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AN AMERICAN WARNING
Because you should know!
November 2007 - Posts
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In Minnesota, the media's getting it all wrong in their coverage of a Right-to-Carry case. WCCO-TV reports that a couple of churches are trying to exempt themselves from Minnesota's Right-to-Carry law.
But that's not really what's going on here. These churches can already nullify Right-to-Carry on church property if they want, just by posting the legally required signage.
But that appears to be too much for these houses of worship. Church leaders want to post their own signs prohibiting Right-to-Carry, or to post no signs at all.
One church has posted a sign that says, "Blessed are the peacemakers. Firearms are prohibited in this place of sanctuary." I'd suggest that church read David Kopel's excellent article for America's First Freedom, "Is the Best Defense a Good Book?" They could also read Kopel's " The Torah and Self-Defense" as well. These church leaders might realize that there's no religious reason to be defenseless.
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Think British-style gun control can't happen here? It's hard to believe, but just a century ago England's gun laws looked a lot like those in the United States. But as the BBC reports, England has gone from licensing firearms to outright bans on most guns.
What the BBC doesn't say, of course, is that none of these bans have done anything to reduce violent crime, or even gun-related crime. Those crimes continue to increase in England, despite the bans they've put in place.
Now England is trying to spread its gun bans. The country is pushing the European Union to call for more gun control laws in member countries. And Great Britain is leading the way in pushing for an arms trade treaty at the United Nations.
All you have to do is look at the timeline of England's gun control laws to realize the slippery slope does exist, and anything that happened there can happen here. It's why we must be forever vigilant here at home, to protect our rights and freedoms.
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In Boston, they're once again blaming the inanimate object.
Michael Graham reports that officials in Beantown are blaming the gun for the death of a pizza store owner, not the murderous thug who actually did the killing.
Graham says the "desire to condemn inanimate objects is a bit, well, weird." He's right, but I'd go one step further. By placing blame on the inanimate object, rather than focusing on the killer, politicians further erode our nation's moral code. Giving the impression that it's not your fault you killed, robbed, or raped someone... you can always blame the gun.
And the Boston politicians wonder why crime is on the rise. It's not that hard to figure out. With attitudes like this, it's amazing the city's not suffering from even more violent crimes. The sooner they figure out that people are responsible for their actions, the safer the residents of Boston will be.
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CNN is up to its old tricks again. They're repeating the claims of "CBS Evening News" that bad guys in the Miami area are arming themselves with fully automatic machine guns. And because of that, the story goes, the cops are upgrading to semi-automatic rifles.
The story is full of things to scare non-gun owners: claims about AK-47s that can "spray 600 rounds a minute" and statements about "urban street warfare" and a “proliferation of cheap automatic weapons.”
I'm skeptical about these claims, to say the least. Back in 2003, CNN did a hit piece on gun owners in their attempt to help renew the Clinton Gun Ban. They talked about semi-automatic firearms while showing video of fully automatic machine guns. And they claimed that these guns would be "back on the streets" if the gun ban expired.
Guess what they're saying is responsible for the rise in automatic firearms on the streets of south Florida? The expiration of the Clinton Gun Ban.
Let me speak simply here, in hopes that the journalists at CNN will understand. I doubt that fully automatic machine guns are appearing on the streets of Florida, but if they are, it's not because of the expiration of the Clinton Gun Ban. That ban dealt only with semi-automatic firearms.
If police are confiscating more semi-automatic rifles, it still doesn't make any sense to blame the expiration of the Clinton Gun Ban. Rather than talking to the Brady Campaign, CNN should've talked to gun owners. They would have learned that there were plenty of semi-automatic rifles sold during the Clinton Gun Ban, because that ban only prohibited certain firearms based on cosmetic features.
Either way, CNN's reporting is false and seems designed to scare, not to educate and inform. I called them out in 2003 when they did this, and I'm calling them out now.
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The Supreme Court has made the first of two very important decisions, and the constitutionality of Washington, D.C.'s gun ban is going to be heard before the nation's high court.
The coming months will be hectic, with groups on either side preparing briefs for the Court, many of them tailored to persuade individual justices that the ban should be upheld or overturned.
In the spring, oral arguments will be held, and the Court's decision should come down in the thick of the 2008 presidential race.
It's an important time for gun owners, and this is one of the most important cases of any type that the Court has heard in decades.
Now is the time for all gun owners to stand together for a common purpose: to protect the Constitution and preserve our freedoms. Not all of us can argue the case before the Supreme Court, but we can all defend our rights to our family, friends, co-workers, and even total strangers. By being good ambassadors of the Second Amendment, we make our case in the court of public opinion... and that has as much of an impact as the legal scholars presenting their case in Washington, D.C.
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The Washington Post has decided that toy guns are to blame for violent criminals in society. In a recent screed, the Post declared that violence stems from toy guns. And the latest toy to draw the wrath of the gun-banners at the paper? The Nintendo Wii, which comes with a futuristic-looking "blaster."
The paper uses the release of this toy to bash various toy firearms that have been introduced over the decades. They go after everything from your childhood cap gun to your kid's Super Soaker.
Of course, the Post points out that criminals sometimes use toy guns in an attempt to fool their victims. But the answer is not to ban toy guns. The answer, as it usually is, is to go after these criminals.
It seems like the Post will look anywhere to try and find solutions to violent crime... even your child's toy box. The only place they seem afraid to mention is a jail cell, which is where the solution lies.
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A story unfolded on last Tuesday's Election Night that you simply won't hear reported in the mainstream media. It's a story of arrogance and power, but it has a happy ending.
In Virginia, the week before Election Day, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg arrived to endorse State Senator Jeannemarie Devolites Davis. Why'd he make the trip? Solely because of Devolites Davis's support for gun control. This was big news, not just in Virginia, but around the country. CNN even interviewed Bloomberg and Devolites Davis about the endorsement.
Something tells me CNN won't be having Bloomberg and Davis back on the network to talk about what went wrong, but the results were not what the pair was hoping for. On Election Night, Devolites Davis watched as her opponent was elected handily, and the biggest anti-gun election campaign of the year went down in flames.
Maybe this will be enough to convince other politicians that Bloomberg-style gun control isn't a winning issue-not in the Virginia suburbs, not in D.C., not anywhere. Americans may want change, but they don't want more gun control laws that do nothing to stop violent criminals.
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If you don't subscribe to the Washington Post, consider yourself lucky. This paper is arguably one of the most anti-gun in the country, and will use any story they can as an excuse to go after American gun owners and manufacturers.
The most recent example is a story blaming smuggled guns from the U.S. for gang- and drug-related killings in Mexico. Among the whoppers in this article are claims that fully automatic machine guns, grenades and grenade launchers are being sold to Mexican smugglers at American gun shows.
The story repeats the lie that the Clinton Gun Ban actually banned firearms based on anything other than cosmetic features, calling the semi-automatic firearms banned "high-powered weapons." They quote anti-gun professor Garen Wintemute, without bothering to find anyone who would dispute his assertion that more gun control will make a difference.
Without a doubt, Mexico's drug gangs are waging a terrible war on the streets of Tijuana and other Mexican cities. But the Washington Post seems to forget a few things, including the fact that Mexico's draconian gun laws aren't working, and that this latest round of gang violence is fueled by the fact that the drug cartels are winning Mexico's "war on drugs" as well.
To claim that more gun control laws will alleviate the drug wars in Mexico is downright stupid. It's not a serious suggestion, but I'm not surprised to see the reporters and editors of the Washington Post come to that conclusion. They're the Will Rogers of gun control laws... they've never met one they didn't like.
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You've probably heard about the government's Terrorism Watch list. You know, the list they wont tell you who's on, who's not, how they got there, or how to get off the list?
Well, now the government's Terrorism Watch list has grown to more than 750,000 names. They've added 200,000 names in the past year alone.
Does anyone really believe there are three-quarters of a million terrorists in this country? Lisa Graves of the Center for National Security Studies doesn't. She told USA Today, "There's just no rational, reasonable estimate that there's anywhere close to that many suspected terrorists."
And get this: Anti-gun Senator Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey is pushing legislation that would allow the Justice Department to deny a person's right to own a firearm because they're on this list.
Let me get this straight: You don't know how you get on, you don't know how to get off, but because your name's on there (along with 749,999 others), you're stripped of your Second Amendment rights?
No one wants to see America safer than the law abiding gun owners in this country. But you don't become safer by putting Americans on a list and denying them their Constitutional rights without due process of law. If you're going to do that, you might as well tear up the Constitution of the United States and throw it out the window.
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Is there nothing Hillary Clinton won't do or say in her quest to win the White House? She actually had the nerve to say that she supports the 2nd Amendment. What a load of bull. Hillary Clinton a friend to gun owners? That's like me inviting Michael Moore over for dinner. It's just not gonna happen.
To put it blunty, the list of gun control measures that Hillary Clinton has supported is about as thick as Bill's "little black book." From bans on firearms to rejecting the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, Hillary's proven to be a gun owner's worst nightmare... and that's just based on her time in the Senate!
But Hillary knows if she wants to get elected, she's going to need to convince some gun owners that she's not going to go after them. You can't afford to believe that. There's too much at stake, from Supreme Court nominees to UN treaties. And then, of course, there are the federal gun control bills that could get to a President Clinton's desk. We all know what happened the last time that happened, right?
Nice try, Hillary. But don't expect America's gun owners to sit back and let your shameless lies go unchallenged.
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Last Wednesday was Halloween, but there's still something very scary out there. It doesn't wear a mask, it doesn't say "Boo!" and it's not hiding under your bed. Chances are, it's in your kid's school.
I'm talking about the Politically Correct Educator. You know the one... the person who bans plastic swords or laser blasters from Halloween costumes. The one who says "the world has become too dangerous" for kids to dress up like a cowboy, or a pirate, or a soldier. The one who practices "zero tolerance," even when it really means "zero common sense."
Did these educators ever stop to think that maybe they're part of the reason the world has become such a "dangerous place?" By telling kids there's no difference between a toy gun and a real gun, or a toy sword and a real sword, you don't teach the kid not to play with those things. All you're doing is setting up unrealistic expectations of childhood behavior, while ignoring an opportunity to truly educate children about gun safety.
Over 20 million kids have now been through the Eddie Eagle program, and accidents involving kids and guns are at an all-time low. There are thousands of educators out there who understand that it's possible to have smart talk about gun safety without wanting our kids to live in bubbles. Politically correct educators, though, don't want to teach our kids common sense... they just want to teach them fear.
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A few months ago, a high-end firearm manufacturer named Les Baer Custom moved its operations from Illinois to Iowa. Anti-gun politicians around the country should have taken notice. But they were too busy trying to enact more gun bans to really be concerned.
Now a story from the Times-News in Idaho shows this isn't an isolated incident. If the local politicians keep telling gun owners they aren't wanted, it stands to reason that sooner or later the manufacturers are going to get that message too.
Maybe these local leaders are willing to see good jobs and good people move away from their communities, but their loss will be another city's gain. After all, there are still more places in America that support the Second Amendment than oppose it.
Manufacturers that decide to head for greener pastures have no shortage of places to choose from, even if the gun grabbers are too blinded by ideology to realize it.
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Washington, D.C., Police Chief Cathy Lanier is a big believer in the D.C. gun ban. In the past, she has said the ban is "more than just a legal matter. It is a decision that impacts the safety and well-being of our residents."
She's right. The gun ban definitely impacts the safety and well-being of D.C. residents. It makes them less safe and threatens their well-being. And Chief Lanier knows the ban is worthless.
She knows that because she's bringing back the District's "Gun Recovery" squad. She knows that last year in the District, police seized over 2,600 guns. And she knows that's just the tip of the iceberg.
If there are that many guns in the District held by criminals, how can anyone argue that the law has been effective?
The police say this new "gun recovery" squad will lead to lower crime. You and I know there's no chance of that. I know it, you know it, and Chief Lanier knows it... even if her mayor won't let her say it.
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