A Massachusetts police official say the brothers suspected of bombing the Boston Marathon before having shootouts with authorities didn’t have gun permits.

Cambridge Police Commissioner Robert Haas tells The Associated Press in an interview Sunday that neither Tamerlan Tsarnaev (tsahr-NEYE’-ehv) nor his brother Dzhokhar had permission to carry firearms.

Shocking, simply shocking! Homicidal jihadists breaking the Taxachusetts gun laws!

Fear not…this will no doubt stimulate the drive for more laws to be ignored by lawbreakers.

I signed a petition to The United States House of Representatives, The United States Senate, and President Barack Obama which says:  “Our second amendment rights are long overdue a reevaluation.

Going back to the Declaration of Independence: “…CERTAIN UNALIENABLE RIGHTS…AMONG THESE ARE LIFE…” The right to life nust necessarily include a right to self-defense. Self-defense must necessarily include the means to act in self-defense. Guns do the job, with the added benefit that they keep our rulers nervous—a good thing according to Jefferson. It’s also worth noting that the “unalienable Rights” (capitalized in the original!) are “endowed by their Creator” and therefore logically take precedence over the laws of man.

This is NOT a theoretical situation. In our immediate “neighborhood” in extremely rural South Dakota there has been circumstances where people were required to defend themselves using firearms, covered fortunately by SD’s version of a “Castle Law” which specifically reaffirms the right to appropriate self-defense. As far as police protection goes, all it can do is come in afterwards and try to clean up the mess. With the local sheriff 20 miles away on a good day, an evildoer can do a LOT of damage before any help arises.

How many more senseless and entirely PREVENTABLE shootings have to occur before we do something about Gun Control?

Uh…how’s about mental health control? There are too many people who are dangerous who cannot be taken care of properly, since courts have ruled that to administer treatment (against the free-will of a schizophrenic, for instance) is a violation of their civil rights…the right to be dangerously crazy one must presume.

My idea of gun control means that you maintain control (including custodial control) of your weapons, and are able to hit what you aim at when you use them.

As a citizen and constituent of this great country, I am asking that you take a firm stand and make a positive change by restricting access to guns and saving lives.

Studies, even ones run by scholars who started with an anti-gun agenda, have shown that where jurisdictions allow gun possession and “right to carry” that violent gun crime is reduced. (No, I don’t have the citation at my finger-tips. Yes, the findings are available if you do want to see ’em.)

As for positive change? I taught Native American students for a quarter century…one of the first things enforced on the reservations was STRICT gun control. That worked out really well for them, didn’t it? How’s about the gun control law enacted by the 3rd Reich marching society. which effectively disarmed their opponents and potential opponents. Then, when the guys with the spiffy balck uniforms showed up at you door at oh-dark-thirty, they were sure there could be no way their evening’s visit would have an unpleasant (to them) outcome. (By the way, the Nazi gun law of 1938 was used as the template (sometimes word-for-word) for several laws and wanna-be laws that have found their way to Congress since the ‘60’s.

I don’t have a gun. I don’t want a gun.

Fair enough. Don’t get one. But don’t force me (via indirect use of the gun-backed power of the government) to have your preference imposed on me.

I don’t need a gun. But somehow the guns always wind up in the hands of people crazy enough to use them irresponsibly and dangerously.

Guns ARE dangerous. Just as are automobiles, 120 V electrical outlets, alcohol, texting cell phones, knives,  (some) TV programs,  baseball bats, claw hammers, and so on.  What was the one recently about the nut-ball who started that fire…he killed his 92 year old mother with a hammer…then they let him out after 18 years and he continued his insanity by committing arson, murder, and then shooting at the firemen?  See above comment on mental health control.

The Roman sage Seneca had it pegged:  QUAEMADMOEUM GLADIUS NEMINEM OCCIDIT, OCCIDENTIS TELUM EST.  (A sword is never a killer, it is a tool in the killer’s hands.)

This HAS TO BE STOPPED.

Living in this world…there is no way to guarantee ANY type of security given humanity and life as it is. Not in the past. Not in the present. And not in the future.

Thank you for your action!!”

I recently renewed my NRA membership—does that count?

Will you sign this petition?

Uh…not in this universe, but thanks for asking anyway. Hope you’re having a good Christmas season.

Unlike the first version bill (HB 1015), the current version (HB 1248) looks like a winner so far.

I like it! Of course permits will still be de rigueur for travel out of state (in states that grant reciprocity to SD).

How the right to arms saved the non-violent civil rights protesters

Over at The Faculty Lounge, there are some pictures of sit-ins from the early 1960s. Regarding a 1963 sit-in in Jackson, Mississippi, TFL writes: “By one account, members of the all-White Jackson police force stood guard outside, while several FBI agents (the guys in back wearing shades) ‘observed’ from inside. That White guy at the counter, that’s Tougaloo professor and community activist Hunter Gray (John R. Salter) who helped organize the Jackson sit-ins. And that’s blood on his shirt. All of the protesters had been covered in slop, and some were beaten with brass knuckles and broken bottles.”

The non-violent Civil Rights protesters allowed themselves to be beaten in public while the media watched; the images helped win sympathy for the Civil Rights Movement in the North, and proved to be crucial in developing the political will for the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

In a limited sense, the media’s presence provided some protection for the protesters; there was never a case in which a civil rights protester was murdered in front of media cameras. At night, when everyone had gone home, things were very different. As Salter later explained:

I was beaten and arrested many times and hospitalized twice. This happened to many, many people in the movement. No one knows what kind of massive racist retaliation would have been directed against grassroots black people had the black community not had a healthy measure of firearms within it.

When the campus of Tougaloo College was fired on by KKK-type racial night-riders, my home was shot up and a bullet missed my infant daughter by inches. We received no help from the Justice Department and we guarded our campus — faculty and students together — on that and subsequent occasions. We let this be known. The racist attacks slackened considerably. Night-riders are cowardly people — in any time and place — and they take advantage of fear and weakness.

There’s more of this interesting history in the post. Go read it.

The Supreme Court agreed Wednesday to decide whether strict local and state gun control laws violate the Second Amendment, ensuring another high-profile battle over the rights of gun owners.

The court said it will review a lower court ruling that upheld a handgun ban in Chicago. Gun rights supporters challenged gun laws in Chicago and some suburbs immediately following the high court’s decision in June 2008 that struck down a handgun ban in the District of Columbia, a federal enclave.

The new case tests whether last year’s ruling applies as well to local and state laws.

The Chief unashamedly hopes that the 2nd amendment will prevail again.

Many years ago political scientists came up with a theory that elites lead public opinion. And on some issues they clearly do. But on some issues they don’t. Two examples of the latter phenomenon are conspicuous at a time when Barack Obama enjoys the approval of more than 60 percent of Americans and Democrats have won thumping majorities in two elections in a row. One is global warming.

The other is gun control. On both issues, the elites of academe, the media and big business have been solidly on one side for years. But on both, the American public has been moving in the other direction.

Citing long-term (and continuing) trends in Gallup and other polling (scarcely hot-beds of militant conservatism), the trend on these issues is clear: reality is trumping LibDonk ideology. The refusal of Glowbull Warming to occur as predicted, along with the lack of harmful consequences along with a decline in violent crime as 40 states have allowed concealed carry permits HAS been noticed, and is starting to be felt by some of the pols who actually listen to their constituents.

So what’s it mean?

The liberal elite is less interested in giving up its luxuries (Al Gore purchases carbon offsets to compensate for his huge mansion and private jet travel) than in changing the lifestyles of the masses who selfishly insist on living in suburbs and keeping guns for recreation or protection. Ordinary Americans are seen not as responsible fellow citizens building stable communities but as greedy masses who must be disciplined to live according to the elite’s religious dogmas.

It should not be completely surprising that, over time, these views have become less congenial to the masses who are the object of such condescension. Democratic officeholders who must live by the discipline of the ballot have noticed. Party leaders did not press to re-enact the assault weapons ban when it expired and are currently flummoxed by their backbenchers who are resisting a cap-and-trade bill that will impose huge costs on those who use electricity. Elites may lead, but Americans do not always follow.

Illegitami non carborundum!

Democrats Pull D.C. Voting Rights Act

The patently unconstitutional bill to give the District of Columbia a voting representative in the House of Representatives was pulled off the House calendar because — according to one House Republican leadership source — they feared that the so-called Blue Dog Democrats would not support it.

The bill was patently unconstitutional because under Article 1, Section 2, only states have representatives, and D.C. isn’t a state. (That idea is reinforced by the XXIII Amendment, under which D.C. voters are allowed to vote in presidential elections, and thus appoint electors to the Electoral College, “…equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives in Congress to which the District would be entitled if it were a State….”)

The Blue Dogs, a group of supposedly conservative Dems who have usually marched to Speaker Pelosi’s drum, were fearful that the National Rifle Association would “score” — i.e., use the vote to determine its annual rating of gun-friendly (and unfriendly) members the vote on the rule to bring the matter to the House floor.

That same source told HUMAN EVENTS that the rule would have precluded consideration of an amendment — similar to that approved in the Senate last week — to preserve D.C. residents’ gun rights.

The gun rights aspect of this makes the whole situation even sweeter. Looks like Queen SanFran Nan soesn;t have quite the hold she thought she did over all things on the Donk side of the House.

Dave Newquist, blogging as the Northern Valley Beacon, delivered such a piece this week. Textual selections (NOT out of context!) and the Chief’s commentary follows:

O, give me a home where the AK-47’s roam

The Mexican drug cartels have modeled themselves after the U.S. Constitution Second Amendment and have established a well-regulated militia that killed 6,000 fellow-Mexicans last year.

This comment is stupid incorrect is so many ways on hardly knows where to start on it. Mexican drug cartels have modeled themselves on their predecessors – the Columbian drug cartels….complete with organized attacks on the local (and national) governments, kidnappings, murders, etc. Use of the phrase “well regulated militia” in this context is inappropriate to an extent that renders this statement surreal in its lack of realityl

Perhaps they might have been acting as sportsmen just out bagging their favorite trophies.

Nice gratuitous slam on hunters/hunting in the interests no doubt of establishing a form of guilt by association, since both hunters and narcoterrorists are “civilians” who use guns.

But they found weapons that do a really great job, and they had to avail themselves of U.S. freedoms in order to obtain them.

Not at all true, as will be addressed down the page.  They have a MUCH better source.

The Mexican government regulates assault weapons, but there are 6,600 dealers along the border who are more than willing to sell the cartels arms and help them smuggle them across the border.

Breathtaking! The Mexican government regulates LOTS of stuff on paper along with arms, including various illegal drugs, border crossings, bribes to police, activities of military units, currency transfers, and even (although it boggles the mind) passage of illegal (non-Mexican) aliens into and through Mexican sovereign territory. Of course finding evidence of these regulations outside of the pieces of paper they are written on is often problematical…but why quibble, eh Dave?

As a gun owner and user, I have never found the need for an assault rifle.

Two reactions: from what’s written further down in the piece the gun owner and user bit MAY be true…but then again, maybe not. Owning an “assault rifle” or not, OK. “Different strokes for different folks” to quote an old song.

By the way, one common aspect of REAL military assault rifles is that they are AUTOMATIC weapons…you know, like machine guns! Not available without going through extraordinary and costly procedures with the ATF.

The guns usually called “assault rifles” are semi-automatic…a BIG difference in firepower.  No modern military has used semi-automatic rifles since the 50’s, except for some 3rd world outfits too broke to even afford the pittance charged for REAL (auto) AK-47’s from the Soviets of ChiComs. The whole ban situation is illogical anyway. For example, a Ruger Mini-14, is a semi-automatic rifle. So is a ComBloc designed SKS. Neither one has significantly more or less actual firepower than the other. But if you placed a bipod mount, folding stock, and muzzle brake on the SKS, voila! It is banned! Note: 2 out of three of the accessories is legal. All three – and you have a “banned” weapon – apparently because some ATF bureaucrat decided that that combination of COSMETIC features looked too militaristic and scary or something.

After a number of experiences involving sportsmen who wielded their armor (sic) with all the competence of Dick Cheney, I have greatly reduced my hunting excursions. Although I am a bit of a folklorist, I have never believed the stories that sportsmen are good clean cut competent gun handlers. I won’t quibble with that description except for the competent part. When it comes to handling firearms, all men are not created equal–physically or mentally. I have spent too many hours hunkering in improvised bunkers trying to avoid their fire and ire. One of the wisest quips ever uttered was by comedian Red Blanchard when he said that the old International Livestock Show was invented so that farmers had a safe place to bring their cattle during hunting season.

Phew! First of all Dave, sounds to the Chief like you need to find some different hunting partners.  While occasional rare accidents do happen involving hunting (like the former V.P. can testify to), their occurrance is a heck of a lot less than problems with people who operate 2000 lb. powered vehicles (you know, cars) at high enough speeds  to cause serious damage to the environment, others, and themselves when they fail to focus on their situational awareness while causing them to move.

The Chief frankly finds it hard to grant credibility to this bit about spending “hours hunkering in improvised bunkers”?  I mean, give me a break!  Actually visualize this description!  It beggars the imagination  to regard that as being literally true…just to imagine, under fire for HOURS?  Where was this hunting being done, Viet-Nam in 1968?

The other bit about the Red Blanchard gag is yet another cheap shot at hunters.  Somehow in the Chief’s (rural) area we manage to get our deer tags filled without collecting beef along the way, unless a neighbor shares some jerky with you.  Again, you need to find a better class of hunting companions.

And so I have thought that limiting assault rifles had more than a smidgen of good reasoning behind it.

Yeah, right. We already reviewed the “reason” above…they LOOK scarier! (A clear case of liberal “symbolism over substance”.)

I am fully aware of the constant danger that bunny rabbits might form unions and launch a jihad against all the upstanding Christians, and if they have assault rifles an equivalent firepower is needed to combat them.

Wow! What a summary of liberal nightmares included in this one sentence: (pseudo)assault rifle owners, Christians, and non-union members, all associated and tarred with the same verbal brush, in one fell swoop. Creative and efficient use of invective.

I am also aware of what an aggressive menace road signs pose to our democracy, and I am always heartened to see them lying limply in the ditches filled with bullet holes.

The Chief would be remiss not to give credit where credit is due: shooting at road signs IS truly idiotic by ANY rational standard. In this at least, we find agreement!

It is probably a real mistake not to put a gun on the hip of every college student. Pulling out a gun and taking target practice at flies on the wall or ventilating dorm rooms and each other can divert their attention from binge drinking, and that’s a healthy thing. They need assault rifles to really capture the moment.

The Chief begins to see the circle from which you drew your hunting companions. No wonder there were problems. Avoid the drinkers, it’s MUCH safer. Hey, that applies to be above reference to automobile driving, too! Now we seem to have stumbled into a REAL problem: ASSAULT DRINKING!  (Seriously, in conversation with a former chaplain at the SD Penitentiary, he related that +90% of the inmates could be elsewhere except for drug and alcohol problems – mostly alcohol.)

The Second Amendment has even established an official grammar for the U.S. When the Supreme Court took on a gun control law in Washington, D.C., it parsed the Second Amendment, which prefaces the edict against infringing the right to bear arms with the clause “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state.” Justice Scalia has officially declared that the clause is a dangling modifier. It is not a conditional clause, as many grammarians have insisted, that states a condition under which the granting of the right to bear arms is extended. So, strike the bad grammar and the right to bear arms is unlimited.

BASIC U.S. HISTORY (like it or not!): For one thing, the 18th Century legalese was tuned to a different wavelength than modern ears are attuned to. More fundamentally, from their own writings, the drafters were NOT providing gun rights for settlers, fighting Indians, hunting, etc. THEY WERE GIVING THE CITIZENRY THE MEANS TO RE-STAGE THE REVOLUTION IF (WHEN) THE GOVERNMENT BECAME TOO OPPRESSIVE! Their intent was that the citizenry could own weapons capable of doing this…by defeating, as needed, the organized forces of the state. This meant MILITARY grade weapons, which if we were REALLY consistent with the original intent of the founders WOULD include automatic weapons, and more.

Through the colonial period, and well into the 19th century it wasn’t unknown for individuals to own and use state-of-the art weapons up to and including CANNONS!  For example, merchant marine ships regularly carried cannon if they sailed in pirate waters. (Hmmmm. Maybe that idea’s time has come again…but I digress.)

As The New York Times reports, Mexican laws stand in the way of the drug cartels carrying out their predations, so they come to the U.S. to enjoy true liberty and then spread it to 6,000 people in their homeland. Those 6,000 are really enjoying the benefits of a well-regulated militia tending to the security of a free state.

Ah yes – The New York (“All the news that fits, we print”) Times. This is just crazy. THE NARCOS ARE ON THE VERGE OF TOTALLY TAKING DOMINANT CONTROL IN MEXICO!  IT’S VIRTUALLY A CIVIL WAR.  Today, (26 Feb 2008) Mexico is deploying 5000 Army troops to TRY to regain control of Ciudad Juarez, across from El Paso.

The biggest problem is that Mexican law is being noted more in the breach than in it’s observance. If those 6000 victims of the narcoterrs had had weapons to defend themselves, maybe the problem would be on the way to being solved…instead of metastasizing as a social and criminal tumor spreading across the border into the United States.

One final thought about that situation…if the narcos are capable of moving TONS of drugs through Mexico into the US from Columbia, how hard would  it be for them to get their fully automatic AK-47’s from their “Gunz-r-Us” buddies in Venezuela and Colombia, with more where those came from on the slow-boat from China.  Given THAT supply, why would they even care about the semi-auto stuff from us Norteamericanos anyway?

Obama Driving Surge in Gun Sales, Firearms Groups Say

President-elect Barack Obama’s election has spurred a surge in gun sales, firearms retailers and enthusiasts say, as gun owners brace for what they believe will be a new era of gun control in Washington.

An electronic news service that covers outdoor news has even named Obama its “Gun Salesman of the Year.”

Firearms associations began to suspect that political considerations were driving gun sales late last year as the number of background checks increased. But end-of-year figures showed a big spike in background checks for the last three months of 2008, and in November, the month Obama was elected, the number of background checks was 42 percent greater than in November 2007.

“It’s not a hard tea leaf to read,” said Jim Shepherd, publisher of the news service Outdoor Wire, which claims Obama’s election has “frightened consumers into action.”

’nuff said. Go read the article.

Sales of “Atlas Shrugged” Soar in the Face of Economic Crisis

Sales of Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” have almost tripled over the first seven weeks of this year compared with sales for the same period in 2008. This continues a strong trend after bookstore sales reached an all-time annual high in 2008 of about 200,000 copies sold.

“Americans are flocking to buy and read ‘Atlas Shrugged’ because there are uncanny similarities between the plot-line of the book and the events of our day” said Yaron Brook, Executive Director at the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. “Americans are rightfully concerned about the economic crisis and government’s increasing intervention and attempts to control the economy. Ayn Rand understood and identified the deeper causes of the crisis we’re facing, and she offered, in ‘Atlas Shrugged,’ a principled and practical solution consistent with American values.”

Although the Chief is not a totally 100% “Randian”, this book is well worth the read…if you read it and REALLY think about it…it will change your understanding of where we are, and where we seem to be going.