Tag Archive for: Second Amendment

LIKELY FOES: CNN’s Liberal vs. Rising Conservatism in Black Americans

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AUSTIN, Texas, /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Brad O’Leary, publisher of TheOLearyReport.com, former NBC News Radio/Westwood One talk show host, author of the The United States Citizens’ Handbook and former feature writer for USA Today Weekend magazine, is bringing light to the current rise stemming from longstanding historical roots in conservatism within the Black community in his latest Op-Ed piece, listed below and on TheOLearyReport.com:

How much of the Black population will support Republicans on the three major issues in the 2016 Presidential election?

When George Bush ran for president he got 8% of the Black population’s vote. There was a time when Republican candidates could only count for 8% of the Irish population’s vote. It is perhaps time for the Black voters to feel just as the Irish did, that the Democratic Party deserted them.

According to CNN’s most recent poll, the three major issues that American voters will focus on will be immigration, abortion and guns.

Now, who am I to say that CNN’s liberal bias, if correct may be a danger for the Democratic Party?

CNN will tell you that according to the polls, that the Democrats will be favored. However if you look at that result and the results from other polls in judging Black population responses, it may explain one of the reasons that Donald Trump seems to have the support of 20% of the Black population.

In addition to political polls there is an incredible amount of consumer polling that has been done on the Black population. That polling should frighten the Chairman of the Democratic Party.

First let’s take the Second Amendment and gun ownership. There is no question that gun control was historically a major political effort started at the beginning of the Civil War and was principally designed by the leadership of the Ku Klux Klan, who did not want Black people, especially in the South, to own guns, not even for hunting.

In some places in the South, if a Black person wanted to hunt and keep in mind that most families were fed that way, they had to get permission from the sheriff for a twenty-four hour period for hunting. We have heard stories from many people about that era, including from Condoleezza Rice, who has always supported the 2nd Amendment because her family historically owned guns namely to protect themselves from the Ku Klux Klan.

Today we have many significant Black leaders like Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke and Detroit Police Chief James Craig, who both urged people to buy guns to protect themselves.

We have seen a number of consumer polls indicate that a majority of the Black community, following recent riots, does not fear the police. Instead they fear the drug dealers and the hoodlums who are trying to stir up division and hatred making Black neighborhoods and streets unsafe. It is no wonder that the percentage of the Black population that supports the Second Amendment has increased in the last few years. Recently during the Miss Universe contest, one of the contestants, Miss South Carolina USA, Meagan Pinckney was asked about gun ownership, presumptuous but possibly by a judge, who might have believed that since she was Black and from the South she would give a gun control answer. Contestant Pinckney stunned the television audience by showing her knowledge and support of firearm ownership. Her opinion is not just from her but it is from her peers as well.

Hillary Clinton has made her position clear. She would make it difficult for anyone who is White, Asian or Black to buy a gun, particularly in the cities. At the same time Donald Trump and all the other candidates for president are the strongest group of 2nd Amendment supporters that this country has ever seen.

The second issue CNN touts is such a clearly a Democratic majority supported issue. This issue is abortion.

Now there is no question that a majority of voters believe in a woman’s right to choose. But in a paradox of thinking, a greater majority of Americans think that abortion is either manslaughter or morally unacceptable in today’s society. That doesn’t include the rather substantial number of Americans who believe that 3rd term abortions where a fetus can be seen as moving, breathing and is deemed capable of life outside the womb, is acceptable in massive numbers.

The number of people in the Black population who believe that abortion is morally unacceptable is greater than anyone has ever believed.  The reason that Proposition 9, a heated topic of its own, which would allow gays to marry in California, was defeated at the ballot box largely due to the rallying of Black Christian voters who voted against it in massive numbers. This supports the concept that the Black population is actually quite conservative.

If you do not believe me, do your own test. In New York, five Black fetuses are aborted for every one White fetus. So go to the Black churches in a very liberal city like New York and ask the pastor and congregation what they think of abortion?

Frankly every time Hillary fights for more abortions and protecting the bargain basement selling of fetuses by Planned Parenthood she is also turning off church going Black women. Now that is an issue that no one can claim any of the Republican presidential candidates, including Trump, doesn’t have a clear opinion on. That opinion is there needs to be a stop to aborting Black babies.

Now we get to the third issue that CNN is so excited about, the issue of immigration, which clearly makes Trump and most Republicans extremists. Once again let’s consider how the Black population views immigration and some of the other effects that come from immigration. A rapper by the name of Azealia Banks unexpectedly reflected the conservative outlook of the Black population with her recent pro-Trump comments,

“Do you think it’s bad that I sort of agree with Trump’s stance on immigration? Not for any reason other than black Americans still not having been paid reparations for slavery and the influx [of] INTERNATIONAL immigrants (not just Mexicans), are sucking up state aid, and government money, space in schools, quality of life etc.?? It’s selfish, but America has been really good at convincing me that everyone else’s problems are more important than my own. I want my f*****g money!!…Me first!!!…Thoughts?”

Two areas of life that are directly impacted by immigration are job creation and drivers licenses.

Let me be clear about what the Black population thinks about immigration. For the most part they think the same as Whites and Asians. They think it favors Wall Street, it boosts corporate profit and it increases the value of many stocks. And no one polled is aware of how big immigration is every year. Only 10% of all Americans select the correct immigration numbers.

The Black population is opposed to Hillary’s immigration policy and they are opposed to the attempt by states to let illegals (“Sorry Mr. President that is my word.”) have driver’s licenses without automobile insurance. There is such a law that was just passed in California and the governors in other red states are completely supportive of giving illegals documentation. Now if anybody out there would like to see the polling that proves that this is true, I would be happy to send it to you. 65% of Hispanic citizens of the United States also opposed driver’s licenses without insurance. No surprise because illegal Hispanics hiding from “White” justice aren’t hiding in White neighborhoods.

The Black population believes and correctly so, that Hispanics take jobs away from them, particularly Hispanic teenagers versus Black teenagers.

EDITORS NOTE: For more analysis and commentary from pollster Brad O’Leary, please contact: Radio/TV Show Bookings: grassrootsbehavioral@gmail.com or (737) 704-1578. Readers may download The United States Citizens’ Handbook at no cost: www.USCH.us . Please visit: www.TheOLearyReport.com.

Trump: Protecting Our Second Amendment Rights Will Make America Great Again

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Presidential candidate Donald J. Trump released his position on the Second Amendment. Trump’s policy states in part:

The Second Amendment guarantees a fundamental right that belongs to all law-abiding Americans. The Constitution doesn’t create that right – it ensures that the government can’t take it away.

[ … ]

We need to get serious about prosecuting violent criminals. The Obama administration’s record on that is abysmal. Violent crime in cities like Baltimore, Chicago and many others is out of control. Drug dealers and gang members are given a slap on the wrist and turned loose on the street. This needs to stop.

[ … ]

All of the tragic mass murders that occurred in the past several years have something in common – there were red flags that were ignored. We can’t allow that to continue.

[ … ]

Gun and magazine bans are a total failure. That’s been proven every time it’s been tried.

[ … ]

The right of self-defense doesn’t stop at the end of your driveway. That’s why I have a concealed carry permit and why tens of millions of Americans do too. That permit should be valid in all 50 states.

[ … ]

Banning our military from carrying firearms on bases and at recruiting centers is ridiculous. We train our military how to safely and responsibly use firearms, but our current policies leave them defenseless.

To read Donald Trump’s full policy on the Second Amendment click here.

RELATED ARTICLES: 

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CNN Poll Offers Bad News for Gun Controllers, Anti-gun Candidates

Martin O’Malley: I’m More Anti-Gun Than Hillary!

Latest Gun Control Proposal Doesn’t Pass Constitutional Muster

VIDEO: Playing Politics with a Tragedy

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In this News Minute from the NRA Institute for Legislative Action, Jennifer Zahrn reports that gun control activists like Hillary Clinton and Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe are exploiting the recent tragedy in Roanoke, Virginia to push gun control.

Study: Criminals Don’t Get Guns From Legal Sources

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police gusnNumerous studies conducted by academic researchers and by the federal government have shown that criminals do not use legal markets to obtain guns. And now we have more evidence of this reality, this time looking at criminals in Chicago.

Philip J. Cook, Susan T. Parker, and Harold A. Pollack conducted interviews with criminals being held in the Cook County Jail.  Their primary findings were that criminals get guns from their “social network,” i.e. friends and persons known to them, but generally not from the various legal sources available to them.

They do not buy guns in gun stores.  They do not get guns at gun shows. They do not buy them from Internet sources.  The study even found that criminals only rarely steal guns.

Cook and colleagues also found that criminals do not often buy guns on the used market, as they have a fear of buying a gun from a source they do not know.  Fear of police stings, or from being turned in by law-abiding gun owners leads them to obtain guns from sources they trust, most often, family, fellow gang members, and other criminals. They also found that criminals do not hold guns for a long period, fearing that a gun could be traced to a specific crime.

The findings were clear.  Criminals do not engage in activities that would make them subject to any sort of a “universal” background check requirement or any of the other common proposals put forth by the anti-gun crowd.  As usual, this study illustrates that laws and regulations only impact the law-abiding.

So what did these findings lead the researchers to conclude?  If you thought the “obvious,” you’d be disappointed.

They concluded that since criminals do not hold guns long, “disrupting” the supply chain would have a positive effect on criminal gun use. That seems like a safe conclusion driven more by common sense than any evidence from an expensive academic study.  But how this “disruption” can be achieved is not spelled out or suggested.

Of course, the authors refuse to offer the obvious conclusion many will draw from their results: expanding background checks would have no impact on the criminal acquisition of guns.  Since these criminals do not use gun stores, gun shows, or even legal private gun sellers, there is no point in the criminal supply chain where a background check would make any difference whatsoever.

But these researchers could not admit that glaring reality.

Instead of admitting that their own research argues against the primary goal of the anti-gun movement right now — expanded “universal” background checks — the authors reveal their pre-established bias.

White House, Media Mislead on Crime Trends, Ignore Evidence that Could Save More Lives

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Tragedy strikes – and the White House immediately shifts into exploitation mode, trying to use raw emotion to push “solutions” that don’t fit the facts. From Charles C. W. Cooke at National Review comes a timely reminder, however, that despite well-publicized crimes, the nation as a whole is getting safer and less violent.

As Mr. Cooke notes, the U.S. firearm homicide rate peaked in 1993 and has fallen dramatically since then. Meanwhile, he adds correctly, gun control has been rolled back and the number of firearms in private hands has increased dramatically. Yet 88% of the public were unaware of favorable crime trends in a May 7, 2013, Pew Research Center Poll. Mr. Cooke attributes this knowledge gap, in part, to the increasing prevalence of “round-the-clock news” and more powerful forms of social media.

It’s a sad commentary that more news and more communication may have somehow led to greater ignorance on important matters of public policy. Your NRA, for its part, has been doing its level best to keep the record straight, including with the reports mentioned here and here.

Yet it’s no accident on gun control advocates’ part that they mislead the public on the true state of affairs. As we’ve mentioned before, a PR firm hired to produce a gun control messaging guide advises, “Always focus on emotional and value-driven arguments about gun violence, not the political food fight in Washington or wonky statistics.” It also counsels advocates to act quickly after a highly-publicized event, while emotions are at their highest. As for the facts, gun control advocates are told, “Don’t wait for them.” Instead, “The clearest course is to advance our core message about preventing gun violence independent of facts that may shift on us over time.”

Once again, sadly, we see that advice in action. Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, for example, was using Wednesday’s televised murders in Roanoke to call for universal background checks, even before the suspect had been apprehended and before news emerged that the perpetrator had, in fact, passed a background check to buy the gun he used.

Evil and violence are terrible things, and Americans understandably react with horror and sadness when confronted by them. Yet denying reality and exploiting emotions do not solve problems. Ensuring that peaceable, responsible people have the means to defend themselves is why NRA remains resolute in its mission to defend and protect the Second Amendment.

Rather than promoting “solutions” that offer false promises, like “universal” background checks, policy makers should study what’s working redouble their efforts on those fronts. Dismissing the crime deterring benefits of firearm ownership is neither smart nor compassionate. Empowering good people to defend themselves against violence is, and this defining principle will continue to drive everything that NRA does.

Reduce Firearm Ownership, Say Anti-Gun Researchers

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A new “study” by David Swedler, trained at the (gun control crusader Michael) Bloomberg School of Public Health, and co-authored by longtime anti-gun researcher David Hemenway, of the Harvard School of Public Health, uses rigged methodology to conclude that law enforcement officers are more likely to be murdered in states that have higher levels of gun ownership. As a result, Swedler and Hemenway say, “States could consider methods for reducing firearm ownership as a way to reduce occupational deaths of LEOs.”

In what may be the understatement of the century, Swedler and Hemenway concede that it’s “possible” that law enforcement officers are more likely to be murdered than other Americans because they have “more frequent encounters with motivated violent offenders.” To say the least. According to the FBI, from 2004 to 2013, 46 percent of officer murderers had prior arrests for crimes of violence, 63 percent had been convicted on prior criminal charges, 50 percent had received probation or parole for prior criminal charges, and 26 percent were under judicial supervision, including probation, parole, and conditional release, at the time of the officers’ murders.

On the other hand, Swedler and Hemenway say, law enforcement officers are able to defend themselves because they carry handguns, an argument that on its face endorses the carrying of handguns by private citizens, which is certainly not what the anti-gunners intended.

In painstaking academic detail, economist John Lott shows that Swedler and Hemenway skewed their study by comparing the number of law enforcement officers murdered with firearms in each state, to the percentage of suicides committed with firearms in each state, pretending that the latter accurately measures each state’s level of gun ownership. Additionally, the anti-gun researchers didn’t extend their comparisons over time to determine whether law enforcement officer murders increased or decreased in each state or did so in comparison to other states.

The anti-gunners also try to measure gun ownership with survey data, which is problematic, because over-reporting takes place in states where people are more supportive of gun ownership, while under-reporting takes place in states where anti-gun viewpoints are more common.

For the obvious reason, Swedler and Hemenway didn’t point out that law enforcement officer murders have been decreasing while ownership of firearms has been increasing dramatically. From 1993 to 2013, the most recent year of data from the FBI and BATFE, the annual number of law enforcement officers feloniously killed with firearms dropped 61 percent, while the American people acquired 140 million new firearms. In 2013, the number of law enforcement officers feloniously killed with firearms was less than half the annual average of the last 20 years.

That, however, is not what you want to point out if you’re jockeying for a cut of the $10 million that President Obama has asked Congress (p. 8) to throw at so-called “gun violence research” or to continue to promote an anti-gun agenda.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on the NRA/ILA website.

The Biggest Bomb Thrower of All

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With all the talk about political “civility” directed at the GOP by those in the mainstream media, I find it a bit ironic that their ire isn’t directed at the biggest rhetorical bomb-thrower of them all: President Barack Obama.

It’s time for us all (myself included) to abandon the idea that President Obama is just a good guy supporting bad policies. Having been a Secret Service agent on his protective detail, it is not easy for me to concede this, but it is necessary. I have a personal attachment to Barack Obama, likely developed through years of interactions while on his detail, and despite the litany of disastrous policies emanating from his White House; it has always been tough for me to believe that he is not a “nice guy.”

I can recall a number of television and phone interviews where I forcefully defended the President personally (not ideologically), after which I received a deluge of emails from people upset that I was doing so. After witnessing his latest in a series of low-blow rhetorical attacks on his political opposition, however, I’ve regretfully come to the conclusion that he is simply not the man I thought he was.

I’ve been frustrated and upset at him in the past, for destroying our healthcare system (and cancelling my insurance policy in the process), taxing away any chance of an economic recovery, and for forcing the tentacles of the government deeper into my life and yours; but I’ve always cooled and settled on the idea that while he was an ideologue and poor leader, he remained a generally decent guy. But decent men and women do not stand in front of the world, before the most powerful bully pulpit in the history of mankind, and act and speak as he does.

Attacking political opponents in the Washington DC political cesspool is nothing new or earth shattering but, the rhetoric used by this President to speak about his political opposition is close to unprecedented.

To prove my point, here are some of President Obama’s low lights:

  • On political opposition to the disastrous Iran deal, and a joint opposition letter drafted to the Iranians, President Obama stated, respectively, that hegemonic, Iranian extremists were “making common cause with the Republican caucus.”  And, “I’m embarrassed for them.”
  • On political supporters of common-sense voter ID requirements, President Obama stated, “The real voter fraud is people who try to deny our rights by making bogus arguments about voter fraud.”
  • On political supporters of right-to-work legislation, President Obama stated they are “are more concerned about German shareholders than American workers.”
  • On Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren’s opposition to Trade Promotion Authority, President Obama stated “the truth of the matter is that Elizabeth is, you know, a politician like everybody else.”
  • On Fox News’ coverage of the struggling economy, President Obama stated, “We’re going to have to change how our body politic thinks, which means we’re going to have to change how the media reports on these issues.”
  • On those who oppose his continued attacks on the Second Amendment, President Obama stated, “As long as there are those who fight to make it as easy as possible for dangerous people to get their hands on a gun, then we’ve got to work as hard as possible for the sake of our children.”
  • On political opposition to his massive debt and deficits, President Obama stated, “it’s encouraged our enemies, it’s emboldened our competitors”
  • On political opposition to Obamacare, President Obama accused opponents of “exploiting fears instead of getting things done.”

Truth be told, I am an emotional person who takes assaults on our liberties and freedoms personally, and I have been known, on talk-radio, television, and in print, to loudly call out the Left for their three-front war on our future; but I’m not trying to be the “nice guy,” I’m trying to sound the alarm about the danger we are in. So, in going forward, let’s dispense with the mainstream media nonsense about how “nice” of a guy President Obama is and focus on the real man behind the ideology—a man who, I truly believe, is angry, resentful, and bitter towards those who cherish freedom, liberty, and a limited-government which enables the limitless flourishing of individuals.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the Conservative Review. The feature image is by Carolyn Kaster | AP Photo.

Response to Tallahassee Democrat Op-ed on ‘Docs v. Glocks’ by Marion P. Hammer

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Below is Marion P. Hammer’s response in the Tallahassee Democrat to anti-gun editorials attacking the courts on the “Docs v. Glocks” issue.

It’s not about the First Amendment

By Marion P. Hammer,

My View 4:57 p.m. EDT August 4, 2015

The column “Free Speech does not threaten gun ownership” (Aug. 3) by Howard L. Simon of the ACLU is a smokescreen.

Twice now federal judges have ruled that the so-called “Docs & Glocks” law does not violate First Amendment free speech rights of doctors and medical personnel. The law stops pediatricians and other physicians from prying into our personal lives, invading our privacy and straying from issues relating to disease and medicine into questioning children or their parents about gun ownership and guns in the home.

Read, “Free speech is no threat to gun ownership,” by Howard L. Simon posted  in the Tallahassee Democrat on August 4, 2015.

In both rulings, the court made it clear that the law is an appropriate regulation of professional speech. The state has a duty to protect the rights of vulnerable patients against doctors who use their examining rooms to interrogate parents and children about gun ownership for the purpose of delivering their anti-gun political messages.

If a patient answers questions like, “Do you own a gun?” or “Do your children have access to guns in your home?” or “Did you know that having a gun in your home triples your risk of becoming a homicide victim?,” the patient is likely to be given the “Advice to parents” the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends on their website: “Never have a gun in the home. Do not purchase a gun. Remove all guns present in the home.” That is not medical care. That is politics.

That political motivation has nothing to do with the health care and medical treatment we seek for our children and for which we are paying when we enter a doctor’s office.

Read, Federal court says state can enforce ‘doc vs. glocks’ law by Gary Fineout in the Tallahassee Democrat posted on July 29, 2015.

Further, these questions are ethically wrong. Any doctor who asks them is committing a form of unethical conduct known as an “ethical boundary violation.” Any doctor who commits an ethical boundary violation can and should be disciplined. We need to be able to trust our doctors. Doctors who intentionally step over that ethical and legal boundary clearly cannot be trusted.

Other ethical boundaries don’t allow doctors to take advantage of vulnerable elderly patients and question them about property and assets they own, allow them to encourage these elderly patients to make gifts of cars, jewelry or other assets to the doctor, or make the doctor a beneficiary in a will.

Additionally, entering the answers to gun ownership questions into medical records and computer databases is a de facto form of registration of gun owners and is already prohibited by law.

Any pediatrician truly concerned about gun safety is free to hand out gun safety brochures to all parents. The First Amendment smokescreen that is being used to excuse unethical and political abuse of patients privacy rights needs to stop and doctors should stick to medical care.

ABOUT MARION P. HAMMER

Marion P. Hammer is a past president of the National Rifle Association and current executive director of Unified Sportsmen of Florida.

RELATED ARTICLE: Seattle Approves New Tax on Guns, Ammunition

New Gun Ownership Study is ‘bunkum — pure fiction’

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The NRA-ILA in an email writes, “Once again we owe thanks to reporter Lee Williams, Sarasota Herald-Tribune, for his willingness to expose the agenda of those who are the enemies of Freedom and the Second Amendment.  On the day before Independence Day — July 4th, he released an article exposing the agenda of those who conspire against the Second Amendment.”

Below is the column by Williams which shows a recent study is “bunkum – pure fiction.”

Study: Gun control groups should undermine our ‘gun culture’ to reduce gun ownership

Posted on July 3, 2015 by Lee Williams  Sarasota herald-Tribune

There’s a dangerous scientific study making the rounds, even some pro-gun websites have featured it, titled “Gun ownership and social gun culture.”

It’s bunkum — pure fiction.

It’s an insidious piece of work, written by four academics who used firearm policy information from the Brady Center and the CDC’s Injury Prevention and Control Center — two groups well known for their opposition to the Second Amendment.

The gist of the study appears to say that since gun control supporters’ long term goal is to reduce gun ownership, they ought to consider not only campaigning for gun control laws that make it more difficult to acquire or possess guns — background checks, gun registration, gun owners licensing, etc. — but focusing on policies that could undermine the social aspects of gun ownership.

To be clear, the authors say gun control groups need to undermine our “gun culture.”

The study does not describe these social aspects in much detail, but you can guarantee they mean everything from hunting, to target shooting competitions and clubs, to marksmanship training classes and gun shows.

This is not a new approach.

Since the 1980s, gun control groups have realized that once a person becomes part of the gun culture, they’re likely to become a single-issue voter focused on protecting the right to keep and bear arms.

This is why anti-gun activist groups are now pushing the lie that — even though Americans have been buying guns in unprecedented numbers — gun ownership is declining.

They hope other people will essentially say, “Well, if no one is owning guns, I guess I don’t need to own guns either, or fret about additional restrictions.”

This new tact coincides with an admission by gun control supporters that pushing for extreme restrictions — handgun bans of the 1970s, “Assault Weapon” bans of the 1980s, “cop killer” bullet legislation of the 1990s, and more recent magazine restrictions — has failed.

None of these tactics worked.  In the 1970s, when they claimed more handguns would mean more crime, Americans tripled the number of handgunsthey owned in little more than a generation.

In the 1980s, gun control supporters started trying to stop states from adopting Right-to-Carry laws. But Florida ignored them, adopting its law in 1987, 32 states followed Florida’s lead, and now nearly every state has right-to-carry legislation, and the nation’s murder rate is
at an all-time low.

In 2012, the administration and its gun control supporters in Congress tried to convince Americans that support for gun control was overwhelming, and no further debate over the subject was necessary. But Americans responded by buying guns in unprecedented numbers, and
Congress rejected the President’s agenda.

The Pew Center reported in December 2014 that among nearly all demographic groups, support for gun ownership is rising and support for gun control is decreasing. Gallup showed that self-defense is the primary reason why American own guns.

The ultimate goal of the study is obvious given its use of the anti-gun Brady Campaign’s scorecard to assess the gun ownership culture in the states.

The Brady Campaign gives most states school grades of “F” or “D,” because they don’t have the myriad of gun control laws that Brady wants.

Finally, I should point out that in the 1990s, several anti-gun groups tried to funnel taxpayer money to their like-minded pals in academia — an effort thwarted by Congress.

Maybe now the four academics responsible for this little study are hoping to carve themselves a lucrative niche in the anti-gun research cottage industry.

Hollywood Elite to Erect Memorial to all Dead Home Invaders

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HOLLYWOOD, CA – The silver screen’s most elite names and faces gathered at a discrete location, to discuss their disastrous participation in Michael Bloomberg’s first annual Gun Violence Awareness Day on June 2nd.

Wear orange

The stars had every reason to be concerned after their collective wearing of orange shirts to commemorate all those who have lost their lives to gun violence went largely unnoticed by the general public. Attended by Sean Penn, Barbara Streisand, Michael Moore, and Jane Fonda, to name just a few, the discussion over cocktails and entrées extended into the late evening, until all celebrities came to a consensus that the best way to raise awareness for the victims of gun violence was to erect a statue of an unarmed man with a flashlight and a bag over his shoulder, climbing through a window.

Wear orangePenn, the leader of the Coalition of Film Actors Against Gun Violence, explained his support for the memorial.

“We live in a nation of small-minded, gun-toting ignoramuses who fail to realize that the reason for economically challenged individuals to enter strangers’ homes is not that they are criminals out to do them harm, but in actuality it manifests the desire of the disadvantaged classes to obtain items of materialistic culture that our capitalist society conditions them to think they need,” he stated.

“Deprived by the system of the means to afford expensive things, they try to acquire them the only way they can, by entering someone’s home and taking it. The so-called ‘burglars’ and ‘home invaders’ are, in fact, nothing more than casualties of America’s perpetual war on the poor and racial minorities,” said the star of Fast Times at Ridgemont High.

Adorned with a golden plaque saying, “To all those lost to the mindless pull of a trigger,” the memorial is expected to appear in the center of the famous Hollywood Forever Cemetery, which will make it officially the first monument erected at a U.S. cemetery for political motives. Despite objections by locals and right-wing groups, Penn and his celebrity alliance claim that the monument will bear as much dignified significance as any war memorial in American history.

Jane Fonda supported Penn’s statement by saying, “It takes a lot of courage to enter a home of a complete stranger. We should honor their bravery, while at the same time recognize their sacrifice as a shameful legacy of conservative policies. Hopefully, this sacred memorial will raise awareness and help end the bloodshed,” said the actress famous for her portrayal of a gun-toting interstellar beauty in Barbarella.

The movement has been able to raise over $250,000 in donations since its inception yesterday, with most of the money coming from California’s wealthiest gated communities, protected by private security companies and teams of armed bodyguards.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on The Peoples Cube.

Vince Vaughn Is Actually Right about “Gun Free” Zones

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Vince Vaughn, Ron Paul supporter and star of the forthcoming second season of True Detective, has been making waves with his comments on Edward Snowden and guns in a wide-ranging interview with GQ magazine.

One section that has gun control activists fulminating (and many libertarians swooning) is his comments on gun rights and, especially, on guns in schools:

I support people having a gun in public full stop, not just in your home. … All these gun shootings that have gone down in America since 1950, only one or maybe two have happened in non-gun-free zones.

Take mass shootings. They’ve only happened in places that don’t allow guns. These people are sick in the head and are going to kill innocent people. They are looking to slaughter defenseless human beings. They do not want confrontation.

In all of our schools it is illegal to have guns on campus, so again and again these guys go and shoot up these f***ing schools because they know there are no guns there. They are monsters killing six-year-olds. …

Of course [guns should be allowed in schools]. You think the politicians that run my country and your country don’t have guns in the schools their kids go to? They do. And we should be allowed the same rights.

We usually shouldn’t pay any notice when celebrities talk about politics, for obvious reasons, but this is worth the attention because Vaughn actually has a point about “gun free” zones.

The Independence Institute’s David Kopel has pointed out that just saying that an area is “gun free” doesn’t actually make it so. In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal after the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting, Kopel wrote,

The bucolic campus of Virginia Tech, in Blacksburg, Va., would seem to have little in common with the Trolley Square shopping mall in Salt Lake City. Yet both share an important characteristic, common to the site of almost every other notorious mass murder in recent years: They are “gun-free zones.” …

In Virginia, universities aren’t “gun-free zones” by statute, but college officials are allowed to impose anti-gun rules. The result is that mass murderers know where they can commit their crimes.

Private property owners also have the right to prohibit lawful gun possession. And some shopping malls have adopted anti-gun rules. Trolley Square was one, as announced by an unequivocal sign, “No weapons allowed on Trolley Square property.”

In February of this year, a young man walked past the sign prohibiting him from carrying a gun on the premises and began shooting people who moments earlier were leisurely shopping at Trolley Square. He killed five.

Fortunately, someone else – off-duty Ogden, Utah, police officer Kenneth Hammond – also did not comply with the mall’s rules. … He bought time for the local police to respond, while stopping the gunman from hunting down other victims.

At Virginia Tech’s sprawling campus in southwestern Va., the local police arrived at the engineering building a few minutes after the start of the murder spree… Cho committed suicide when he realized he’d soon be confronted by the police. But by then, 30 people had been murdered.

Kopel isn’t anti-gun free zones, however. Rather, he’s anti-fake gun free zones. On the Free Thoughts podcast, he argues, “Gun free zones I think are fine — as long they really exist.”

In Colorado, like most of the country, we have a fair process for law-abiding adults to get a permit to carry a handgun for protection. But the state statute says, “What about government buildings?”

And the answer is, if a government building wants to ban licensed carry in there, they can. They can have a gun free zone. They just have to make it real. Which means, at every public entrance, you have metal detectors, and you have armed guards.

That will work. Once you’re inside the Department of Motor Vehicles, you know that nobody is going to be carrying a gun because we’vechecked to make sure about that.

What is harmful — drastically harmful — is the pretend gun free zone, where you put up a sign that says “no guns allowed.” The only people who will obey that are the law-abiding people. And it means for the criminal you’ve got a great opportunity of unarmed victims.

Real gun free zones are fine; guns really shouldn’t be allowed some places. But pretend gun free zones are a dangerous illusion. Sometimes even Hollywood celebrities can see that.

Check out the rest of the podcast below and Vaughn’s GQ interview here.

Anything Peaceful

Anything Peaceful is FEE’s new online ideas marketplace, hosting original and aggregate content from across the Web.

Here It Comes: Obama’s Final Assault on the Second Amendment

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The Justice department is moving forward with a flurry of new rules. according to list of rules the agency has proposed to enact before the end of the Obama administration.

HERE IT COMES FOLKS!

The Hill Reports:

The regulations range from new restrictions on high-powered pistols to gun storage requirements. Chief among them is a renewed effort to keep guns out of the hands of people who are mentally unstable or have been convicted of domestic abuse.

Gun safety advocates have been calling for such reforms since the Sandy Hook school shooting nearly three years ago in Newtown, Conn. They say keeping guns away from dangerous people is of primary importance.

FULL STORY HERE:

Administration preps new gun regulations | TheHill

Michael Moore and the 2nd Amendment by B.K. MARCUS

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Would the left support gun rights over police monopolies? 

In the wake of the Baltimore riots and the latest charges of police violence against unarmed suspects, Oscar-winning filmmaker Michael Moore has called for disarming American cops, saying in his Twitter feed, “We have a 1/4 billion 2nd amendment guns in our homes 4 protection. We’ll survive til the right cops r hired.”

Is that an implicit endorsement of private individuals’ right to armed self-defense?

Probably not.

Moore, who became the darling of the gun-control movement in 2002 for the movie Bowling for Columbine, is an outspoken critic of the 2nd Amendment, saying that the Founders themselves would have excluded gun rights from the Constitution if they had known what firearms would become over the next two centuries:

If the Founding Fathers could have looked into a crystal ball and seen AK-47s and Glock semiautomatic pistols … I think they’d want to leave a little note behind and probably tell us, you know, that’s not really what we mean when we say “bear arms.”

It’s tempting, therefore, to dismiss Moore’s April 30th tweets as conscious hyperbole — perhaps confronting law-and-order types with the logic of their own support for gun ownership.

But if you look at the full set of Moore’s tweets on the subject, a consistent libertarian logic is evident:

  1. Government agents currently do more to endanger private citizens than they do to protect us.

  2. That oppression can only continue while the government holds a monopoly on armed violence.

  3. We need to shift the balance of power away from the state and back to the people.

Is that too much to read into one angry Twitter rant?

If Moore’s goal was to outrage the American public, he has certainly succeeded. Pro-police conservatives are jerking their knees at the far-left filmmaker’s provocations. But advocates of liberty can find at least a sliver of common cause with those who see the visible fist of government power in Baltimore and too many other American cities in recent months.

Many libertarians consider the police to be among the few legitimate roles for a night-watchman government; defense and security are necessary to protect the rights of individuals. But there is no question that the government’s most heavily armed agencies have grown well beyond the role of night watchmen, if that was ever really their function. And then there is the proliferation of armed agents to organizations like the Fisheries Office, NASA, the EPA, and the Department of Education.

As the sharing economy chips away at other cartels in our over-regulated economy, we need to accept that the police, too, need competition — and we have the opportunity right now to ally with many on the American left who are beginning to suspect the same thing.

When government agents hold a monopoly on the tools of violence, is it any wonder when they behave like a cartel? Privately owned firearms are part of the decentralized solution to both looting and the police violence that triggers the protests.

By allowing individuals to defend themselves, their homes, their businesses, and their communities from crime and rioting, they need not rely exclusively on police forces that may be ineffective or corrupt. (The famous defense of Koreatown by armed shop owners during the LA riots shows this principle at work.)

If you don’t recognize the right to armed self-defense in principle, you are either dogmatically opposed to private guns, or you think the question is pragmatic and that there is a calculus of trade-offs: which is more dangerous at the moment, armed citizens or a police monopoly?

There isn’t much say to dogmatists on the matter. But the question of practical trade-offs may resonate with those on the left who currently see the police less as protectors and more as a danger.

Would such an alliance evaporate as soon as our allies perceive themselves to be in power again? Probably. Moore doesn’t see the problem as permanent: “We’ll survive til the right cops r hired.”

But we have the opportunity right now to drive home the point that the government needs more than checks and balances within itself. The people must have the ability to defend themselves independently of the state, and that’s harder to do when the government has all the guns.

B.K. Marcus

B.K. Marcus is managing editor of the Freeman.

Veteran Administration Systematicly Disarming Veterans Brings Further Shame to Troubled Agency

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Last week, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) brought renewed attention to the plight of a growing number of veterans who have been unjustly stripped of their Second Amendment rights. In an April 14 letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, Sen. Grassley takes the Department of Veterans Affairs to task for overreaching policies that have resulted in the names of well over 100,000 veterans and dependents being placed in the FBI’s National Instance Criminal Background Check System (NICS) as prohibited from possessing firearms.

Federal agencies are required to forward information to the FBI about individuals who have been disqualified by agency action from legally possessing firearms. This includes information about disqualifying mental health “adjudications” and “commitments.” The VA’s interpretation of what constitutes a disqualifying mental health “adjudication,” however, has resulted in widespread, unjustified deprivation of Second Amendment rights and Fifth Amendment due process rights.

As Grassley’s letter points out, federal regulation allows the VA to determine whether its beneficiaries need a “fiduciary” to manage their benefits. Veterans who the agency determines need help administering their VA compensation are then labeled “mental defectives” and reported to NICS to be barred from firearm acquisition and possession, alongside the likes of felons, fugitives, and the dishonorably discharged. The process of assigning a fiduciary, however, does not require the VA to consider whether the veteran actually poses a danger to himself or others or is seriously functionally impaired in any other respect. Indeed, the VA’s own website states, “The determination that you are unable to manage your VA benefits does not affect your non-VA finances, or your right to vote or contract.”

Needless to say, it’s completely untenable that America’s military men and women must choose between what’s best for their medical care and financial management and the fundamental civil liberties their own service protects. The fact that a veteran’s spouse or other loved one is more financially astute or is simply more accustomed to maintaining the household finances is completely irrelevant to the veteran’s ability safely and responsibly to handle firearms. That the VA claims otherwise reveals nothing so much as its own systemic, institutional anti-gun bias and its distrust of the very people the agency serves.

For veterans who choose to contest the appointment of a fiduciary, VA procedure offers scant protection. Typically, deprivation of a fundamental constitutional right requires significant due process, as required by the Fifth Amendment (for example, a criminal trial). As Grassley’s letter makes clear, the procedure VA employs falls well below acceptable due process standards and places the burden of proof upon the veteran to seek redress after the fact.

In an April 21st, 2015 article for the Daily Caller, entitled, “VA Sends Veterans’ Medical Info To FBI To Get Their Guns Taken Away,” journalist Patrick Howley puts a human face on this tragedy. In one instance, disabled veteran Henry Wrobel was categorized as unable to handle his own finances, triggering the firearm prohibition. The VA’s actions followed Wrobel’s conversation with a VA counselor during which he mentioned having recently opted to receive his benefits by direct deposit in an attempt to simplify his life. In another case, a Vietnam War widow receiving VA benefits was deprived of her right to bear arms after making a request to the VA for assistance in obtaining someone to help with her household chores after she suffered a mild stroke.

Beyond this matter’s constitutional concerns is that the VA’s “mental defective” determination process and forwarding of records to NICS have contributed to a deep distrust of the agency among those it serves. Rumors abound regarding VA measures to strip gun rights from veterans, and current VA practices regarding fiduciary appointments, along with  highly suspect efforts, substantiate these concerns. Undoubtedly, some veterans have chosen to forego vital benefits and medical treatment, or have been less than candid with VA personnel, due to a fear of losing their Second Amendment rights.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Congressmen with America’s Most Popular Rifle: A Cause for Panic in D.C.

Gun Grabbers High on Hillary, Look to Her to Enact Controls Where Obama Failed

D.C. Shifts from Defending Total Ban on Carrying Firearms, to Defense of Near-Total Ban

A President, Not a Potentate

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In 2010, before the midterm elections, President Obama said, “We’re gonna punish our enemies and we’re gonna reward our friends.”

Instead, it was the Democratic Party that got punished as voters rejected its candidates, rendering it some of its biggest losses since the Great Depression. The Republican Party gained 63 seats in the House of Representatives, recapturing the majority, the largest seat change since 1948.

In November 2014, the voters gave complete control of Congress to Republicans for the first time in eight years as they retained every one of the GOP Senate seats up for reelection and added six more to ensure a Republican majority.

What was apparent before the 2010 election and since has been a President who regards himself and his powers as that of a potentate, a monarch scornful of the Congress in the same way English kings scorned their parliament until forced to relinquish total power and grant individual freedom to their subjects.

In the twenty-two months before Obama’s second and final term ends, I am, I confess, increasingly fearful of what he has in mind for America. The voters have already made it clear they oppose his gun control efforts, his views on illegal immigration and they want ObamaCare repealed.

As this is written, Americans are growing increasingly concerned over the outcome of the negotiations with Iran. Obama’s chief of staff, Denis McDonough, has written to Bob Corker (R-TN), the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, harshly criticizing the notion that the Senate should have anything to say regarding the negotiations and suggesting that Obama has the authority to lift the sanctions imposed by Congress on Iran. He doesn’t.

A White House that believes it has powers that a simple reading of the Constitution tells them are limited is dangerous place. Obama’s White House has been gaining a reputation for lawlessness and we have seen this in the way the IRS denied conservative groups the right to tax-exempt status to which they were entitled. Then, not so mysteriously, the emails that would reveal this were “lost.”

In the wake of the Benghazi tragedy in which our ambassador and three other staff were killed on September 12, 2012—the anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon—the emails of the then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have gone missing along with all the rest of those wiped clean from her personal server. I still recall seeing her stand beside the President when he blatantly lied to Americans and the world that the attack was the result of a video no one had ever seen.

Cover - Our Lost ConstitutionIn his book, “Our Lost Constitution: The Willful Subversion of America’s Founding Document”, by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) he devotes a chapter to the Fourth Amendment:

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probably cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

Colonial Americans had watched a famous case in England in which John Wilkes had led the fight to ensure that the King could no longer arbitrarily search and seize the property of anyone. They had fought a Revolution to be free of such tyranny. In the effort to secure the ratification of the Constitution, in 1789 James Madison began drafting the Bill of Rights that several of the states said had to be part of the Constitution if they were to ratify it. It was introduced to the First Congress that same year.

Sen. Lee expresses concern that “for the past eight years, the federal government has relied on an excessively broad interpretation of an excessively broad provision of the USA Patriot Act to collect and, in some circumstances, search through vast amounts of information that most Americans would consider both private and entirely unrelated to national security.”

Noting the intelligence agencies such as the National Security Agency that routinely gather enormous information about all our electronic communications, telephone calls and email, Sen. Lee says that “One could argue, however, that that far greater threat to government of the people, by the people, and for the people is the near certainty that those who wield this power will eventually use it to identify and punish anyone whom may disagree with them. This type of abuse could weaken or even destroy constitutionally limited government as we know it.”

That’s what has me worried specifically about Barack Obama. I have no doubt at all that he would and probably has used the vast information gathering capacity at his disposal to “punish” those he regards his enemies.

Consider what he did to Iraq War hero Gen. David Petraeus who he had appointed as Director of the CIA. He drove him from that post and threatened him with jail for an infraction that likely was discovered by monitoring his private communications. By contrast, Hillary Clinton’s email server was, according to intelligence experts, likely hacked to the point where our enemies knew exactly what she and the State Department was doing. And she wants to be your next President.

My ultimate concern is that Obama might declare martial law for whatever spurious reason he would give. It would suspend the Constitution and leave us with no rights at all, subject to arrest for resisting his takeover of the nation. It would also mobilize the largest army in the world…America’s hunters and gun owners!

Obama has been working to federalize police authorities around the nation. He has purged the military of any officer that was deemed to disagree with his policies. All that stands between us and him is the Constitution and Congress. And the fact that millions of Americans, thanks to the Second Amendment, are armed in the event he tries to assert dictatorial powers.

© Alan Caruba, 2015