2nd Amendment

Detroit Police Chief, `Arm Yourselves`

Published by Papa Giorgio

A great admission via HotAir:

James Craig just took over the office of police chief last summer, but he’s already making waves in Detroit. A reorganization of the police force in the bankrupt metropolis has resulted in a higher clearance rate in murder cases, and the murder rate dropped almost 14% in 2013 from its two-decade high in 2012. However, Craig has some advice for his fellow citizens in Motor City if they really want a drop in crime — arm yourselves:

If more citizens were armed, criminals would think twice about attacking them, Detroit Police Chief James Craig said Thursday.

Urban police chiefs are typically in favor of gun control or reluctant to discuss the issue, but Craig on Thursday was candid about how he’s changed his mind.

“When we look at the good community members who have concealed weapons permits, the likelihood they’ll shoot is based on a lack of confidence in this Police Department,” Craig said at a press conference at police headquarters, adding that he thinks more Detroit citizens feel safer, thanks in part to a 7 percent drop in violent crime in 2013.

Craig wasn’t always in favor of carry permits. While serving in Los Angeles, where permits are issued on a notoriously miserly (and some would add arbitrary) manner, Craig thought that disarmament was the answer. It wasn’t until he went to a carry-friendly jurisdiction that he understood the difference:

Craig said he started believing that legal gun owners can deter crime when he became police chief in Portland, Maine, in 2009.

“Coming from California (Craig was on the Los Angeles police force for 28 years), where it takes an act of Congress to get a concealed weapon permit, I got to Maine, where they give out lots of CCWs (carrying concealed weapon permits), and I had a stack of CCW permits I was denying; that was my orientation.

“I changed my orientation real quick. Maine is one of the safest places in America. Clearly, suspects knew that good Americans were armed.”

It’s not the first time that Craig has endorsed carry permits. Two weeks ago, the Detroit News notes, he told a local radio show that responsibly armed citizens act as a deterrent, in a city that can clearly use one. Even though the murder rate has dropped, Detroit had as many homicides in 2013 as New York City, which has more than ten times its population.

[….]

At least one recent study suggests that Craig hits the nail on the head. A long-range study by a Quinnipiac University economist shows that states with more restrictions on firearm ownership and carry permits had higher murder rates by guns than gun-friendly states, and suggests that increasing restrictions on concealed-carry permits pushes the murder rate up, not down. It also showed that assault-weapons bans had no effect on murder rates.

Perhaps more police chiefs will change their orientation with this information at hand. State legislatures should get ahead of that curve.

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Colion`s Response to the NFL banning An Ad by Daniel Defense

Published by Papa Giorgio

The ad is shown before the erudite commentary by Colion Noir:

Investors Business Daily (IBD) on the banned NFL ad:

Politics Of Sport: While ads featuring violent movies and video games regularly appear on NFL broadcasts, pro football has banned an ad supporting the Second Amendment. The NFL is within its rights, since Item 5 in its prohibited list of Super Bowl ad categories includes “Firearms, ammunition or other weapons; however, stores that sell firearms and ammunitions (e.g., outdoor stores and camping stores) will be permitted, provided they sell other products and the ads do not mention firearms, ammunition or other weapons.”

But the ad submitted twice by Daniel Defense does not sell firearms or one of the company’s popular DDM4 rifles. Daniel Defense has a brick-and-mortar store, where it sells products other than firearms.

In fact, the ad does not sell anything. It’s a visual paraphrase of the Second Amendment to the Constitution, which guarantees the right of individuals to keep and bear arms to protect their country, themselves, their property and their families.

The ad doesn’t even mention firearms, but shows a father picking up the Sunday newspaper as a football game plays on the radio.

He goes inside the house, hugs his wife and looks in on his baby as his voiceover speaks of his responsibility to protect them and the house they live in.

To the NFL, apparently, this simple message, subliminally in defense of our Second Amendment rights, is an incitement to violence that can’t be run during a violent game in which players that have had run-ins with law enforcement are often celebrated as role models. Some 683 NFL players have been arrested since 2000, including around three dozen since the 2013 Super Bowl.

Good taste has never been a priority in Super Bowl ads and certainly the NFL is less picky during the regular season. In the aftermath of the Newtown massacre last year, for example, a commercial promoting the shoot-’em-up flick “Gangster Squad” aired during a Colts-Texans game and a spot promoting the M-rated video game “Hitman: Absolution” aired during a postgame show.

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Politicizing a Grieving Moment, The President and Politics ~ UPDATED with Hero of Kenya Story

Published by Papa Giorgio

British hero of the mall massacre: Ex Royal Marine with a handgun saved 100 lives as terrorists ran amok

• Was having coffee at Westgate mall when it was attacked on Saturday
• He returned to building a dozen times despite intense gunfire
• Man, who can’t be named for security reasons, was pictured with victims
• Gunfire heard early today despite Kenyan assurances mall had been secured
• ‘At least 10 hostages still being held by a band of Al Shabaab militants’
• Up to three American teenagers and one British person among terrorists

….The former soldier is said to have returned to the building on a dozen occasions, despite intense gunfire. A friend in Nairobi said: ‘What he did was so heroic. He was having coffee with friends when it happened.

‘He went back in 12 times and saved 100 people. Imagine going back in when you knew what was going on inside.’ Sources said the soldier was in the Royal Marine and now lives in Kenyan.

He cannot be named for security reasons.

The British military regularly train and operate out of Kenya, and have been involved in tracking UK citizens involved with hardline Islamists in Somalia and Yemen.

 

HotAir said this to in regards to the above video where Obama pushed an agenda at a memorial for NAVY victims of the recent shooting spree. By the way, all 5-shootings took place in “gun free zones” that the President mentioned.

Fort Hood?  The Obama administration has tried mightily to keep that labeled a case of workplace violence, but everyone knows that this was a case of radical jihad. Army Major Nidal Hasan had communicated with al-Qaeda recruiter and leader Anwar al-Awlaki, which a series of investigators managed to slough off over several months until Hasan launched his attack.  That wasn’t a case where a lack of gun control allowed the massacre to occur; Hasan used a legally-purchased semi-automatic pistol, which as an Army officer shouldn’t have proved too difficult to do.  Some could argue that the Pentagon’s bar on carrying weapons forced victims to remain disarmed, just as it did at the Washington Navy Yard.  Either way, the government failed in dealing with Hasan properly which lead to the terrorist attack, not lax gun laws leading to “workplace violence.”

Besides, in this case the shooter bought the weapon that Vice President Joe Biden endorsed as an alternative to the guns Obama wants most to control and/or ban — a shotgun instead of an AR-15.  The shooter also purchased it legally, complete with a background check.

Katie Pavlich points out the confusion:

Got that? If you don’t support new “common sense” gun control measures, you just don’t care about preventing mass shootings. And with all due respect, mass shootings are not the new normal and are not on the rise as President Obama would like the country to believe. Violence in the streets of Chicago between rival gangs is normal. Mass shootings, are not.

Let’s refresh what happened last week: Mad man Aaron Alexis, who was hearing aliens talk to him, purchased a shotgun legally at a Virginia gun store after passing two background checks. He carved cryptic sayings into the shotgun like “better off this way,” and “my elf gun.” He then illegally took that gun into Washington D.C., illegally brought it into the Navy Yard and committed mass murder. When it comes to more gun control, I’m not exactly sure what Obama is trying to get out here. Is he implying we should institute more restrictions on basic shotguns?

Massacres, in fact, use to happen more in the past, like the Bath School Massacre, which was out first, and still holds the record. Nor is Obama’s proposal (like Australia and Britain) tenable. What will stop shooters are trained citizens who conceal and carry:

Two People Witnessing the Same Event Ask Two Different Questions if Politically Left or Right

Published by Papa Giorgio

Video description:

Dennis Prager does a great job in showing how both sides start from the same premise… both grieve and sympathize. After that however… we [the is the political left and right] ask different questions and come to separate conclusions.

In anticipating one response which I have heard quite a bit, the challenge of suicide will be brought into the conversation. Mind you, base shootings and suicides were not an issue in 1993 when Bill Clinton for some mysterious reason based this bill making bases strict “gun-free” zones. But the actual claim of guns and suicide are not understood well, below, Larry Elder quickly sorts it out for a caller:

Video description:

While talking to a fine young man who currently serves in the military and is worried about guns and suicide… Larry brings some common sense stats into the equation. What he did is show that no matter what you do, if someone is going to commit suicide — men specifically… women attempt suicide but fail at a much higher rate — they will accomplish it some how. HOWEVER, restricting an enumerated right (the 2nd Amendment) is worse than suicide at the same rate. Freedom over fear tactics in other words.

9 Potential Mass Shootings That Were Stopped By Someone With A Personally-Owned Firearm

Published by Papa Giorgio

This comes with a h/t to the NYU College Republicans. I wish the military personnel on that NAVY base would have been allowed to carry.

1. The Pearl High School Shooting

2. The Parker Middle School Dance Shooting

3. The Appalachian School of Law Shooting

4. The New Life Church Shooting

5. The Trolley Square Shooting

6. The Golden Market Shooting

7. The New York Mills AT&T Store Shooting

8. The Clackamas Town Center Shooting

9. The San Antonio Theater Shooting

(SOURCE)

NAVY Shooter, Gun-Free Zones, 2nd Amendment Examples (CAUTION! the last video is GRAPHIC!)-UPDATED! NO AR-15 (two pistols & Shotgun)

Published by Papa Giorgio

Gateway Pundit posts a great short comment about the NAVY yard shooter:

More than 40 federal agencies are armed to the teeth, including the Library of Congress, the Federal Reserve Board and the EPA.  But our military on military bases? Nope.

That fact is not lost on David Codrea at Gun Rights Examiner:

“While authorities are trying to piece together exactly what happened and who, if anyone besides dead named shooter Aaron Alexis was involved in today’s massacre at the Navy Yard in Washington, D.C., one fact is indisputable. The killer(s) took advantage of a “gun free zone” at not only the facility, but one that extends throughout Washington. D.C.

(Full exchange can be seen here)

UPDATE! Piers Morgan looks like an ASS! In the above video he says an AR-15 was and purchased in Virginia. What a dope!

Thanks HOT AIR!!!

Breitbart talks Clinton and “gun-free” zones:

It hasn’t always been the case that only MPs can carry firearms on U.S. military bases. A mere twenty years ago, “gun free zones” made their way to these facilities under the watch of President Bill Clinton.

According to a Washington Times editorial written days after the Nov. 5, 2009 attack on soldiers at Fort Hood, one of Clinton’s “first acts upon taking office… was to disarm U.S. soldiers on military bases.”

Clinton’s actions birthed Army regulations “forbidding military personnel from carrying their personal firearms and making it almost impossible for commanders to issue firearms to soldiers in the U.S. for personal protection.”

In other words, thanks to Clinton, citizens who join the military to use guns to defend liberty abroad cannot practice their constitutional right to keep and bear arms while on active duty at home.

As the Times editorial board put it: “Because of Mr. Clinton, terrorists would face more return fire if they attacked a Texas Wal-Mart than the gunman faced at Fort Hood.”

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Colorado Recall, Successful (2nd Amendment Win)

Published by Papa Giorgio

Via Libertarian Republican:

In the two recall elections conducted yesterday in Colorado: With 96 percent of the votes counted, State Senator Morse trailed by 3 points, and has conceded. And, with 62 percent of the votes counted, State Senator Giron trails by 20 points, and should concede. 

Update! Giron loses by near 60% to 40% margin.

From WaPo, “2 Colo. Democratic lawmakers ousted in gun control recalls promoted by activists, NRA”:

Senate President John Morse lost by just 343 votes Tuesday in a swing district in the Republican stronghold of Colorado Springs but Sen. Angela Giron lost by a bigger margin in a largely blue-collar district that favors Democrats.

This flips the State Senate from 19 Democrats to 16 Republicans, to 18 Republicans to 17 Democrats

2nd Amendment Wins This Round

Published by Papa Giorgio

…He was working a typical shift at Beer:30 Liquor Store Sunday night when things got interesting.

“Had a gentleman come in the door there smoking a cigarette and I asked him to take his cigarette back outside,” recalls Alexander. “He pulled a gun out from behind him and said, ‘you need to give me all your money.’”

But the would-be thief learned quickly he picked the wrong guy — a former military police officer packing heat.

“I pulled my weapon up and told him, ‘you need to get out of here before I blow your head off.’ Backed right on out the door.”

(GP)