I am not shocked too often by the news. After all, man's cruelty to man is a feature (or bug) of human nature since we first walked the earth, and it is not likely to ever change. But sometimes it happens. In this case, two anti-gun groups came out with remarkably pro-gun statements.
The first is the Ninth Circuit, often characterized as the Ninth Circus for the unbelievable rulings that have come out of it. One has to wonder if the judges of the Ninth Circuit are partaking of a little too much of the product of the Napa valley. Anyway, The Ninth Circuit Upholds the Second Amendment according to Mike McDaniel at the American Thinker today.
The Ninth Circuit court is infamous as the circuit most overturned by the Supreme Court. It has been notoriously leftist in its decisions, often ignoring the law and Constitution in favor of progressive ideology. It has been particularly fervent in ignoring the Second Amendment, which is why the Court’s recent response to California’s gun rationing law is so unusual.
The law in question restricts Californians to buying only one handgun every 30 days. There is no evidence this restriction has ever contributed to public safety. How could it? If a criminal bought a handgun, but couldn’t buy a second for 30 days, that would somehow prevent them from using the first gun in crimes?
Good question. But wait, don't most criminals buy the guns they use in crime from the black market in guns, which if truth be told are merely stolen from law abiding people? So, the first thing one needs to understand is that this law doesn't present a barrier to the criminal in any way, since they don't, by definition, obey the law. Instead, it burdens the law abiding individual.
For an example, see the following quote taken from a Bearing Arms article on the same subject:
Judge Danielle Forrest wondered if someone doesn't own any firearms, and it's impossible for them to legally purchase more than one at a time, how their core Second Amendment right to possess arms for self-defense wouldn't be implicated if they, for instance, wanted to have a gun in their primary residence and a vacation home, or one for their home and another for their business.
Wen's response was that the individual in question could "borrow" a firearm until they were allowed under California law to purchase another; a circumstance that could only take place if the individual a) knows someone else who owns a handgun and b) is willing to part with it, even temporarily.
Laws that do what they are advertised to do are worth making, if those who break them are prosecuted and punished. But too often, they laws, particularly around guns, are designed to harass legal gun owners and make it so difficult as to discourage people from exercising their Constitutionally protected rights. Government should never find itself in that business.
The second item that shocked my is to be found at Bearing Arms in an article by Tom Knighton entitled SHOCKER! The Guardian Makes Valid Point on Guns. The valid point, not directly said, but made anyway is that guns don't kill people, people kill people using guns. Indeed, people kill people using guns, knives, or anything else at hand that can be used as a weapon including hands and feet. The first recorded murder was committed with a rock. God was not pleased.
When I want a reasoned take on guns, The Guardian from the UK isn't who comes to mind.
Over the years, they've run numerous anti-gun stories and opinion pieces and their take on the right to keep and bear arms is well understood. They're pretty OK with the fact that the UK doesn't have it.
So I don't expect a reasonable take from them on guns. Ever.
Yet, it seems it happened.
The piece has the headline, "‘Wherever you have drugs, you have guns’: why is there an epidemic of violence in the Caribbean?"
Well, yes, wherever you do have drugs, there you will find guns also. Drugs are a very profitable, if illegal business. If someone steals some of the drug dealers' property, they can't run and complain to the police, now can they? So, they must defend their property themselves, and that means guns. And where you can smuggle drugs, you can smuggle guns as well.
This line of reasoning, of course, points to the total folly of so-called gun control, which usually means gun bans and gun confiscation. It doesn't work as intended because, as point out, guns can be smuggled in just as easily as drugs. Unlike drugs, though, guns do have a legitimate use. Therefore there can be no excuse for gun control other than to impose tyanny on a population.
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