As the media assures us that 18% more Americans favor stronger firearms laws, we find statistics that would point to the contrary:
"The prospect of a renewed assault weapons ban in the wake of the Connecticut school massacre has set of a round of buying, as thousands of Americans head to their local gun store to secure the popular AR-15 -- the model used by the school gunman -- before potential government prohibitions on their purchase.
They are also buying the .223 ammunition used by the AR-15 and the type of high-capacity magazines covered under the last federal assault weapons ban, which Congress let expire without renewing.
The Colorado Bureau of Investigation says it set a new record for single-day background check submittals this past weekend.
In San Diego, Northwest Armory gun store owner Karl Durkheimer said Saturday "was the biggest day we've seen in 20 years. Sunday will probably eclipse that."
In southwest Ohio, from dawn to dusk a Cincinnati gun show had a line of 400 waiting to get in, said Joe Eaton of the Buckeye Firearms Association.
"Sales were through the roof on Saturday," said Eaton. "People were buying everything they could out of fear the president would try to ban certain guns and high-capacity magazines."
The deluge of buyers had officials working overtime. Background checks that normally took 15 minutes in California took more than four hours, Durkheimer said. In Colorado, background checks that normally take minutes turned into wait times of more than 12 hours, CBI spokeswoman Susan Medina told the Denver Post.
"We had to call in extra staff," Medina was quoted in the Post story. "The wait times were high."
The CBI says it processed more than 4,200 background checks on Saturday, the day after the Newtown, Conn., shooting. That surpassed the previous high of 4,028. Nationwide, FBI data shows 16.4 million background checks were run in 2011. An agency spokesman said Monday it did not keep daily numbers and would not have figures for December until early January......"
We of course do have an extraordinarily high amount of people in this nation who have convinced themselves, or allowed themselves to be convinced, that firearms should only be owned/possessed by the police and the military. There are even extreme radicals who call for the disarming of the police.
The Left spent decades telling us that the second amendment, contrary to what is says, provides only for the possession of firearms for State Militias, a term which has come in Newspeak to be restricted to the National Guard.
I still can't believe how easy it is to find old articles with the internet. I recalled an article in Parade magazine* from the 80's in which Chief Justice Warren Burger, knowing fully well what the second amendment meant, instead pimped his influence to tell us that the "people" indicated the militia. Now, this would be partially true as the militia, by the meaning of the word at the time that the amendment was written (The concept is simple yet ignored today- Legislative Intent), meant all able-bodied males. Burger insidiously decided to make a play on words and apply the modern meaning militia to change the meaning of the amendment.
Burger was featured on the front cover of the magazine holding a lever-action rifle that, if my memory serves me correctly, was a Winchester Model 94. (Sorry the above link does not have the photo)
This was a dirty deed. The US Supreme Court and its individual justices have, until fairly recently, refrained from providing their opinion on laws unless a specific case is brought before them. (Sorry, I forget the name of this practice). Burger's snake-like move had the effect that he wanted. As a result of this, many people in the US would, erroneously, claim that the second amendment has been interpreted to mean the Militia (The modern meaning and contrary to the law) and that the Court had effectively ruled that the people had no such right.
In reality, the Court had never ruled on this issue until District of Columbia v.Heller in 2008. There, faced with a literal mountain* of evidence proving that those who wrote the amendment had the people in mind, the Court had no option but to rule in favor of the right to own firearms.
Even so, the stage had been set for the collapse of the Court even at that time. Four Justices chose to ignore the evidence. The 5-4 ruling was narrow enough to make one shudder.
*Here are just two of the Amicus Curiae briefs that provided a Noahesque flood of evidence that the Legislative Intent of the amendment included the people:
With Obama being able to make 1-3 possible appointments in his second term, a reversal of Heller, though. is not out of the question.
Our nation has in it a substantial amount of sheep. These want to pretend that they can legislate the wolf away or render him incapable of harming others. These people have no problem with the crime that they are committing against themselves and others; the deliberate rendering of people into subjects unable to help themselves.
Our nation has in it a substantial amount of sheep. These want to pretend that they can legislate the wolf away or render him incapable of harming others. These people have no problem with the crime that they are committing against themselves and others; the deliberate rendering of people into subjects unable to help themselves.
They insist that the cops will always be able to protect us. In many major US cities, calls for police response get backed up for hours. It has been routine in cities such East Orange and Camden, NJ, and New Orleans, just to name a tiny few, for officers arriving on duty to be given their assignments for calls that have been left unanswered. It is not the fault of the cops. There are too many calls and too few cops. Major calls will always get a priority for dispatch, but we have to allow that there may very well be occasions that see too many major calls for a timely response.
Those who dwell in suburbia want to assume that this type of problem will never happen in their towns.
As we cannot know that our cops will never be tied up with major emergencies, there is clearly no guarantee that it will not, and I want to know that I have the support of my neighbors, especially in the event that I am not home. A neighbor who has proudly decided that he will not own a firearm will be of no help. He will only be able to call the cops and hope that they can arrive quickly. That is not good enough.
-From a previous post:
http://thehotgates480bc.blogspot.com/2012/01/18-year-old-mom-kills-armed-intruder.html
"The Left is all-to-aware that individual ownership of arms one of the hallmarks and universal characteristics of Western societies. Unlike the types of societies admired by Leftists, such as medieval China, where the individual was to do as he was told (Even a code of ethics like Confucianism rams this home) and was required to leave the defense of their family, property, and village to the local warlord or emperor, the individual in the West has always been an owner of arms.
Where Eastern societies prohibited one from taking part in defense and thus left his safety to the whim or ability of the ruling despot, Western societies required the free individual to own arms. Where the Eastern potentates could pretty much do as they pleased with the people who lived in their domains, their counterparts in the West had to tread cautiously.
For a person who desires to find out more about the crucial place of arms ownership in the Western world and its consequences on the societies that evolved from it, the easiest and quickest way would be to research the Roman, Greek, and early Germanic societies.
The Greeks required the individual, especially if he owned any property, to equip himself at this own expense with a minimum of arms and armor and to take an active part in the defense of his city-state. This was quite an expense as both the materials and work/craftsmanship that went in to making these items were costly. For anyone who has not seen what a Greek Hoplite wore, it consisted of a helmet, shield, armor for the torso and legs, a sword and spear. This was a right and an obligation that was not optional. Later they allowed for more lightly-armored Peltasts. The individual was also required to train exhaustively, to learn how to fight in a hoplite formation and also needed to drill/practice on a regular basis with those of his community. In times of threats to the city-state, the Hoplite, like the others noted below, did not have the option of remaining home with his family.
The Romans also required those who possessed property to equip themselves at their own expense and to train and appear with their equipment in times of crisis. Unlike the Greeks, they created early on several classes where the amount of equipment one as required to purchase was based on the amount of property they owned with the exact specifications enumerated. Those with the most property had to be the most heavily equipped, those with less assessed property would have to purchase less.
The Germanic society was the most egalitarian as far as armed individuals go. All free men could be called up at anytime. There of course were differences as to what arms certain individuals could afford to posses, but the system, which went by the label of Fyrd among the Saxons, existed throughout Germanic societies by different names and technically continued as an obligation throughout the middle ages. Interestingly, the emergence of professional troops of the nobility and the resultant lack of reliance on the Fyrd-type bodies has a direct correlation with the subjugation and suppression of the common people. The concept was employed in the defense preparations of Elizabethan England when threatened by the Spanish Armada. The decline of the nobility and relative absence of one in daughter nations such as the US brought the practice back into common use. Colonial men were required to periodically report for drill and inspections of their equipment. These militias formed the basis of the first contingents to oppose what they believed to be British tyranny.
All of these and others types not mentioned here are an integral part of Western societies. These responsibilities have continued in various forms and frequency of use into the present day. In the Heller decision, the US Supreme Court had for evidence incredible amounts of citations of those who actually made the constitution or were contemporaries of those who did. All state clearly that the Militia (Modern Fyrd) consist of all able-bodied men (I would include women if they have been familiarized with weapons). The National Guard bodies of individual states, while constituting a sort of professional core of militia, is also a part of the US Army Reserve structure and has not taken the place of the militia.
To apply the protest against such an idea to early human societies, we could use the example of cave people. In a free society, like those who banded together and lived in natural shelters like caves, what would have happened to an individual who wanted the protection of the cave and the clan but did not want to take part in the clan's defense? Well, it is guaranteed that he would be cast out to fend for himself. His lack of willingness to expose himself to the danger common to all who stood in defense of the clan or his aversion to any violence for any purpose would result in his expulsion from that society. In the caves, one would forfeit his chance to survive if he refused to take part in defense. In Greek, Roman, Germanic and other Western societies, one who refused to take part would forfeit his right to have any say in how the society is run. He could not vote, speak at assemblies, or sit in or attend a Germanic council. (Saxon – Witan) In short, he had no right to have his opinion counted if he would not fight.
Today the Left wants several things:
1. To make themselves as defenseless as possible and to need state control of every aspect of their lives.
2. To make everyone else as defenseless and as needful as they.
3. To create a society where those who are intellectually [sic] against any violence can not only be free from any obligation to take part in defense (while fully enjoying its benefits) but also, contrary to the basic setup of free societies, get to have their opinion forced on those who do defend. (As in the recent homosexual agenda 'Obamian' move to force the military to have no restrictions whatsoever against overt homosexuality).
(The claims that gays have always been there has no weight as so have others who engage in prohibited activities. The idea as stated in an earlier post is that the military simply has the obligation to decide what types of behavior may be detrimental to military operations or discipline on any scale. Note too that the military -even in the 80s had a significant open secret of a problem with sexual activity in squadbay (open floor type) female barracks - long before Don't Ask Don't tell kicked off)
4. To create a lawless environment that necessitates ever-broadening powers of both state and federal government.
5. To end once and for all any right, responsibility, or obligation of citizens to take protective action consistent with what the individual in Western cultures has done since its inception. (This of course is also aimed at one of the last responsibilities left for Western male, who has seen himself more and more marginalized from his place in the secure and orderly society that was created by his predecessors. This of course is not meant to exclude women from taking an active part in defense; indeed, feminists seem to pursue with zeal the goal of making all women completely defenseless and dependant on the police)
6. To cause the populace of the US to be unable to maintain its sovereignty in the face of the establishment of either a one-world government or regional pan-national governing bodies such as the EU or a hypothetical North American union.
Some will argue that the right to defend oneself is archaic and an unnecessary vestige of an earlier time. They will add that the establishment of professional police bodies, the active-duty military and National Guard Reserve, the lack of need to hunt for daily food, and the absence of threats from neighboring communities has negated the necessity for individuals to own arms.
Nothing could be further from the truth for any of these cases. Numerous court decisions have ruled that police cannot be held responsible for failing to protect an individual from violent criminal activity. The military is designed to deal with threats directly against the nation or states. Arms cannot be considered as only for hunting as this activity is only for a very limited application and is not the main purpose which is ensuring that a person can take protective measures. Lastly, the rise of exceptionally violent activity and the possibility things getting worse in the future makes the responsibility of one to own and become proficient with a firearm more important than it has been in a long time.
In short, no one event or chain of events has occurred that has removed the right and obligation of the individual to protect himself, his family, and his community.
The young Mom in the article performed a brave act that is keeping with the highest tradition of the Western concept of self-defense and preparedness. She is to be praised for her actions.
Note that the article gave the Mom's age as 18 and that of her recently-deceased husband as 58. That will be the topic of my next post. I did not feel that it should be treated here.
*A brief reference to Napoleon Bonaparte, who used that phrase in describing how he suppressed riots of the Sections in the tumultuous years of the early French republic. He used artillery. Grapeshot is made of bags filled with multiple projectiles. A shotgun is the closest thing to such an effective weapon that an individual may posses."
"God created man, Sam Colt made them equal."
-From a previous post:
http://thehotgates480bc.blogspot.com/2012/01/18-year-old-mom-kills-armed-intruder.html
"The Left is all-to-aware that individual ownership of arms one of the hallmarks and universal characteristics of Western societies. Unlike the types of societies admired by Leftists, such as medieval China, where the individual was to do as he was told (Even a code of ethics like Confucianism rams this home) and was required to leave the defense of their family, property, and village to the local warlord or emperor, the individual in the West has always been an owner of arms.
Where Eastern societies prohibited one from taking part in defense and thus left his safety to the whim or ability of the ruling despot, Western societies required the free individual to own arms. Where the Eastern potentates could pretty much do as they pleased with the people who lived in their domains, their counterparts in the West had to tread cautiously.
For a person who desires to find out more about the crucial place of arms ownership in the Western world and its consequences on the societies that evolved from it, the easiest and quickest way would be to research the Roman, Greek, and early Germanic societies.
The Greeks required the individual, especially if he owned any property, to equip himself at this own expense with a minimum of arms and armor and to take an active part in the defense of his city-state. This was quite an expense as both the materials and work/craftsmanship that went in to making these items were costly. For anyone who has not seen what a Greek Hoplite wore, it consisted of a helmet, shield, armor for the torso and legs, a sword and spear. This was a right and an obligation that was not optional. Later they allowed for more lightly-armored Peltasts. The individual was also required to train exhaustively, to learn how to fight in a hoplite formation and also needed to drill/practice on a regular basis with those of his community. In times of threats to the city-state, the Hoplite, like the others noted below, did not have the option of remaining home with his family.
The Romans also required those who possessed property to equip themselves at their own expense and to train and appear with their equipment in times of crisis. Unlike the Greeks, they created early on several classes where the amount of equipment one as required to purchase was based on the amount of property they owned with the exact specifications enumerated. Those with the most property had to be the most heavily equipped, those with less assessed property would have to purchase less.
The Germanic society was the most egalitarian as far as armed individuals go. All free men could be called up at anytime. There of course were differences as to what arms certain individuals could afford to posses, but the system, which went by the label of Fyrd among the Saxons, existed throughout Germanic societies by different names and technically continued as an obligation throughout the middle ages. Interestingly, the emergence of professional troops of the nobility and the resultant lack of reliance on the Fyrd-type bodies has a direct correlation with the subjugation and suppression of the common people. The concept was employed in the defense preparations of Elizabethan England when threatened by the Spanish Armada. The decline of the nobility and relative absence of one in daughter nations such as the US brought the practice back into common use. Colonial men were required to periodically report for drill and inspections of their equipment. These militias formed the basis of the first contingents to oppose what they believed to be British tyranny.
All of these and others types not mentioned here are an integral part of Western societies. These responsibilities have continued in various forms and frequency of use into the present day. In the Heller decision, the US Supreme Court had for evidence incredible amounts of citations of those who actually made the constitution or were contemporaries of those who did. All state clearly that the Militia (Modern Fyrd) consist of all able-bodied men (I would include women if they have been familiarized with weapons). The National Guard bodies of individual states, while constituting a sort of professional core of militia, is also a part of the US Army Reserve structure and has not taken the place of the militia.
To apply the protest against such an idea to early human societies, we could use the example of cave people. In a free society, like those who banded together and lived in natural shelters like caves, what would have happened to an individual who wanted the protection of the cave and the clan but did not want to take part in the clan's defense? Well, it is guaranteed that he would be cast out to fend for himself. His lack of willingness to expose himself to the danger common to all who stood in defense of the clan or his aversion to any violence for any purpose would result in his expulsion from that society. In the caves, one would forfeit his chance to survive if he refused to take part in defense. In Greek, Roman, Germanic and other Western societies, one who refused to take part would forfeit his right to have any say in how the society is run. He could not vote, speak at assemblies, or sit in or attend a Germanic council. (Saxon – Witan) In short, he had no right to have his opinion counted if he would not fight.
Today the Left wants several things:
1. To make themselves as defenseless as possible and to need state control of every aspect of their lives.
2. To make everyone else as defenseless and as needful as they.
3. To create a society where those who are intellectually [sic] against any violence can not only be free from any obligation to take part in defense (while fully enjoying its benefits) but also, contrary to the basic setup of free societies, get to have their opinion forced on those who do defend. (As in the recent homosexual agenda 'Obamian' move to force the military to have no restrictions whatsoever against overt homosexuality).
(The claims that gays have always been there has no weight as so have others who engage in prohibited activities. The idea as stated in an earlier post is that the military simply has the obligation to decide what types of behavior may be detrimental to military operations or discipline on any scale. Note too that the military -even in the 80s had a significant open secret of a problem with sexual activity in squadbay (open floor type) female barracks - long before Don't Ask Don't tell kicked off)
4. To create a lawless environment that necessitates ever-broadening powers of both state and federal government.
5. To end once and for all any right, responsibility, or obligation of citizens to take protective action consistent with what the individual in Western cultures has done since its inception. (This of course is also aimed at one of the last responsibilities left for Western male, who has seen himself more and more marginalized from his place in the secure and orderly society that was created by his predecessors. This of course is not meant to exclude women from taking an active part in defense; indeed, feminists seem to pursue with zeal the goal of making all women completely defenseless and dependant on the police)
6. To cause the populace of the US to be unable to maintain its sovereignty in the face of the establishment of either a one-world government or regional pan-national governing bodies such as the EU or a hypothetical North American union.
Some will argue that the right to defend oneself is archaic and an unnecessary vestige of an earlier time. They will add that the establishment of professional police bodies, the active-duty military and National Guard Reserve, the lack of need to hunt for daily food, and the absence of threats from neighboring communities has negated the necessity for individuals to own arms.
Nothing could be further from the truth for any of these cases. Numerous court decisions have ruled that police cannot be held responsible for failing to protect an individual from violent criminal activity. The military is designed to deal with threats directly against the nation or states. Arms cannot be considered as only for hunting as this activity is only for a very limited application and is not the main purpose which is ensuring that a person can take protective measures. Lastly, the rise of exceptionally violent activity and the possibility things getting worse in the future makes the responsibility of one to own and become proficient with a firearm more important than it has been in a long time.
In short, no one event or chain of events has occurred that has removed the right and obligation of the individual to protect himself, his family, and his community.
The young Mom in the article performed a brave act that is keeping with the highest tradition of the Western concept of self-defense and preparedness. She is to be praised for her actions.
Note that the article gave the Mom's age as 18 and that of her recently-deceased husband as 58. That will be the topic of my next post. I did not feel that it should be treated here.
*A brief reference to Napoleon Bonaparte, who used that phrase in describing how he suppressed riots of the Sections in the tumultuous years of the early French republic. He used artillery. Grapeshot is made of bags filled with multiple projectiles. A shotgun is the closest thing to such an effective weapon that an individual may posses."
"God created man, Sam Colt made them equal."
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