Gun Grabbers Let the Cat Out of the Bag

 During a recent meeting of the Virginia Commonwealth Senate Courts of Justice committee, two gun-grabbing groups inadvertently gave away the whole game.  The let the cat out of the bag, so to speak, without realizing their mistake. At Ammoland yesterday, Tred Law had the story at Gun Control Groups Say the Bad Part Out Loud: 'Screw Public Safety'. I urge gentle readers to view the video link and watch as several women from Moms Demand Action and Brady oppose harsher sentencing for criminals using guns to commit crimes. Why would these women want to disarm law-abiding gun owners, yet mete out lighter sentences to criminals? It makes no sense, does it?

This raises a critical question: Do these groups truly care about public safety, or is their agenda primarily about disarming law-abiding citizens?

The Virginia Citizens Defense League (VCDL) has long argued that gun control advocates use crime as a pretext to push for stricter gun laws, rather than genuinely aiming to reduce crime. The testimony presented by these groups at the hearing seems to support this claim. Representatives from organizations like Mom’s Demand Action and Brady opposed the bill, arguing that mandatory minimum sentences do not effectively reduce crime and disproportionately affect minority communities. While these concerns are not completely without merit, they overlook a fundamental reality:

…repeat violent offenders pose a significant threat to public safety, and keeping them behind bars protects innocent people.

One can see in the video that several Republican Senators get it. These gun-grabber groups including Everytown for Gun Safety, Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense, the Brady Campaign, and Giffords wait for a mass shooting to hit the news, then dance in the blood of the victims pretending that it was the gun that did the killing, and not the poor misunderstood miscreant. In fact, some of the people are useful idiots who actually believe that. Sad.

Now, I read the Bible every day, and I can tell you that before the gun was invented, people were killing each other by the thousands with swords, knifes, axes, spears, bows and arrows, rocks and stones-you name it. Guns are a more efficient way to kill, but it is not the guns that cause people to murder. It is, as it has always been, the evil in the human heart.

The Prophet Isaiah in chapter 11 forsaw the day we can dispense with our weapons:

“The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb,

The leopard shall lie down with the young goat,

The calf and the young lion and the fatling together;

And a little child shall lead them.

7The cow and the bear shall graze;

Their young ones shall lie down together;

And the lion shall eat straw like the ox.

8The nursing child shall play by the cobra’s hole,

And the weaned child shall put his hand in the viper’s den.

9They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain,

For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord

As the waters cover the sea.

That day will be when Christ comes again. Until then, we better hang onto our guns

Please go read the whole article, and the links as well. Law notes that the debate on guns is tiresome. That is true. But as Jefferson note, the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

The Democrats Have Gone Off the Deep End...Again

 A little late, I know, but I wanted to highlight a post by Andrea Widburg at the American Thinker on the Democrats take on the SCOTUS ruling regarding presidential immunity from prosecution. The Supreme Court made the very reasonable ruling that a president, acting within the scope of his Constitutional duties has absolute immunity. The post can be found at According to Democrats, Biden has immunity to kill Trump and Supreme Court justices. In fact, no he does not because ordering the extrajudicial killing of Americans is not within the scope of his duties. And if a president acts outside the scope of his duties, he is like any other citizen subject to prosecution and punishment.

Yesterday, the Supreme Court came out with a logical opinion that follows centuries of American jurisprudence: A president has complete immunity when he acts within the scope of his express and implied constitutional powers. Within hours, the Democrats were saying that Biden now has absolute immunity to kill his political rivals, from Trump to the conservative justices on the Supreme Court. I want to say that these are not serious people, but they are—they’re dead serious.

...snip...

This immunity exists because no one else has the constitutional authority to challenge those acts, neither the legislature nor the judiciary, and certainly not the bureaucracy, a non-constitutional entity that merely works for the president. It also exists because a president cannot fulfill his unique responsibilities if he’s worried about being second-guessed or attacked. Sure, it may be an imperfect system, but the alternative is worse.

Alternatively, if a president acts outside of his express and implied powers, he’s an ordinary citizen and is still constrained by all the other prohibitions expressed in the Constitution and the laws of the United States, both federal and state.

As a lawyer, this ruling made sense to me because I’d see the general principle all the time in tort cases in which someone tried to sue a business for the acts of its employee. The question, always, was whether the employee was acting within the scope of his duty when he committed the wrongful act or outside the scope of that duty.

Gentle readers should read Widburg's analysis of the SCOTUS ruling highlighted, as well as reading her longer analysis on July 1, which is linked in the article. The Democrats have once again gone off the deep end, led in this case by Justice Sotomayor, whose dissent is a disgrace.

The Democrats Want to Take More of What You Earned

 Jeffery Folks has an article today at the American Thinker entitled Progressives Shalt Steal that discusses the proposed tax policies of the Biden administration and the Congressional Progressives. There are legitimate reasons for taxes, such as public infrastructure and the payroll of legitimate government employees. But much of what our government spends money on is not legitimate. One could rightly say that when government does this it is theft from We the People. Progressives thus impoverish the American people while enriching themselves and increasing their own power.

It’s election time, and you will hear a lot about “corporate greed” and “greedy billionaires” from the Democrats. Already, Joe Biden has unveiled plans to raise corporate taxes by one third and slam billionaires (and those making as little as $75,000) with higher tax rates, wealth taxes, and taxes on unrealized gains. A good word for this is “stealing.”

For his part, Sen. Bernie Sanders wants to restrict drug companies on the prices they charge for weight-loss and diabetes drugs like Wegovy and Ozempic. Granted, these drugs are expensive, but the cost of drug development, partly as a result of government policies and FDA approval delays, averages $350 million, and most drugs fail to gain approval. So drug companies invest literally years and hundreds of millions for each drug that makes it through. It’s necessary to charge high prices in order to defray this cost and make a profit. The alternative is to produce no new drugs and allow Americans to be a lot sicker.

...snip...

What Biden and Sanders are doing, in effect, is attempting to steal the profits of drug companies — and, truth be known, of every other company and person who has money, so as to put it under their own control to use for political power. That is the playbook of all socialists and all progressives.

Biden’s proposed taxes would be crippling to the U.S. economy. The immediate effect would be to shift capital overseas, where it already enjoys lower rates. By reducing re-investment in our own economy, the Biden plan would lower America’s growth rate and reduce job creation. It would also depress wages for ordinary Americans.

Folks provides some statistics to show the effect of the tax proposals on ordinary Americans. These can be tedious, but they are necessary to understand the full effect on our economy.

Above all, by slowing the economy over years and decades, Biden’s tax increases would punish workers seeking better wages. That slowdown has already begun. The U.S. economy is now growing at less than 2% (CBO estimate for 2024 is 2% but currently running at 1.6%). One point six percent is far below the long-term growth rate of 3%. Over just one decade, that divergence compounds at 16% — a decline in average standard of living of 16% over what it would have been, just at average growth of 3%. During Trump’s last year before the pandemic, the growth rate was 4.1%. That means that over a decade, relative to MAGAnomics, Bidenomics would lower the standard of living for ordinary Americans by 30%.

As for “greedy corporations,” one should not imagine that corporations simply funnel all the profits they earn to billionaire investors. Nor should one imagine that billionaires and others who invest spend the money on themselves: most earnings of wealthy Americans are re-invested, thus creating more jobs and productivity. And most corporate profits go into running and expanding the corporation, thereby maintaining and creating jobs.

It is not corporations or billionaires who are particularly greedy. It is progressives in government like Biden and Sanders who are envious of everyone else’s wealth and are obsessed with putting all wealth in their own hands so as to extend their control over the people of this country.

Years ago, I was reading a balance sheet for a petroleum company. The profit the company earned was 6 cents on each gallon of gasoline and diesel fuel sold. But the government at the federal and state levels took 60 cents on each gallon. One has to ask, who are the greedy ones? Please note that was the just at the corporate level. Then each employee of the corporation paid income taxes on the wages and salaries they earned. In addition, each investor paid taxes on the dividends received. Indeed, the government seems more like the Mafia, taking money from each and every corporation and person involved in the petroleum industry to make a "profit" for itself, while pretending to provide protection. So, why are they now trying to kill that industry? At least that industry provides a useful product, unlike the wind and solar energy scam they are pushing.

When progressives “deploy capital,” they do so in order to buy votes and gain power. None of their “investments,” as they call them, like investments in wind and solar, produces a profit, and none of them makes life better for the average American. I can think of only one major government program that made life better — the interstate highway system — and even that was carried out under the guidance of a wise Republican president who had thought deeply about the project’s importance for national security and the economy.

Progressives are enraged by the idea that anyone except themselves can deploy capital and make a profit, even if by doing so they make life better for everyone. Elon Musk is a hero for many, and he should be, because he has deployed capital to create many things of value, most recently via xAI, an investment that has the potential to improve health care research by speeding clinical workflows, and Neuralink, a Musk startup that aims to improve daily life for paraplegics. As he demonstrated with Tesla and Starlink, Musk is able to innovate where government cannot.

Folks points out that the Progressives (read Communist and Socialists, hiding behind the Democrat party label) want to impose the largest tax hike in American history. It is one more reason to not vote for any Democrat, or anyone who sympathizes with these people. Please read Jeffrey Folks whole piece.