Due Process is far too many law abiding citizens having to go thru this stressful process which implies one or more of the following conditions:  e.g.  those accusing them of being threats lied; a faulty investigation was performed and/or the reviewing judge rubber stamped these petitions. 

 The law allows 3rd degree misdemeanor charges to be filed against an accuser who deliberately lied about the respondent being a threat.  To our knowledge this part of the laws has not been prosecuted.\

Nothing was stated in this article that other existing means to legally seize firearms and ammunition already were in place in FL law e.g. Baker Act, Marchman Act; Court Injunctions.

A spokesperson for Polk County Public Schools said confidentiality rules prevented the district from disclosing whether Broome had been expelled after the incident.

Broome did not appear for the court hearing, just as he had missed a previous compliance hearing after being released on May 5. John W. Lees, a lawyer for the Sheriff’s Office, sought a default order. Lees did not present any testimony, saying the petition was based on an arrest affidavit and witness statements. Masters, who has been a judge since 1999, was not persuaded of the need for an RPO.

“I don’t think I can enter this one, Mr. Lees, based on those facts, even though it’s a default, which is pretty rare,” Masters said during the hearing, according to a court transcript.

Lees added that the student had been arrested in January 2021, while a minor, on a charge of assault with a deadly weapon. That case is still pending.

Masters acknowledged that it was “a serious violation” for the student to bring a weapon to school but said she didn’t see grounds for issuing a risk-protection order.

“I cannot make a finding based on those facts that the Sheriff’s Office has presented clear and convincing evidence that the incident or the circumstances involving this respondent indicates that there is a significant danger of personal injury to the respondent or to some other person,” Masters said.

Agree with Judge Masters.  This is exactly the kind of decisions which should be made.  Clear and convincing evidence is very subjective and is used because the RPO is a civil and not a criminal law.  However, evidence beyond a reasonable doubt should be the standard before these seizures occur.

The judge declined a request from The Ledger to discuss her decision.

Reached by phone, Broome ended the call without answering any questions.

He is charged with carrying a concealed firearm without a permit, possession of a firearm on school property and disrupting a school function, as well as possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia.

These charges are grounds for seizing firearms using a regular Court Arrest Order – why was an RPO even necessary.

The Sheriff’s Office filed a notice of appeal with the Second District Court of Appeals on May 26. Judd said it is the first time his office has appealed a denial of a risk-protection order.

Judd emphasized that he respects Masters but said he found the denial difficult to understand. He noted that Broome did not even appear in court to contest the request for an RPO.

“Certainly, we believe that an 18-year-old high school student with a fully loaded handgun, semi-automatic, and two boxes of ammunition is a danger to all of the students in the school,” Judd said. “So we were shocked to see that the RPO was denied.”

Judd said that in some other situations a student has made a direct threat against others when the Sheriff’s Office sought to have weapons removed. He acknowledged that Broome claimed to fear for his own safety but said personal protection did not require a loaded gun and two boxes of extra ammunition.

“I’m shocked because I don’t believe she nor any other judge would want it on her conscience if he would have taken that handgun and those two boxes of shells and shot up a school,” Judd said. “Fortunately for us, another student saw something and said something and we were able to intervene before a potential shooting occurred.”

One of main arguments against using Risk Protection Orders to seize firearms is they are based on what “might occur in the future” or in Sheriff Judd’s words above “if he had taken” based on “reasonable suspicion” and not what has actually occurred.  This is not  a good standard to be using to take away 2nd Amendment rights or any rights for that matter.

Further, there is no evidence that any school shooting which has occurred or one that might occur in the future would be prevented by use of Red Flag Laws.  This certainly was not the case in any School Shootings of the recent past. Existing laws including the Baker Act, Marchman Act and Court Injunctions should be used instead. 

School shootings are a societal problem based on grossly deteriorated morals; insensitivity to violence brought on by the entertainment industry; lack of mental health intervention and; in some cases, including the FL MSDHS and TX Uvalde school shootings, a failure of LE, school districts and school administrations to take actions to either prevent or at least marginalized these active shooting events by performing their jobs. .

Some lawmakers in Florida and elsewhere have criticized red-flag laws as an infringement on Americans’ Second Amendment rights. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, speaking privately to supporters at a Polk County restaurant in April, said he would have vetoed the law if he had been governor when it passed under his predecessor, fellow Republican Rick Scott.

Rick Scott was under pressure to sign this bill into law and knew he was leaving office soon.  He should have declared a special session to give legislator’s more time other than the 3 weeks remaining in regular session to consider the Bill and all its consequences before signing it.  Although outgoing FL Senate President RINO Wilton Simpson has taken credit for writing this bill the fact is the 48 pages covering the Risk Protection Order are almost an exact lift from the existing laws of Blue States like Oregon.

A caveat is that not all of this law is bad.  We fully support the part establishing Sheriff Judd’s Sentinel or Guardian Program requiring a trained, armed LE officer or security guard in every school.  We further support the follow on Law signed by Gov DeSantis, SB 7030 which authorized trained school officials/teachers to be armed as additional security.  Unfortunately, few school districts including PCPS have availed themselves of this opportunity to even better protect our children.

Judd has repeatedly defended the use of RPOs as a way to prevent potential violence and said he doesn’t know what to expect from the Second District Court of Appeals.

“We need to find out what the courts believe is the parameters of the RPO,” Judd said. “And I think that will give either direction to us or it will give direction to the Circuit Court judge.”

We are hopeful the 2nd District Court of Appeals will rule in favor of Judge Master’s decision.

©Royal A. Brown, III. All rights reserved.

RELATED TWEET:

New York Demands All Concealed Carry Permit Holders Surrender Their Social Media Account to the State

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UPDATE: Supreme Court: The Government Cannot Require That Citizens Prove The Need For Self-Protection In Order To Carry A Gun Outside Their Home by John Whitehead of The Washington Standard.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — By a 6-3 decision in N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Assn. v. Bruen, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a New York law which allowed government officials to pick and choose which class of citizens were deemed worthy of self-protection.

Affirming that the Second Amendment “right to bear arms in public for self-defense is not a second-class right,” the Court ruled that individuals do not have to demonstrate some special need to the government for approval before exercising any other constitutional rights. In an amicus brief, The Rutherford Institute argued that the fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution must be available to all law-abiding citizens and not parceled out at the whim of government bureaucrats.

Affiliate attorneys Michael J. Lockerby, Eli L. Evans, W. Bradley Russell, Jr., A.J. Salomone, and John Sepehri of Foley & Lardner LLP assisted in advancing the arguments in N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Assn.

“When considered in the context of prohibitions against the government, the Second Amendment reads as a clear rebuke against any attempt to restrict the citizenry’s gun ownership. As such, it is as necessary an ingredient for maintaining that tenuous balance between the citizenry and their republic as any of the other amendments in the Bill of Rights, especially the right to freedom of speech, assembly, press, petition, security, and due process,” said constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute and author of Battlefield America: The War on the American People. “In this way, the freedoms enshrined in the Bill of Rights in their entirety stand as a bulwark against a police state.”

Read more.

The Concealed Coalition reports that,

New York is one of America’s most densely populated states, with over 19 million people, yet only 1% of them are licensed to concealed carry (CC). This equates to around 196,000 licenses issued as of August 2021.

[ … ]

NY has a stricter stance on dispensing licenses than other states. It’s a “may issue” state, which means there’s no guarantee that applicants will receive a CC license even if they meet all the necessary criteria. It’s up to local law enforcement or the courts to apply their discretion to every request.

Applicants must prove that there’s proper cause for them to CC, defined under NY state law as: “a special need for self-protection distinguishable from that of the general community or of persons engaged in the same profession.”

According to Sandy Hook Promise,

Guns used in about 68% of gun-related incidents at schools were taken from the home, a friend or a relative.

93% of school shooters planned the attack in advance.

The Violence Protection Center reports that people have been killed by 37 mass shooters who had a concealed carry permit from May 2007 and May 2022, citing media reports. As of 2021 there have been 21.52 million concealed weapon permits issued in the United States. The likelihood of a concealed carry permit holder carrying out a mass shooting is .00000017209.

A reader sent us an article from BillWittle.com stating:

Starting in September [2022], New York conceal-carry permit applicants must surrender their social media accounts to the state.

If hindsight reviews of Facebook or TikTok lets us see what a crazed mass-shooter said before his atrocity, will the state be able to intercept these killers in advance?

WATCH: Background Check: Want to Conceal Carry a Firearm? Cough Up Your Social Media to the State

The Bottom Line

What New York is doing is create a law that allows them to either deny or revoke a person’s concealed carry permit if that person doesn’t agree with them politically.

Some examples of issues you might be putting on your social media that could get your concealed carry permit cancelled or revoked:

  • You’re a Republican or worse a supporter of Donald J. Trump.
  • Pro-Second Amendment.
  • Pro-Life.
  • Posts that calls the J6 Committee a “show trial.”
  • Posts that label those harass Supreme Court Justices as criminals for violating 18 U.S. Code § 1503. And because they are violating the law that they should be investigated, arrested and tried by a jury of their peers.
  • Disagree with New York City or State policies on any number of topics.
  • Disagree with getting the Covid-19 vaccines.
  • Disagree that Islam is the religion of peace.
  • Disagree with some of the policies of the Build Back Better agenda.
  • Won’t buy an all electric car because your love your vintage Ford mustang or Chevrolet Corvette.
  • Read and share articles from the DrRichSwier.com eMagazine.

This is just another way to put law abiding citizens into harms way by not allowing them to carry their weapons, i.e. disarming them. We have contributors and members of our staff who have concealed carry permits. On person was notified by the FBI that they are on an international ISIS hit list. To disarm this person is a travesty. Luckily this person lives in a state where concealed carry and even open carry are codified is state laws.

We can’t help but wonder if New York will now look at all those individuals providing private security and have concealed carry permits. You know those who protect wealthy individuals, actors and actresses, politician and companies.

One example is Democrat Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez paid thousands for personal security to a former Blackwater contractor. Will AOC’s security detail have to turn over their social media accounts to the state?

Time will tell.

To learn about your states concealed carry laws and how many fellow gun owners are in you state click here.

©Dr. Rich Swier. All rights reserved.

REFERENCES:

Concealed Coalition database.

Number of Mass Shootings Committed By Concealed Carry Killers

You Know What Would Deter More Shootings Than Red Flag Laws? Executing Mass Killers Quickly

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Instead, the Democrats release them, unleash them on innocent Americans……

You Know What Would Deter More Shootings Than Red Flag Laws? Executing Mass Killers Quickly

By: Kylee Griswold, The Federalist, July 07, 2022:

If politicians are serious that they’re sick of ‘living with this carnage,’ the Highland Park shooter should be executed immediately.

The usual suspects are at it again, and I’m not talking about isolated, mentally ill young men. I’m talking about the politically motivated talking heads who don’t even wait until bodies are cold after tragic mass shootings to spout off about the need for red flag laws, “assault weapons” bans, and “universal background checks” because — you’ve heard this one before — “Why are we willing to live with this carnage?”

After the mass shooting in a wealthy Chicago suburb over the holiday weekend that left seven dead and dozens more wounded in one of the most gun-controlled areas of one of the most gun-controlled states in the country, local State’s Attorney Eric Rinehart did exactly that. He touted the state’s “strong” red flag law and insisted on the need to “ban assault weapons in Illinois and beyond.” Vice President Kamala Harris likewise made an unscheduled visit to the community to call for more gun control, however incoherently. And the typical Twitter blue checks all had something to say.

Meanwhile, as the armchair class prattles on about how our first freedoms are an existential threat, the face and name of the 21-year-old alleged shooter are plastered all over every news channel as he sits remorseless in jail facing a slew of charges that will probably amount to life in prison at worst. The upper echelons of chattering politicos will accomplish nothing but celebritizing murderous cowards — but hey, anything to signal virtue, pick up a few progressive voters, and pad their pockets with a little extra donor cash.

You know how we know they aren’t accomplishing anything? Because the reforms Rinehart called for are both already on the books in Highland Park where the shooting occurred. Despite a local so-called assault weapons ban plus red flag laws and a state with some of the strictest gun-control laws in America, many people died. If the latest shooting taught us anything about guns, it’s that even tightly restricting them doesn’t deter killers.

It’s time for a new approach, and this case presents the perfect set of circumstances to justify it. The Highland Park shooter should be executed, and he should be executed quickly.

There would be nothing “just” about criminal justice if we dispensed with due process, but it’s not much more than a formality that we use the word “alleged” to describe this particular shooter. Not only have authorities confirmed that the male suspect dressed as a woman to conceal his identity, hide his face tattoos, and blend into the frantic crowd. Not only were these facts captured on video, with a witness apparently watching the suspect wrap his firearm in a red blanket before ditching it. Not only has he had multiple run-ins with local law enforcement that were ultimately relayed to state police in a report identifying him as a “clear and present danger,” plus an incident wherein police confiscated 16 knives, a dagger, and a sword from him after he threatened to “kill everyone” in his house.

But he also already told police he’s the shooter. And if his confession of guilt weren’t enough, he also admitted that he almost attacked another July Fourth celebration in Madison, Wisconsin, but decided against it because he just hadn’t had enough time to plan out a murderous scheme.

There’s a more effective deterrent to this carnage than catapulting mass murderers into the limelight by detailing every step of their grisly crimes or featuring their faces on the cover of Rolling Stone. There’s a better way than making impassioned speeches about gun violence, but then helping to bail out violent rioters and advocating for low bail that enables offenders to violently mow down women and children with a vehicle. It’s time to be honest about the fact that bans on AR-15s and red flag laws, in addition to stomping out due process and being ripe for political weaponization, simply don’t work to deter crime. Illinois tried that experiment. It failed.

There are a handful of things that become apparent about deterrence, but here’s a pretty basic idea: Swiftness and certainty are more important than severity. Of course, if punishment must be proportional for justice to truly be just, then execution is warranted in cases of mass murder, the perpetrators of which cannot die enough deaths to make up for the many they stole.

But it isn’t the mere execution of a known mass murderer that deters other disturbed individuals from shooting up jubilant innocents. The reality of taxpayer-funded eons on death row wouldn’t appear to have any concrete deterrent effect, much like lengthy incarceration. But what about a visual representation of this chilling message: You will be caught, and you will be put to death — soon. Certainty and swiftness accomplished.

Read the rest….

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

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Citizens Speak Out Against Florida’s ‘Red Flag Law’ and ‘Risk Protection Orders’

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. All rights reserved.

Why Red Flag Laws Failed Miserably in the Case of ‘J4TH Mass Murderer’ Robert ‘Bobby’ Crimo, III

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Our contributors have written extensively on how Red Flag Laws do not work here, here, here and here.

Why? Because criminals and mass murderers find ways around them.

Red Flag Laws didn’t stop the criminals like Robert ‘Bobby’ Crimo, III from massacring seven people and injuring dozens of others on July 4th, 2022 in Highland Park, Illinois.

This J4th massacre, which ironically happened less than a month after the U.S. Senate passed a Red Flag law by a voter 224 for (including 14 republicans) to 202 against.

This law create what is known as a federal red-flag law that allows family members or law enforcement to obtain an “extreme risk protection order” for a person considered to be a danger to themselves or others.

It appears that law enforcement just wasn’t interested Bobby Crimo given his multiple red flags. Here are tweets from citizens about the J4TH massacre.

Watch the below video of the Highland Park Police stating that Bobby popped up on their radar at least twice since 2019. BTW, Highland Park and Chicago gun laws are among the strictest in the country.

On the day after the massacre The Gateway Pundit uncovered information indicating Crimo is a radical progressive with ties to Antifa, progressive groups, and the occult.  How did they uncover this? Why by looking at his social media accounts!

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So why didn’t the Highland Park police take a rudimentary look at Bobby’s social media accounts?

Why didn’t the Highland Park police discover a social media video of Bobby’s fantasies to kill others including Donald J. Trump?

BREAKING: Police Name Person of Interest in Highland Park Parade Shooting: Robert ‘Bobby’ Crimo III – Social Media Video Shows School Shooter Fantasy

The Bottom Line

The Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) in an August 17th, 2019 article titled “7 Reasons to Oppose Red Flag Guns Laws” stated,

Here are seven reasons red flag laws should be opposed, particularly at the federal level.

Most people haven’t heard of red flag laws until recently—if they have at all—but they aren’t new.

Connecticut enacted the nation’s first red flag law in 1999, followed by Indiana (2005). This means social scientists have had decades to analyze the effectiveness of these laws. And what did they find?

“The evidence,” The New York Times recently reported, “for whether extreme risk protection orders work to prevent gun violence is inconclusive, according to a study by the RAND Corporation on the effectiveness of gun safety measures.”

The Washington Post reports that California’s red flag went basically unused for two years after its passage in 2016. Washington, D.C.’s law has gone entirely unused. Other states, such as Florida and Maryland, have gone the other direction, seizing hundreds of firearms from gun-owners. Yet it’s unclear if these actions stopped a shooting.

With additional states passing red flag laws, researchers will soon have much more data to analyze. But before passing expansive federal legislation that infringes on civil liberties, lawmakers should have clear and compelling empirical evidence that red flag laws actually do what they are intended to do.

The Founding Fathers clearly enumerated the powers of the federal government in the Constitution. Among the powers granted in Article I, Section 8 are “the power to coin money, to regulate commerce, to declare war, to raise and maintain armed forces, and to establish a Post Office.”

Regulating firearms is not among the powers listed in the Constitution (though this has not always stopped lawmakers from regulating them). In fact, the document expressly forbids the federal government from doing so, stating in the Second Amendment that “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

Unlike the federal government, whose powers, James Madison noted, are “few and defined,” states possess powers that “are numerous and indefinite.”

Indeed, 17 states and the District of Columbia already have red flag laws, and many more states are in the process of adding them. This shows that the people and their representatives are fully capable of passing such laws if they choose. If red flag laws are deemed desirable, this is the appropriate place to pursue such laws, assuming they pass constitutional muster. But do they?

The Constitution mandates that no one shall be “deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law.”

Seizing the property of individuals who have been convicted of no crime violates this provision. Gun control advocates claim due process is not violated because people whose firearms are taken can appeal to courts to reclaim their property. However, as economist Raheem Williams has observed, “this backward process would imply that the Second Amendment is a privilege, not a right.”

Depriving individuals of a clearly established, constitutionally-guaranteed right in the absence of criminal charges or trial is an affront to civil liberties.

In 2018, two Maryland police officers shot and killed 61-year-old Gary Willis in his own house after waking him at 5:17 a.m. The officers, who were not harmed during the shooting, had been ordered to remove guns from his home under the state’s red flag law, which had gone into effect one month prior to the shooting.

While red flag laws are designed to reduce violence, it’s possible they could do the opposite by creating confrontations between law enforcement and gun owners like Willis, especially as the enforcement of red flag laws expands.

In theory, red flag laws are supposed to target individuals who pose a threat to themselves or others. In practice, they can work quite differently.

In a 14-page analysis, the American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island explained that few people understand just how expansive the state’s red flag law is.

“It is worth emphasizing that while a seeming urgent need for [the law] derives from recent egregious and deadly mass shootings, [the law’s] reach goes far beyond any efforts to address such extraordinary incidents,” the authors said.

“As written, a person could be subject to an extreme risk protective order (ERPO) without ever having committed, or even having threatened to commit, an act of violence with a firearm.” Though comprehensive information is thin, and laws differ from state to state, anecdotal evidence suggests Rhode Island’s law is not unique. A University of Central Florida student, for example, was hauled into proceedings and received a year-long RPO (risk protection order) for saying “stupid” things on Reddit following a mass shooting, even though the student had no criminal history and didn’t own a firearm. (The student also was falsely portrayed as a “ticking time bomb” by police, Jacub Sullum reports.) Another man, Reason reports, was slapped with an RPO for criticizing teenage gun control activists online and sharing a picture of an AR-15 rifle he had built.

Individuals who find themselves involved in these proceedings often have no clear constitutional right to counsel, civil libertarians point out.

As I’ve previously observed, red flag laws are essentially a form of pre-crime, a theme explored in the 2002 Steven Spielberg movie Minority Report, based on a 1956 Philip K. Dick novel.

Thus ends the lesson Red Flag Laws.

They’re called “Red Flag” to symbolize the amount of blood shed by innocent victims spilled by those, like Bobby, who simply ignore the laws because, you see they’re lawless! Get it? Got it? Good!

We are wondering if the Democrats will now have a J4TH Committee to look into the failure of their recently passed Red Flag Law? 

©Dr. Rich Swier. All rights reserved.

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CARNAGE: Mass Shooting At July 4th Parade in One of Chicago’s Most Jewish Suburbs – Six killed, 24 hurt in Highland Park, Ill.

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UPDATE: Suspect identified.

Per Highland Park Police: Person of Interest: 22-year old Robert E. Crimo. He is considered armed and dangerous. Law enforcement believes he was driving a 2010 silver Honda with IL license DM80653.

The left promised July 4th violence. Horrible.

As much as the media loves dead Jews, they love a story they can exploit to disarm us all. But remember, Highland Park banned guns years ago,

Gunman Targets July Fourth Parade in One of Chicago’s Most Jewish Suburbs – Six killed, 24 hurt in Highland Park, Ill

Chabad News, July 4, 2022:

CHICAGO—As the Highland Park, Ill., July 4th parade commenced heading down Central Avenue in one of Chicago’s most Jewish suburbs, gunshots rang out at approximately 10:19 a.m. CST from the rooftop of Gearhead Outfitters on Central Avenue. Thousands of panicked revelers who had been enjoying the parade chaotically rushed for safety, with parents frantically shielding their children. It is unclear how many were struck and initial reports indicate that six people have been killed and at least 24 transported to local hospitals.

Police were still searching for the gunman hours after the shooting. He was described by Highland Park police as a white man between 18 and 20 years old with a small build and longer black hair. He is wearing a white or blue T-shirt, according to Highland Park Police Cmmd. Chris O’Neill.

“We’re asking everybody to stay indoors,” said Lake County Sgt. Christopher Covelli. “Stay vigilant right now. This person has not been identified. By all means, at this point, this appears to be completely random.”

The annual Fourth of July Celebration, hosted by the city of Highland Park, features floats (including Chabad’s giant menorah), marching bands, and other special entertainment and draws a crowd of thousands.

Michla Schanowitz, co-director of North Suburban Lubavitch Chabad—Central Avenue Synagogue, was outside her Chabad center at the heart of the parade’s route, just four blocks away from the shooting, when she saw crowds running toward her. Chabad had a table set up outside the center offering passersby a chance to put ontefillin or take a Shabbat candle kit, manned by four young rabbinical students from Chabad’s Yeshivas Ohr Eliyahu Lubavitch Mesivta of Chicago.

“The parade had barely started. All of a sudden, I see everyone running towards us,” Schanowitz tells Chabad.org. She began rushing people to safety inside her Chabad center immediately. “Come inside, it’s a synagogue,” she shouted to the stunned passersby.

Schanowitz reports that her student volunteers are all safe and accounted for.

“The community is in absolute shock,” her husband Rabbi Yosef Schanowitz told Chabad.org from the Emergency Department at the Highland Park Hospital where he was visiting victims of the attack. “People should pray for Highland park and do an extra act of good for us,” he said.

The Schanowitzes have served the Highland Park area Jewish community since 1980 when they established Chabad in the area. Chabad in Highland Park’s base of operations is on Central Avenue, the main thoroughfare for the city where the parade was held today, and a few blocks west of where the attack took place. In addition to The Central Avenue Synagogue, Chabad in Highland Park, with assistance of the Skolnick family, runs a popular Hebrew School program for children, and a plethora of adult and children’s educational programming.

The July 4th parade annually has a strong Jewish presence, with Chabad running a float complete with a giant menorah and providing other Jewish experiences for participants.

“Our kids were at the parade, near the shul, with a lot of others,” says local resident Dovid Weissman. “As soon as they heard there was a shooting, they ran home. Right now, we are all sheltering at home, waiting for the shooter to be found. People have been posting on our community WhatsApp group, sharing word that they are OK.”

As word of the attack in Highland Park spread, parades in neighboring suburbs were canceled as well. In Skokie, the parade was called off just before Lubavitch Chabad of Skokie’s Mitzvah Tank was about to roll down the parade route, festooned with a large American flag and stocked with thousands of magnets encouraging goodness and kindness.

“We understand that prudence dictated that the parade be called off,” says Rabbi Yochanan Posner of Lubavitch Chabad of Skokie. “But we will persist in spreading the message of gratitude to the United States of America for giving us freedom and being conducive to a society which values goodness and kindness. So, while there is tragically no formal parade today, our ‘parade’ of a single vehicle will be traveling the streets of Skokie and proclaiming that message.”

“This makes me feel that we need to be doing even more,” says Schanowitz. “The Rebbe [Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory] wants us to bring more light and more positivity to our surroundings.”

This story is developing and will be updated.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Supreme Court Overturns 2nd Amendment Decisions in 4 States

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The Second Amendment is the last line of defense for each and every one of us. The Supreme Court ruling on gun rights reiterated our fundamental right enshrined in the Constitution.

“Our Founding Fathers didn’t give us the Second Amendment for duck hunting or simply for self-protection in a country that at the time had a vast and yet unknown frontier. They bestowed it upon us so that we could protect our precious nation from devolving into tyranny as so many others have done.”

There are historical lessons of totalitarian governments that rule because citizens have been deprived of their weapons.

The Nazi policy

In Nazi Firearms Law and the Disarming of the German Jews, page 537, Stephen P. Halbrook observed:

“The record establishes that a well-meaning liberal republic would enact a gun control act that would later be highly useful to a dictatorship. That dictatorship could then consolidate its power by massive search and seizure operations against political opponents, under the hysterical ruse that such persons were ‘Communist’ firearm owners.”

“It could enact its own new firearms law, disarming anyone the police deemed ‘dangerous’ and exempting members of the party that controlled the state. It could exploit a tragic shooting of a government official to launch a [sic] pogrom, under the guise that Jewish firearm owners were dangerous and must be disarmed.”

“This dictatorship could, generally, disarm the people of the nation it governed and then disarm those of every nation it conquered.”

The USA’s fundamental rights

“A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” The Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

“In the 2008 case District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court held that the ‘Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.’” Reported by the Legal Information Institute of the Cornell Law School.

“The above experiences influenced perceptions of fundamental rights in both the United States and Germany,” Halbrook explained: “Before entering the war, America reacted to the events in Europe in a characteristic manner. Seeing the Nazi threat and its policies, Congress passed the Property Requisition Act of 1941 authorizing the President to requisition certain property for defense, but prohibiting any construction of the act to ‘require the registration of any firearms possessed by any individual for his personal protection or sport’ or ‘to impair or infringe in any manner the right of any individual to keep and bear arms.’” Nazi Firearms Law, pp. 536-37.

“Remember that registration of firearms is only the first step,” stated the Requisition Act’s sponsor, Rep. Paul Kilday (D-TX). “It will be followed by other infringements of the right to keep and bear arms until finally the right is gone.” Nazi Firearms Law, p. 537, fn. 289.

Analysis

A secret Nazi Gestapo Order (1941) is compared to Pennsylvania’s Firearm Registration bill (2019) in this side-by-side chart. Pennsylvania’s bill has more requirements than the Nazi’s order. In Pennsylvania, if the bill becomes law, a gun owner will be required to provide more information than a person who registers to vote.

For the right of self-defense, a person would be required annually to self-report ownership of each gun and describe it in detail. A certificate or renewal is not guaranteed because the State Police could deny the application. Partisan bureaucrats may not appreciate an applicant’s conservative politics: Allegiance to the Bill of Rights and limited government. Far-fetched? Just ask Tea Party organizations who were delayed or denied non-profit status by Obama’s IRS.

The State Police’s database could be released for official or nefarious purposes: The Pennsylvania Legislature under the guise of oversight. Freedom of Information requests by liberal media and advocacy groups.

Anti-gun zealots could dox persons who own guns. New York’s concealed weapon permit holders were posted via a map on the internet. There was proposed a multi-state map. Liberal news agencies and the social media mob have harassed law-abiding, private citizens. Identification of gun owners is not likely to deter criminals, who may have a shopping list for gun collections.

An enemy could learn that you own a gun. A related “red flag” law may be used for a fraudulent claim against you. The police will confiscate your gun pending a court hearing. Meanwhile, an enemy has an opportunity to cause injury or murder of you.

Law-abiding citizens’ registration of guns will not prevent criminals from obtaining unregistered guns. No lives will be saved. Note the bill’s absence of “whereas” clauses of findings of facts to support unidentified benefits. Also, the absence of redeeming press releases of the bill being introduced by Democrats: Angel Cruz, Mary Jo Daley, and Mary Louise Isaacson; and Democrat co-sponsors: Joseph C. Hohenstein, Joanna E. McClinton, and Benjamin V. Sanchez. The bill failed in 2009-10, 2011-12, 2013-14, 2015-16, and 2017-18.

This proposed law could be enforced only if the government is aware that you own a gun. Will the police conduct a search for guns, literally door to door?

If you are forced to use a gun for self-defense, but fail to comply with registration, could your defense effectively be an infringement of the Fifth Amendment?

Fail to register a gun, then risk a criminal penalty of 90 days in jail. The government likely will confiscate your gun; You likely will not be eligible to possess another gun; and you likely will be limited to lesser forms of self-defense.

Gun registries will lead to gun confiscation, as illustrated by Australia, Canada, and Germany; as well as the United States: California, Illinois, and the heart of liberalism: New York City.

National gun confiscation has been proposed by liberals including Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA; 2018); the NAACP (2018); and Hillary Clinton, presidential candidate (2016).

Admit it, liberals, you really do want a total ban on firearms.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, suggested that a Democrat President could declare gun violence as a national emergency.

Conclusion

Have we not learned the lesson of the Nazi policy to disarm, and then control, its citizens? Nazi gun laws facilitated the murder of political enemies, specifically the Holocaust of more than six million Jews.

What part of the Second Amendment’s independent status, “shall not be infringed,” did these legislators, some attorneys, not understand? The U.S. Constitution trumps a state statute. A first-year law student learns this principle.

Liberals ignore constitutional law in favor of an agenda of a gun-free society. Liberals use safety as subterfuge for registration leading to confiscation of guns.

I appreciate our Founding Fathers’ wisdom that the Second Amendment is a guard against tyranny, whether the enemy is foreign or domestic.

Since self-defense is a God-given right, I believe in the Doctrine of the Lesser Magistrates: Should gun registration become law by an act of either a state or federal government, such a law would classify this patriot as a criminal.

Read relevant documents:

Law Comparison

Pennsylvania HB768: Firearm Registration Act

Pennsylvania Summary Offenses

Nazi Firearms Laws

Nazi Gestapo Order

Gerald Lostutter is a Florida licensed attorney, college professor, journalist, and patriot life member (endowment level) of the National Rifle Association

Supreme Court Overturns 2nd Amendment Decisions in 4 States

The Supreme Court followed up its June 23 landmark ruling that for the first time recognized a constitutional right to carry firearms in public for self-defense, by issuing a series of rulings June 30 reversing federal appeals court decisions that upheld gun restrictions in California, New Jersey, Maryland, and Hawaii.

Courts will find it difficult to uphold the firearms laws in question after the high court’s June 30 and June 23 rulings.

In unsigned orders, all four cases were remanded June 30 to lower courts “for further consideration in light of” the Supreme Court’s June 23 decision in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen. In that 6–3 ruling, the high court invalidated New York state’s tough concealed-carry gun permitting system.
Epoch Times Photo
Lisa Caso sells guns at Caso’s Gun-A-Rama store in Jersey City, N.J., on March 25, 2021. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

The Supreme Court has been strengthening Second Amendment protections in recent years. In District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), the Supreme Court held the amendment protects “the individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation,” and in McDonald v. City of Chicago (2010), that this right “is fully applicable to the States.”

It makes no sense to recognize Americans’ right to defend themselves in their homes while denying them the ability to defend themselves outside their homes, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote June 23 in the court’s majority opinion.

“After all, the Second Amendment guarantees an ‘individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation,’ and confrontation can surely take place outside the home. … Many Americans hazard greater danger outside the home than in it,” Thomas wrote.

In the new orders, the Supreme Court summarily disposed of the four pending cases, simultaneously granting appellants’ petitions seeking review while skipping over the oral argument phase. Some lawyers call this process GVR, standing for grant, vacate, and remand.

In the Maryland case, Bianchi v. Frosh, court file 21-902, a coalition of 25 states led by Arizona challenged Maryland’s Firearms Safety Act of 2013. The statute, which was upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit in September 2021, required pistol purchasers to seek a license, complete safety training, and be fingerprinted. Maryland bans popular weapons such as the AR-15 and similar rifles and limits magazine capacity to 10 rounds.

Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh, a Democrat, was defiant after the remand order. Military-style firearms “pose grave risks to public safety, as recent mass shootings in other states have made clear,” Frosh stated. Despite the Bruen ruling, the state’s law remains in effect, he said. “Marylanders have a right to be protected from these dangerous weapons.”’

The California case, Duncan v. Bonta, court file 21-1194, challenged the state’s ban on magazines containing more than 10 rounds. The ban went further, requiring the confiscation of such magazines, which had previously been lawful to own. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit upheld the ban in November 2021.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat, is currently scrambling to deal with the fallout after his office leaked sensitive personal information, including the names and addresses of every concealed-carry permit holder in the state. Some holders say they now fear for their lives.

The New Jersey case, Association of New Jersey Rifle and Pistol Clubs Inc. v. Bruck, court file 20-1507, is similar to the California case. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit affirmed the New Jersey law in December 2021.

Petitioners challenged the state law that bans 10-round magazines and requires that owners surrender such magazines to law enforcement. The law also forbids the transfer or sale of these magazines but allows owners to keep them if they modify them to reduce how many rounds may be held. Failing to comply with the law is a crime that can be punished with a sentence of up to 10 years of imprisonment and $150,000 in fines.

 

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

RELATED ARTICLE: After the Guns Were Confiscated, the Killing Fields Began

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

How the New Gun Control Package Could Harm the Mental Health Community

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This week, the US Senate began debate on a bipartisan gun control package supporters have labeled a “compromise” bill.

Earlier this month, Democrats announced they had obtained enough Republican support for legislation to get it out of the Senate. (Though the House has an easy Democrat majority, much of the left’s agenda has stalled under President Joe Biden due to a very slim majority in the Senate that requires the support of at least 10 Republican Senators to overcome a filibuster.)

The gun control package includes several items: Incentives for states to pass red flag laws, a crackdown on “straw purchases,” an end to the “boyfriend loophole,” investments in mental health and suicide prevention as well as crisis and trauma intervention and recovery, an expanded requirement for who must register as a licensed federal firearms dealers, and enhanced background checks for 18-21 year olds looking to buy a gun. Should it pass, NICS (the entity that carries out federal background checks) would basically have to call state and local law enforcement to search for any sealed juvenile records or mental health events as well as agencies in the state that deal with mental health issues before 18 to 21 year olds could purchase a gun.

While supporters of this legislation are presumably well-meaning, it is mostly misguided.

And while there is little indication these agenda items would actually prevent violence or save lives, there’s plenty of evidence to indicate they would deter vulnerable people from seeking mental health treatment.

Regarding the bill, Psychology Today states, “Of course, increased funding for mental health programs is sorely needed. But there is also concern among mental health advocates about reinforcing the false conflation of gun violence and mental illness. Although the popular belief is that those with mental illness are more likely to commit acts of violence, data shows that people with mental illness are more likely to be a victim of violent crime than the perpetrator.”

Sixty national mental health advocacy groups also recently crafted a letter condemning the conflation of gun violence and mental health issues. “Attempts to connect mental illness to mass shootings are a distraction that inflicts enormous damage by taking attention from solutions that could actually prevent such events,” they write. “This perpetuates a false narrative that encourages stigmatization of and discrimination against the millions of Americans living with mental health conditions who are more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators of it.”

The president and CEO at Meridian Health Services, Hank Milius, also recently authored an op-ed for Yahoo! Finance writing, “gun violence is a public health issue but linking it to mental health only adds to the stigma of mental illness.” He goes on to say, “Certainly, there are cases of gun violence by individuals who have a mental illness. But to suggest there is a cause and effect by inextricably linking the two builds a false narrative.”

Milius also reiterated the talking points of Mental Health America, writing, “Mental illness is not a predictor of violence towards others, but is a predictor of suicide. Firearm deaths associated with mental illness are nearly always suicides. The majority of people with mental illness are not violent. If mental illness were eliminated, gun violence in America would go down by only 4%.”

Sixty percent of gun deaths in the US are attributed to suicide, NPR notes. So if we want to actually reduce gun deaths, mental health is an excellent place to focus our attention and resources.

But while this bill offers an expansion of services…or at least funding for services…numerous components within it would likely lead to fewer people seeking help.

As Milius and Psychology Today make clear, people who suffer from mental illness are far likelier to be victims of gun violence than perpetrators of it. But that being said, when a person in psychosis does not receive the care and or medicine they need, violence can occur. So we should do everything we can to encourage those with mental illness to seek help.

However, this bill goes the opposite way. It risks the healthcare privacy of young adults and puts their ability to defend themselves in jeopardy. If a young woman fears that seeking help for anxiety or suicidal thoughts may lead to her inability to be able to buy a gun and defend herself when she turns 18 and moves out on her own, the reality is a not-insignificant portion of the population will likely take the safe route and forego care.

Dr. Laura Streyffeler, a Licensed Mental Health Counselor, states, “I think if we start having them diagnose and take away weapons and have mental health diagnosis as a way that people are going to lose their firearms I think what’s going to happen is people are going to stop looking for help.”

Furthermore, red flags laws weaponize mental health issues against people who may have absolutely no indication of violence whatsoever. It isn’t ok to condition one’s rights on their health, which is what Red Flag laws do. While the actual language differs from state to state, the gist is that people who know you can alert police to behaviors they think are unstable and that can then be used to take away someone’s guns. What behaviors that includes are pretty arbitrary, subjective, and loosely defined. Does someone not like your politics and think you’re a conspiracy theorist? Does that indicate mental unwellness? Is someone anti-gun in general and believe that merely owning a gun makes you a threat? You get the picture here. These laws could easily be used against people who aren’t mentally ill in the least, but we know they’ll certainly be used against anyone with a history of mental illness.

Civil liberties should never be able to be taken away without due process, a preponderance of the evidence, and a trial. Red flag laws skip those conditions and make people who seek basic healthcare services vulnerable.

The reality is that most mass shooters were not mentally ill, at least not in a diagnosable way. Rather, they are typically young men who are isolated, angry, and entitled. Additionally, according to reporting by Vice, “A new Department of Justice-funded study of all mass shootings — killings of four or more people in a public place — since 1966 found that the shooters typically have an experience with childhood trauma, a personal crisis or specific grievance, and a ‘script’ or examples that validate their feelings or provide a roadmap. And then there’s the fourth thing: access to a firearm.”

Those are signs of future violence we can certainly be on guard against—and people with firearms in their home have the responsibility to make sure their guns are safe and secure—but making mental health a scapegoat for shootings is not the answer.

Instead, the gun control package demonizes and stereotypes innocent people, and makes an already vulnerable population more susceptible to abuse. It also puts too much pressure on our mental healthcare system, which is already buckling under the weight of trying to provide basic services for those who are quantifiably mentally ill. The mental health community can’t do the job of police on top of everything else.

The French economist Frédéric Bastiat once said, “In the economic sphere, an act, a habit, an institution, a law produces not only one effect, but a series of effects. Of these effects, the first alone is immediate; it appears simultaneously with its cause; it is seen. The other effects emerge only subsequently; they are not seen. There is only one difference between a good economist and a bad one: the bad economist confines himself to the visible effect; the good economist takes into account both the effect that can be seen and those which must be foreseen.”

It’s easy to see Bastiat’s description playing out under this new gun control package, should it pass. Lawmakers believe they are solving one problem, the “seen,” while failing to take into account all of the negative repercussions and implications that will follow, the “unseen.”

This isn’t smart public policy, which is a shame because there are many thoughtful, well-researched people putting out reforms that could actually target violence while upholding individual liberty and ensuring vulnerable populations aren’t further harmed.

AUTHOR

Hannah Cox

Hannah Cox is the Content Manager and Brand Ambassador for the Foundation for Economic Education.

EDITORS NOTE: This FEE column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Unhinged Olbermann: Dissolve SCOTUS Over Pro-2nd Amendment Ruling

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Thursday on Twitter, unhinged political performance artist and perennial loser Keith Olbermann responded to the Supreme Court’s pro-Second Amendment ruling by — predictably — calling for the high court to be dissolved.

After SCOTUS struck down New York’s proper cause requirement for concealed carry, Olbermann flipped out and tweeted, “It has become necessary to dissolve the Supreme Court of the United States. The first step is for a state the ‘court’ has now forced guns upon, to ignore this ruling. Great. You’re a court? Why and how do think you can enforce your rulings?”

He followed up with this idiotic challenge: “Hey SCOTUS, send the SCOTUS army here to enforce your ruling, you House of Lords radicals pretending to be a court.”

Earlier this month Olbermann, who can’t keep a job even in the leftist media because he’s such a clown, tweeted his embarrassingly ignorant claim that the Second Amendment does not protect a right to “own” guns: “Shove your ‘responsible gun owners’ crap up your ass. The 2nd Amendment does not include the word ‘own.’ There is no right.”

Um, yes there is a right, but don’t let the facts get in the way of your juvenile ranting, Keith.

Keith Olbermann

34 Known Connections

In February 2011, it was announced that Olbermann would work for Current TV, a public-affairs channel co-founded by Al Gore. Olbermann made his Current TV debut on June 20, 2011. His program there — like his previous show at MSNBC — was called Countdown With Keith Olbermann.

Near the end of March 2012, Current TV terminated its increasingly acrimonious relationship with Olbermann and replaced his program with Viewpoint with Eliot Spitzer. In response to the firing, Olbermann promptly filed a lawsuit against Current TV, seeking somewhere between $50 million and $70 million.

In July 2013, Olbermann was hired to host a one-hour nightly sports program (debuting August 26) on ESPN-2.

On February 24, 2015, ESPN suspended Olbermann for controversial remarks he made on Twitter, where he derided students who were participating in Penn State University’s annual dance marathon — called “Thon” — which raised money for pediatric cancer research and care. In his various tweets, Olbermann referred to PSU students as “pitiful,” mocked one of his critics as a “goober,” and called another man “stupid.” Olbermann later issued an apology on Twitter, but ESPN decided to suspend him for one week.

In July 2015, ESPN elected not to extend Olbermann’s contract — which was scheduled to expire at the end of that month — after he refused to move his program from its Times Square studio to the network’s headquarters in Bristol, Connecticut…

To learn more about Keith Olbermann, click here.

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PP CEO on Roe v Wade: ‘People Will Be Forced into Pregnancy’

EDITORS NOTE: This Discover the Networks column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Gun Ruling Knocks Libs Off Their Rocker

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There are some seriously unbalanced liberals running loose out there. They’re losing their minds over the Supreme Court’s gun ruling, among other things.

Most states allow people to carry guns outside the home but, to hear these libs tell it, the Supreme Court’s ruling is ushering in Armageddon.  TV talking head Keith Olbermann said the Supreme Court should be abolished. Libs in the Twitterverse said the Court’s goal is to create chaos and crime to usher in authoritarian government.  Sounds like liberal projection to me, given how libs love Antifa riots, burning cities, and want every criminal to go free.  Joy Reid accused the Court of wanting to “repeal the 20th century” because it actually paid attention to the Constitution.  By the way, Joy, the 20th century ended 22 years ago.  Elie Mystal said the Supreme Court just granted a “right to shoot people.”  Uh-huh.  Actor Rob Perlman said the Court’s decision is for whites only.  That’s crazy.  There was a whole book written about how Martin Luther King and other civil rights leaders were all packing heat – for self-protection, the exact rationale the Court employed yesterday.  New York Governor Kathy Hochul trotted out the tired old argument the Second Amendment only applies to muskets.  That’s like saying free speech only applies to quill pens.  The Founders were well aware technology would advance.  That’s why they put patent protections in the Constitution, to promote scientific progress.  That Hochul would make such a stupid argument that can be demolished in two seconds shows you just how unhinged she is.

Let’s look at some other issues that have upended liberals’ mental equilibrium, lately.

A Democrat chief of staff on Capitol Hill hates Marjorie Taylor Greene so much he vandalized her office, not realizing he was being caught on camera the entire time. Oops.

In another case of Liberal Derangement Syndrome making people overlook the obvious, a climate protester tried to smear cream cake on the Mona Lisa, but it’s behind glass.  Nice try.

Unbalanced Squad member Jamaal Bowman honestly believes civil war will break out in this country if Republicans are elected in November.  I’d go, but I don’t think people should be allowed to carry guns outside the home.

Hillary Clinton said Trump supporters are a “clear and present danger to American democracy.”  That would include me.  This from a delusional woman who started the Trump/Russia collusion hoax and still thinks she won the 2016 election.  Calling Dr. Freud.

Speaking of mental illness, a totally bonkers woman made a video after paying $98 to fill up her gas tank blaming Biden’s inflation on the religious right. I’d ask you to see if you can follow that logic, but there isn’t any.

Antiracist guru Ibram X. Kendi is worried about his daughter who likes playing with a white doll.  He suspects her mind has already been taken over – colonized – by white supremacy.  The guy has a million bucks.  You’d think he could afford to buy his daughter a black doll, if that’s what he wants her to play with.

Buried in all this hilarity is a serious point: civil discourse in this country is suffering because liberals and Democrats are making themselves sick in the head, believing all kinds of nonsense.  I implore you, come back to reality.  I miss our long serious talks about the direction of the country, but you don’t seem to be capable of that, at the moment.

Visit The Daily Skirmish and Watch Eagle Headline News – 7:30am ET Weekdays

©Christopher Wright. All rights reserved.

The Supreme Court Stands Up For the Right to Self-Defense

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The Supreme Court’s infamous 2007 decision DC vs Heller recognized that the Second Amendment established a right to bear arms in self-defense. But in the years since, the high court has hardly taken any gun rights cases further fleshing out this precedent—leaving loopholes states have exploited to restrict citizens’ right to self-defense.

No more.

In a seismic 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court just struck down a New York scheme that heavily restricted citizens’ right to carry a firearm in public for self-defense.

The New York policy in question was its “may issue” approach to concealed carry permit applications, which allow citizens to carry a concealed pistol on their person for self-defense. Many states have a permitting process—others have “constitutional carry”—but New York’s was particularly extreme. Not only did it require a basic background check and gun safety certification like many states do, it allowed government officials to deny the application unless the applicant could “demonstrate a special need for self-protection distinguishable from that of the general community.”

That’s right: It made a mockery of our rights and treated them as a privilege, only granting permits to celebrities or people who had explicitly been threatened. Living in a high-crime area or generally wanting to exercise your right to defend yourself wasn’t good enough. This was essentially a way the state worked around the Second Amendment to heavily limit our ability to bear arms.

Thankfully, Justice Clarence Thomas just took a flamethrower to this subjective, unjust system. The court’s decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen strikes down the New York scheme and affirms that “the Second and Fourteenth Amendments protect an individual’s right to carry a handgun for self-defense outside the home” without needing to accommodate the subjective whims of some bureaucrat.

“We know of no other constitutional right that an individual may exercise only after demonstrating to government officers some special need,” Justice Thomas writes. “That is not how the First Amendment works when it comes to unpopular speech or the free exercise of religion. It is not how the Sixth Amendment works when it comes to a defendant’s right to confront the witnesses against him. And it is not how the Second Amendment works when it comes to public carry for self-defense.”

“New York’s proper-cause requirement violates the Fourteenth Amendment in that it prevents law-abiding citizens with ordinary self-defense needs from exercising their right to keep and bear arms,” the majority opinion concludes.

This is a big win for liberty.

The right to life is an inherent human right, and the right to defend your own life from would-be violence is inherent to that right. This is exactly what the Second Amendment was meant to enshrine. It’s great that the Supreme Court is at long last standing up for our inherent right to self-defense—and standing against petty bureaucrats who would leave us at their mercy.

AUTHOR

Brad Polumbo

Brad Polumbo (@Brad_Polumbo) is a libertarian-conservative journalist and Policy Correspondent at the Foundation for Economic Education.

RELATED ARTICLE: New York’s Unconstitutional Gun Law Was Written By A Notorious, Corrupt Thug

EDITORS NOTE: This FEE column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

TAKE ACTION: Ask U.S. Senators To Pass ‘The Stop It Now Act’ & Make School Shootings a Federal Crime!

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It is time to act to stop school shootings. We have created a draft letter that readers can send to all U.S. Senators to pass laws to stop school shootings. We have title it The Stop It Now law.

What we have noticed is that politicians have a do something mentality when it comes to school shootings. But their do something legislation focuses on the weapon of choice of the killer and not the killer himself.

The Stop It Now law focuses on the killer and only the killer or potential killer or killers.

PROPOSED LETTER TO YOUR SENATORS

Dear Senator ___________________

I ask that you pass before Tuesday, November 8, 2022 a law to prevent violent criminals from attacking our most innocent and vulnerable, the children in our schools. We have seen too many children killed or maimed and criminals not getting tried rapidly and charged in a way that sends a clear signal that this type of attack will not be tolerated by you and your fellow Senators and members of Congress.

It’s past time to take action. 

I suggest calling this new legislation The Stop It Now Act.

The Stop It Now Act would:

  1. Make it a federal crime to plan to enter any school at any level with the intent to do harm to either students or teachers.
  2. If a person, or persons, does enter any school at any level with the intent to do harm to either students or teachers then that person, or persons, would be charged with a federal crime and if convicted with each count being a life sentence in a federal prison.
  3. If any person or persons does enter any school at any level and that person or persons harms or kills either a student or teacher then that person or persons are charged with a federal crime and if convicted are then executed by a means currently used to execute others, e.g. terrorists.
  4. That those who aid or abet a person or persons in carrying out an attack on any school with the knowledge that the person they aided had the intent to harm or kill a student or teacher be prosecuted under provisions 1 and 2 above.
  5. Repeal any and all “Gun Free Zones” federal legislation. Allow each state to decide how to best protect their students and teachers from those who wish to do harm to students and teachers at all levels.

I ask that you and your staff work across party lines to pass such legislation and have it signed by the president before Tuesday, November 8, 2022.

Sincerely,

Signed

If you wish to alter this email please feel free to do so to add your thoughts and concerns. If you wish please cc us at drswier@gmail.com.

Below are the email addresses of the members of the the U.S. Senate, their staff and their campaign headquarters.

Just copy and past the list into the TO box of your email or if you just wish to contact your two senators just select their names.

NOTE: We also ask that you send a copy of the email to your member of congress.

EMAILS OF U.S. SENATORS AND STAFF

senator@tammybaldwin.com;
info@chrismurphy.com;
senator@chrismurphy.com;
john@barrassoforwyoming.com;
contact@chrismurphy.com;
michael@michaelbennet.com;
info@michaelbennet.com;
marsha@marshablackburn.com;
info@moranforkansas.com;
richard@richardblumenthal.com;
info@jeffmerkley.com;
info@corybooker.com;
info@boozmanforarkansas.com;
info@mikebraunforindiana.com;
sherrod@sherrodbrown.com;
services@jeffmerkley.com;
richard@burrforsenate.com;
info@burrforsenate.com;
maria@cantwell.com;
ben@bencardin.com;
contact@menendezfornj.com;
tom@carperfordelaware.com;
info@menendezfornj.com;
info@bobcasey.com;
bill@billcassidy.com;
contact@edmarkey.com;
susan@susancollins.com;
info@edmarkey.com;
chris@chriscoons.com;
info@lummisforwyoming.com;
info@johncornyn.com;
info@catherinecortezmasto.com;
scc@catherinecortezmasto.com;
info@tomcotton.com;
kevin@kevincramer.org;
senator@romneyforutah.com;
info@crapoforsenate.com;
contact@robportman.com;
info@leeforsenate.com;
info@tedcruz.org;
steve@stevedaines.com;
info@leahyforvermont.com;
info@jameslankford.com;
tammy@tammyduckworth.com;
info@tammyduckworth.com;
senator@tammyduckworth.com;
dick@durbinforsenate.com;
info@joniforiowa.com;
info@lindseygraham.com;
senator@lindseygraham.com;
senatorgrassley@grassleyworks.com;
bill@teamhagerty.com;
info@cindyhydesmith.com;
info@maggiehassan.com;
maggie@maggiehassan.com;
josh@joshhawley.com;
senator@hoevenforsenate.com;
martin@martinheinrich.com;
info@hoevenforsenate.com;
john@hickenlooper.com;
hello@hickenlooper.com;
john@hoevenforsenate.com;
info@martinheinrich.com;
senator@hoevenforsenate.com;
cindy@cindyhydesmith.com;
justin@cindyhydesmith.com;
info@jiminhofe.com;
info@ronjohnsonforsenate.com;
press@ronjohnsonforsenate.com;
ron@ronjohnsonforsenate.com;
senator@ronjohnsonforsenate.com;
info@timkaine.com;
mark@markkelly.com;
info@grassleyworks.com;
john@johnkennedy.com;
info@angusformaine.com;
amy@amyklobuchar.com;
info@amyklobuchar.com;
jim@jameslankford.com;
james@jameslankford.com;
patrick@leahyforvermont.com;
info@fischerfornebraska.com;
mike@leeforsenate.com;
info@stevedaines.com;
info@benraylujan.com;
cynthia@lummisforwyoming.com;
info@joemanchinwv.com;
ed@edmarkey.com;
edward@edmarkey.com;
senator@stevedaines.com;
info@kevincramer.org;
roger@kansansformarshall.com;
info@kansansformarshall.com;
info@chriscoons.com;
mitch@teammitch.com;
contact@teammitch.com;
info@billcassidy.com;
robert@menendezfornj.com;
senator@menendezfornj.com;
bob@menendezfornj.com;
info@carperfordelaware.com;
jeff@jeffmerkley.com;
info@bencardin.com;
jerry@moranforkansas.com;
info@lisamurkowski.com;
info@barrassoforwyoming.com;
christopher@chrismurphy.com;
chris@chrismurphy.com;
info@richardblumenthal.com;
patty@pattymurray.com;
jon@electjon.com;
info@cantwell.com;
alex@alex-padilla.com;
info@alex-padilla.com;
info@sherrodbrown.com;
rand@randpaul.com;
info@petersformichigan.com;
rob@robportman.com;
info@robportman.com;
info@tammybaldwin.com;
info@jackreed.com;
info@senatorrisch.com;
info@romneyforutah.com;
mitt@romneyforutah.com;
senator@romneyforutah.com;
info@markkelly.com;
jacky@rosenfornevada.com;
info@rosenfornevada.com;
info@roundsforsenate.com;
mike@roundsforsenate.com;
contact@roundsforsenate.com;
info@susancollins.com;
info@marcorubio.com;
marco@marcorubio.com;
contact@marcorubio.com;
info@teamsasse.com;
brian@brianschatz.com;
info@brianschatz.com;
contact@brianschatz.com;
senator@brianschatz.com;
chuck@chuckschumer.com;
info@chuckschumer.com;
info@rickscottforflorida.com;
info@votetimscott.com;
senator@susancollins.com;
richard@shelbyforsenate.com;
kyrsten@kyrstensinema.com;
info@kyrstensinema.com;
info@tinaforminnesota.com;
info@debbiestabenow.com;
debbie@debbiestabenow.com;
info@dansullivanforalaska.com;
dan@dansullivanforalaska.com;
info@jontester.com;
friends@johnthune.com;
info@johnthune.com;
john@johnthune.com;
thom@thomtillis.com;
info@thomtillis.com;
pat@toomeyforsenate.com;
info@tommyforsenate.com;
info@vanhollen.org;
mark@markwarnerva.com;
contact@markwarnerva.com;
info@markwarnerva.com;
senator@markwarnerva.com;
raphael@warnockforgeorgia.com;
info@warnockforgeorgia.com;
press@warnockforgeorgia.com;
sheldon@whitehouseforsenate.com;
info@whitehouseforsenate.com;
senatorsheldon@whitehouseforsenate.com;
roger@wickerforsenate.com;
info@wickerforsenate.com;
contact@wickerforsenate.com;
ron@standtallforamerica.com;
contact@standtallforamerica.com;
contact@toddyoung.org;
info@randpaul.com;
jon@electjon.com;
contact@romneyforutah.com

©Dr. Rich Swier. All rights reserved.

Senate Republicans caving on gun control & amnesty for illegals to a party with a -30 Presidential Approval Index rating!

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The below tweet remined us of these lyrics to a song by Stealer Wheel, “Clowns to the left of me. Jokers to the right.” It seems like déjà vu all over again.

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll.  On Tuesday, June 21st, 2022 the Biden Approval Index History  shows that 40% of Likely U.S. Voters approve of President Biden’s job performance. Fifty-nine percent (59%) disapprove. The latest figures include 19% who Strongly Approve of the job Biden is doing and 49% who Strongly Disapprove. This gives him a Presidential Approval Index rating of -30.

QUESTION:  Why are Senate republicans caving on gun rights and giving illegal aliens amnesty?

ANSWER: They aren’t big “R” republicans.

President Ronald Reagan during his 1966 campaign for Governor of California offered what he called the 11th Commandment. The 11th Commandment reads: Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican.

Well, it seems that the time is now to violate Reagans’ 11th Commandment.

The Bottom Line

In our June 9th, 2022 column “It’s not that they have an ‘R’ behind their names it’s how they actually vote that counts!” we wrote:

We have learned over time that politicians who claim to be a republican once elected don’t vote like a big “R” Republican. The Florida News Report editorial board got this message and showed how little “r’s” say one thing then do the exactly the opposite when introducing or voting on legislation.

Florida News Report editorial board explains that the real election day is the mid-term primaries. The Editorial Board noted,

Republican voters only get one shot at purging the Republican Party of RINOs each election year and that date comes early – the August Primary election.

But most Republican voters don’t participate…. the Republican voter turnout is only around 30%. It is on August 23rd Republican voters decide the direction of the party when they choose between:

  • A RINO Establishment candidate who doesn’t adhere to the Republican Party Platform 

OR

  • A Republican constitutional conservative candidate who embraces the Republican Party Platform

Do you have some Republican friends you can influence to actually go vote on August 23rd?

Do it.

Do it like your life depends on it. Because it does. When elected Republicans pass Democrat policies, your rights are immediately reduced. From gun rights to Covid restrictions, this is no joke.

August 23rd is your Election Day. 

It’s the primaries stupid! Get out and vote for a “BIG Rs” on August 23rd!

©Dr. Rich Swier. All rights reserved.

VIDEO: After the Guns Were Confiscated, the Killing Fields Began

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“Our Founding Fathers didn’t give us the Second Amendment for duck hunting or simply for self-protection in a country that at the time had a vast and yet unknown frontier. They bestowed it upon us so that we could protect our precious nation from devolving into tyranny as so many others have done.”

Watch this flashback video of Pamela Geller on the Dr. Drew Show debating gun control:

After the Guns Were Removed, the Killing Fields Began

By: J. William Middendorf, June 16, 2022

J. William Middendorf is a former secretary of the Navy and author of “The Great Nightfall: How We Win the New Cold War” (2020).

“All political power comes from the barrel of a gun. The Communist Party must command all the guns; that way, no guns can ever be used to command the party.”

The quote was from Mao Zedong, founder of Communist China. Mao’s first act after gaining complete control of China in 1949 was to take away all guns from the population. It was a policy he began in 1935 as he took over each rural province. Anyone found with a gun post-confiscation was executed.

An estimated 65 million Chinese died as a result of Mao’s repeated, merciless attempts to create a new “socialist” China. Anyone who got in his way was done away with—by execution, imprisonment, or forced famine.

Mao killed more people than either Stalin or Hitler during World War II. And it all began after he took away the guns.

Dictators throughout much of history have disarmed their populations before they began their mass killings. Examples abound beyond Mao: Hitler took guns from the Jews in November of 1938, and Kristallnacht and the Holocaust followed; and then there was Fidel Castro in Cuba and Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, to name but a few.

Cuba and Gun Control

Everybody ought to have a gun, Castro maintained—until he took over Cuba in 1959. At a rally in Havana before he assumed power, he explained: “This is how democracy works: It gives rifles to farmers, to students, to women, to Negroes, to the poor, and to every citizen who is ready to defend a just cause.”

Weapons ranging from Czech submachine guns to Belgian FN automatic rifles were handed out to 50,000 soldiers, 400,000 militiamen, 100,000 members of the factory-guarding popular defense force, and to many men, women, and children in Cuba’s 1 million-strong “neighborhood vigilance committees.”

Immediately after assuming power in 1959, Castro changed his position, following Mao’s rule that guns should not be in the hands of the people.

For three weeks after the Castro government was formed, Radio Havana warned, “All citizens must turn in their combat weapons. Civilians must take arms to police stations, soldiers to military headquarters.”

Radio Havana’s explanation was somewhat contradictory: The guns were in bad shape anyway and the “struggle against our enemies requires a rigorous control of all combat weapons.”

There was an urgency about the new policy that suggested serious concern. Failure to turn in military weapons by Sept. 1, 1959, warned Radio Havana, would be punished not by criminal courts but by the dreaded Revolutionary Tribunals—those kangaroo courts that sentenced thousands of Cubans to death after Castro took over.

Venezuela and Gun Control  

Venezuela is now paying the price for allowing Chavez to implement the Mao rule when he came to power in 2012.

The shocking nature of an economic collapse that led Venezuela from being one of the richest countries in Latin America to one of the poorest has been well documented.

One aspect of the Venezuelan crisis that does not receive much coverage is the country’s gun control regime. All guns were outlawed when Chavez came to power, and harsh penalties were imposed on violators. The Venezuelan Armed Forces have exclusive power to control, register, and potentially confiscate firearms.

Many citizens now regret the repressive gun control legislation the Venezuelan government implemented in 2012. Naturally, this regret is warranted. The Venezuelan government is among the most tyrannical in the world, with a proven track record of violating basic civil liberties such as free speech, debasing its national currency, confiscating private property, and creating economic controls that destroy the country’s productivity.

Elections have proven to be useless, as they’ve been mired with corruption and charges of government tampering. For many, taking up arms is the only option left for the country to shake off its tyrannical government. But the Venezuelan government has prevented such an uprising with its draconian gun control.

These life-and-death lessons of history are lost on too many Americans. Our Founding Fathers didn’t give us the Second Amendment for duck hunting or simply for self-protection in a country that at the time had a vast and yet unknown frontier. They bestowed it upon us so that we could protect our precious nation from devolving into tyranny as so many others have done.

Politicians who respect the American ideal don’t try to diminish the Second Amendment or blame it for other ills of society that they have failed to solve, but rather embrace it as part of the legacy of rights that helps keep America free.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

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Muslim Privilege: Cleveland ‘Officer of the Year’ Ismail Quran Under Investigation for Jew-Hating, Pro-Hitler Tweets

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.