Gun Control (s The Wrong Solution

The most recent push for gun control is perhaps the worst one I can remember.  The gun grabbers smell blood in the waters, and they are determined to finally write finished onto the Second Amendment.  Between "universal background checks," "red flag laws" and something new Trump is considering, the so called "SafeHome Act" which is being lobbied by former NBC Chairman Robert Wright.  What all of these ideas have in common, indeed, what the gun grabbers have been after for at least the last 100 years is that blame is placed on the instrument, rather than on the people wielding those instruments.

The theory is that the  gun somehow causes the crimes, that the crimes would not have happened except that a gun caused it.  Thus if you take away guns, then nobody will be able to kill another.  Looked at within the theory, it makes sense.  But the problem is that this theory is another example of Bastiat's seen and unseen.  What is seen, and indeed, is magnified by the press is a shooting of multiple people.  What is unseen is the estimated 300 million guns that did not cause the law abiding people who own them to shoot anyone.  What then is the difference between the guns own by the law abiding and those possessed by the shooter?

The answer to that question is that there is no difference whatsoever.  Guns are inanimate objects.  They have no will of their own, and can not motivate anyone to do anything.  They are literally tools used in some very specific circumstances, and like other tools, will prove useless in others.  So, if the problem is not the guns themselves, what might be? The answer to that question is given in an article by Fletsch Daniels entitled Gun Control: Wrong Solution to Wrong Problem

But gun control is the wrong solution to the wrong problem. The actual problem is the growth of mental illness in American society. So the real question that must be answered before any realistic solution can be proposed is why mental illness is trending so noticeably upward.

One measure that shows this increase in mental illness is the significant rise in the number of suicides, which have been steadily climbing for the last couple decades. There were over 47,000 U.S. suicides in 2017, and it is only getting worse.

The explosion in mental illness is a manifestation of cultural rot. Liberals gleefully turned America's culture into a death-celebrating cesspool and, in Saul Alinsky-like fashion, indicated that the only solution is the shredding of the Second Amendment, something they have always wanted to do.

Please go read the entire article, because it discusses multiple areas of culture that have changed, and which have led to more mental illness that leads to more shootings. What Daniels discusses used to be just common sense to most Americans. The Bible tells us that human life is sacred, different from all the other animals.  We are told that human beings are created in the image of the Creator.  If someone takes these lessons to heart, one will be much more reluctant to killing others.

When liberals spend years telling people that life isn't sacred, should they really be surprised that more people treat life as not being sacred? There have been more than 61 million abortions since Roe v. Wade in 1973. Every single Democrat candidate in contention is applying the Pete Buttigieg "breath" standard, meaning they all support abortion up to, and perhaps beyond, birth. When you make an effort to devalue life in the interest of political expedience, people will be affected in tragic, horrible, and surprising ways.

...snip...

It is also worth noting that the mass shootings, even within this cultural climate, are far less common than most people realize. The Washington Post ran the names of every victim of a mass shooting in American since 1966 in an attempt to pressure Republicans. There were about 1,200 names. They needed a 53-year time period to get that. While each of those 1,200 names represents a terrible tragedy and many lives turned upside-down, that is a relatively small number — about 23 people killed per year.

For comparison's sake, we average about 40,000 automobile fatalities in the United States a year and are approaching 50,000 suicides annually. Planned Parenthood, our nation's most efficient killing machine, kills over 330,000 babies in a year.

The bottom line is that if you really want to make progress addressing the issues that are growing out of the mental illness crisis, it is not wise to turn to the same people who created that crisis. That's like going to Harvey Weinstein for dating advice.

I know many even among the gun rights community don't want to hear it, but we all need to repent to turn our thinking around, and return to God's plan for us.

The United States May Already Be Lost, If Conservatives Do Not Change Strategies

Today, at the American Thinker Christopher Skeet notes that Liberals Want To Grab Guns...But Who Will Do The Grabbing? His point is that many police officers agree with citizens owning and carrying guns, so would be reluctant to do the bidding of their political bosses. Keep in mind that we are talking here about taking guns from people who have never done anything wrong, and who believe they have the right to own these weapons. Further, as the quotes below show, the author is aware that the Left knows all these points, but they still want to disarm us. This leads to frustration on our part, and a realization that there can only be one reason for this seemingly unreasonable behavior:

I don't think I'm alone when I say it's frustrating having the same conversation over and over and over again. I'm frustrated trying to explain the difference between a semi-automatic and a "military-style assault" weapon, parrying asinine retorts of how our Founding Fathers "only had muskets," and being told by strangers what weapons I "don't need." I'm frustrated with citing statistical evidence showing that the vast majority of gun violence in America is the result of suicides and of criminals who have obtained their guns illegally. I'm frustrated with trying to justify my personal choices to people who are completely ignorant about guns and who are completely unwilling to learn.

...snip...

If reducing gun violence were an honest aim of the Left, leftists would follow the evidence where it leads. But leftists oppose gun ownership not out of any heartfelt reaction to mass shootings (though they routinely go through the necessary public genuflections). They don't care about dead students, dead Walmart shoppers, dead worshipers, dead police, or dead black Americans. They don't care about getting help for the mentally ill. They care about the consolidation of political power into a centralized totalitarian entity, which they arrogantly assume they possess the competence to administer.

So, who will do the grabbing, if not the police. The Army, perhaps, or the National Guard? It seems clear it will not be the Leftist elite themselves. And as Skeet makes clear, voluntary compliance is unlikely. Therefore, despite what the Democrats want, it is clear they are passing a useless bill that will do nothing...or are they?

Scott Morefield has a different take on what the Democrats are after, and I think his is the more realistic. Morefield, writing at Townhall.com that Leftists Won't Be Going 'Door to Door' To Take Your Guns, Because They Won't Have To. Morefield thinks, and again, I suspect he is right, that the Left is smart enough to realize that going 'door to door' would raise too much ire. Better to take guns away quietly, one at a time.

And even assuming you “defy” a law they’ve passed – which, granted, many currently do in heavy gun-controlled blue states – what long-term purpose will that serve? They may not physically have possession of your AR-15, or your handgun, or your scoped 30-06 semi-auto deer rifle, but what good are weapons when you’ll be prosecuted as a criminal for using them? People like Beto O’Rourke and their leftist cohorts may be evil, but they aren’t stupid. They know this, and so they can say they won’t go “door-to-door” with a straight face and a smarmy “I’m a reasonable person” grin, knowing full well the long-term ramifications.

Like the frog in boiling water, the totalitarian state will happen when leftists are able to use the law to make de-facto criminals out of everyone they hate. Then, whether the proverbial jackboots come to your home and beat down your door now or later, whether they arrest you in a grocery store parking lot or sleeping in your bed, whether they prosecute you for using an “illegal” weapon to defend yourself against a home invader or hunting for food, whether they take your guns via “voluntary” buyback because you’ve got a family and can’t afford to risk going to prison, or from your cold, dead hands, they’ll know they’ve won. Because they’re eventually going to get your guns, one way or another.

I encourage gentle readers to read both articles today.

Clearly, we need a different strategy. The Left has shown itself to not care about laws, rules of conduct, civility, truth and facts, the Constitution, or indeed, anything that gets in the way of them having total power. And it has become mind numbingly clear that they want to control everything from where and how you can travel, to what and how much you can eat. They want Medicare for all because they want to tell you what medicines you can take, and at what age you are no longer 'worth' keeping alive.  Their agenda is evil, as grossly so as the Soviet Union was or North Korea is today.  You must be controlled for your own good, you see. Our insistence on following the rules in hopes they will see the error of their ways is not working.  Indeed they are depending on it. 

I am not saying to break the Laws of God, But the Bible shows us that God is not a pacifist, and neither should we be.  I confess here that I have no idea what would work, but we nust find a way, or the United States is lost.  It may already be.

The Left's Long March Through The Institutions Includes The Churches

In a post several days ago, I mentioned that I finally left the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) over issues with the church's stance on politically correct issues that the Bible declared were against God's will. Now the fact that the church can go against God's will is not surprising, since the church is composed of men and women who are, by their very nature sinful beings. One doesn't leave an organization for these sorts of reasons lightly. But my split came when I realized that I could not change the thinking of the majority of the congregation either. At that point, I had to decide if I wanted to continue to be an outspoken defender of traditional faith, or to find a church body that already had such beliefs. I found a new congregation in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod (LCMS). But the LCMS has some errors in its doctrine too. We are all sinners and have strayed far from God. WE all need God's grace and mercy if we hope to be saved.

Today, at the American Thinker Bill Thomas has a piece touching on this issue entitled The Left Hopes To Destroy Christianity By Changing It. Yes, Rudi Dutschke's "long march through the institutions" has sent disciples into the church bodies to pervert them as well. And perversion they have done, from condoning abortion to ordaining LGTBQxyz individuals to pastoral and priestly duties. In these positions, of course, the perverts will find themselves running the church itself.

Perhaps this is God's plan: to make being a Christian so difficult, so hated, that only the most committed will remain.  But I fear for and pray for friends and family who do not remain. 

Meanwhile, gentle readers, check out  Thomas's article, and think about where you go to church, if you do.  Does it subscribe to the latest politically correct doctrine, or does it refuse to change for the sake of men no matter what.  Frankly, I say with Martin Luther, "Here I stand.  I can do no other!"  God's principles are timeless, and do not conform to the latest politically correct thinking.  Instead, God expects each of us to conform our lives to His principles. If we can not, yet, then God expects us to pray that we can conform, that He will guide us each day to do the right things, be the right people.  Christianity, like Judaism, is a struggle with God each and every day.  It is in this way that we have a true relationship with the Divine.

How the AR-15 Became The Plastic Straws Of The Gun World

Selwyn Duke at the American Thinker today explains how How The AR-15 Became The Plastic Staw Of The Gun World. And just as banning plastic straws will do next to nothing about pollution in the world's oceans, banning AR-15s will have a minuscule effect on crime.

How did AR-15s become the plastic straws of the gun world? It’s simple: Demagogues need scapegoats. Yet just as banning plastic straws won’t make a dent in the ocean-polluting plastics problem, banning “assault rifles” (which aren’t) won’t save even one life.

...snip...

Joining straws in the dock, and giving new meaning to demonizing the one percent, are Assault Rifles™. Not only are they used in approximately just one percent of homicides, they aren’t even “assault rifles,” a term that had always referred to weapons that could be fired fully automatic or in more than one way (fully auto, three-shot bursts, etc). Now the term is being applied to semi-automatic (one trigger pull, one shot) rifles with certain cosmetic features (a military “look”), which is a bit like putting a Porsche body on a Yugo chassis and claiming the car will win races.

But, hey, as anti-gun crusader Josh Sugarmann once put it, these “weapons’ menacing looks,” coupled with the public’s confusion — “anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun — can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons.”

Yeah, it’s a con.

As Duke goes on to make clear later in the article, the AR-15, far from being weapon that fires a very powerful round, the 5.56 NATO round is a pipsqueak of a round, which is popular precisely for its low recoil and ease of use. And, of course, the rifle itself looks cool. While it can be used for hunting varmints, it should not be used for game even as small as deer for fear one would wound the deer rather than kill it outright.  The rifle is also popular because it is the tinker toy of the gun world, allowing the owner to customize it to meet his or her special needs.

No, the Left is not really worried that this is a highly effective "weapon of war."  What this is really about is symbolic.  If they can ban a class of arms, any class at all, and make it stick, they can effectively nullify the Second Amendment without having to repeal it.  It's the way the Left works. They see nothing wrong with with attacking from the flanks when a direct assault doesn't work.  This is how one fights a war, not how one conducts politics, but from this you can see that we are truly fighting a war.  The Republicans seem to think they are sincere, and want to accommodate them.  Unfortunately there is nothing sincere about it.  They want us disarmed so they can push their foul agenda uninhibited.

Update on a related issue:  Please read Rachel Malone's piece entitled There Isn't Enough Due Process To Make Red Flag Laws Tolerable. Here point is that any amount of due process can not cover the fact that "Red Flag" laws target alleged "thought crimes." But nobody truly knows what another is thinking. It's what makes red flag laws so terrible, and do easily abused.

You Go Girl!

You may have noticed that I keep harping on so called "red flag" laws and, to a lesser extent, so called "universal background check" laws.  I do this because both of these laws to one degree or another are Unconstitutional.   Red Flag laws violate the 2nd, 4th, 5th, and 6th Amendments to the U.S Constitution.  Quite a feat.  Either Congressmen have never read the Constitution (unlikely) or just don't care.  But I am concerned about these violations under color of law because I am concerned about any violation.  The government should be scrupulous in its conduct to always make sure that it grants any defendant the full measure of Constitutional protections.  In prosecuting a defendant, it should always be searching for the truth. If, after satisfying these Constitutional protections the government secures a conviction, they can be assured they have done their job well. Note that they still may convict the wrong person, but as far as humanly possible, they sleep easy at night.

Lawyer Sidney Powell is a former Federal prosecutor turned defense attorney.  She wrote the book  Licensed to Lie about gross misconduct by Federal prosecutors in the Enron case, and in the wrongful conviction of Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska. The Ted Stevens case was likely brought for political purposes. Many of the names mentioned in the book are the same people involved in the Mueller investigation. Indeed, Mueller's bulldog, Andrew Weissmann, figured prominently in her book.

Besides being able to make dry as dust material interesting to the lay reader, she is a brilliant legal mind in her own right.  So, it was gratifying to learn that she had taken on the Michael Flynn case.  There is hope yet that Flynn will get some measure of justice.

All of that is background to the most recent article at The Federalist by Margot Cleveland entitled Powell's Latest Motion in Michael Flynn's Case Is A Russiagate Bombshell. According to Cleveland, it appears that Powell intends to expose as much of the Deep State skullduggery as she can using the Michael Flynn case. Her Motion to Compel, if granted, would require the prosecution to produce both exculpatory evidence, and evidence that would impeach witnesses for the prosecution, both required under what is called the Brady ruling.

I have believed for a long time now that General Flynn got an extremely raw deal; that he was forced to plead guilty to lying to Federal Agents when face with millions of dollars to defend himself, and the fact that his family was threatened to boot. Since when is our government empowered to act like the mafia?

To Sidney Powell, I say, "You go girl!"

Another Reason to "Do Nothing," No, Really.

Trevor Thomas at the American Thinker has a piece entitled Anti-Gun Laws Will Never Solve Gun Violence In America. Thomas makes the point, with appropriate charts, graphs, and appeals to experts, that mass shootings in America are not trending upward. Indeed, they have remained remarkably consistent for the last 2 decades.  He also makes the point that:

Not only are mass shootings still very rare, but they represent an extremely small portion of overall gun murders in the U.S. Even a leftist publication like Vox makes note of this. While using a variety of data, including Professor Fox’s, Vox’s Dylan Matthews rightly reveals that “while tragic,” deaths as a result of mass shooting “are a tiny sliver of America’s gun homicide problem.”

What’s more, though we comprise about four-and-a-half percent of the world’s population, and though we own about half of the world’s privately owned guns, America accounts for less than half of one percent of the world’s murders. Likewise, across the U.S., this trend is similar: the presence of guns does not correlate to more gun murders. As this piece points out, many of the safest areas in America have the highest rates of gun-ownership.

So, if you read the entire article, including the linked pieces, it becomes clear that more gun control will not curb crime. And obviously, the Repblicans in the Senate know this. So, what are they thinking of?

Frankly, especially with the proposals on the table, I suspect they are thinking like the Democrats, of disarming the American people by means they think could get by the Supreme Court (not a hard task, I'll admit.) Many Republicans, unfortunately, are not conservative. Indeed, Republicans from the Bush wing of the party are on board with the idea of global governance. And they would just love to install an antidemocratic system of rule by the self appointed "philosopher kings" just like the EU.

I have to run today, but in addition to the Trevor Thomas article, please also read Beth Baumann's article at Townhall.com entitled Read'em And Weep Anit-Gunners: Dana Loesch Proves, Once Again, Why Red Flag Laws Are Dangerous. Loesch has tweeted ten reasons. Read them all.

Criminals For Gun Control

When the topic comes up, I often tell women I meet that if they don't have a gun, and carrying it everywhere, they should get one, and get trained in how to use it. Women, despite the "I am woman, see me roar" types, are generally weaker and more vulnerable to male predators. So, it was gratifying seeing an article making the same point with many examples. The article, written by Adam Mill, at The Federalist is entitled Why Criminals Looking To Victimize Women Love Gun Control. The gun is the great equalizer when one finds oneself confronted by an attacker who is more numerous, bigger, stronger, and often younger.

Often overlooked in the gun control issue is that laws intended to disarm male attackers also reduce the choices women have for self-protection. It might make sense for some gun control advocates to carry pepper spray or remain in the company of a protective male. But for some women who wish to live independently, the option of a firearm offsets the overwhelming physical superiority of a potential attacker. It’s her body. Shouldn’t she have the right to choose how best to protect it?

And, if reports from the NSSF are to be believed, women are the fastest growing demographic among gun owners. Well...good for them. While I would try to defend my wife if needed, I can not be around every minute of the day. As always, go read the whole article.