Firearms thefts from gun dealers are on the rise. Gun control advocates are using that problem to agitate for . . . wait for it . . . more gun control. To wit: the latimes.com article Stolen guns are enabling violent crime. Will Congress actually do something about it? Specifically, The Times et al. want the feds creates a safe storage law for gun dealers.
Even as they work to increase dealer security, the NRA and NSSF are dead set against any such legislation. Not only would it add to the expense of gun sales, mandatory federal gun dealer security laws would be the proverbial camel’s nose under the tent for further restricting the way guns are sold.
Not to mention inspiring states to enact “safe storage” laws for gun owners. smartgunlaws.org reports that . . .
Massachusetts is the only state that requires that all firearms be stored with a locking device in place when the firearms are not in use. The state bars storing or keeping any firearm unless it is secured in a locked container or equipped with a tamper-resistant mechanical lock or other safety device.
How does that fit with the Second Amendment’s mandate that “the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed”? It doesn’t.
In the video above (click here to watch), NRA commentator Dana “Clenched Fist of Truth” Loesch tackles the increasingly high-profile “debate” over safe storage. She puts the onus on law enforcement to catch criminals stealing guns, rather than penalizing gun owners for making it “easy” for burglars to steal their firearms.
That’s like shaming a rape survivor. It’s the exact same logic. How about this, how about they make tougher penalties for individuals who steal? Steal firearms. How about they have harsher punishment for those individuals who break the law? These individuals that they are seeking to punish haven’t broken the law. They have been victimized.
Needless to say, Ms. Loesch’s comparison between gun owners and rape survivors has provided yet more Loesch-related grist for the anti-gun mainstream media’s mill.
The truth hurts. The question is, does Ms. Loesch’s incendiary language in support of the Second Amendment as writ hurt the gun rights cause? I’m not saying it does. I’m just asking.
The question is, does Ms. Loesch’s incendiary language in support of the Second Amendment as writ hurt the gun rights cause?”
Sure does, but only with all those mythical, gun rights fence-sitters I always hear about, yet never meet.
She’s playing the game. She’s using SJW buzz words to make a point while simultaneously pissing off them and their media sympathizers. That being said, I think she would have been better off comparing the gun dealers to car jack victims if she wanted to go down the comparative victim blaming road.
The carjacking victim angle may be more accurate but not as incendiary. Dana wants viewers to never forget that our opponents in this fight want women to be defenseless against rapists… the left really can’t defend their position against that argument.
I like her, and I like her style, I don’t care what anybody sez, lol!
I agree.
“Firearms thefts from gun dealers are on the rise. Gun control advocates are using that problem to agitate for . . . wait for it . . . more gun control. To wit: the latimes.com article Stolen guns are enabling violent crime. Will Congress actually do something about it? Specifically, The Times et al. want the feds creates a safe storage law for gun dealers.”
Many of the thieves are repeat offenders who the system failed to catch or slapped on the wrist. Turning the blame on gun owners is the wrong thing to do. Tell people of the system to stop allowing criminals to do more crime.
Don’t be silly. Telling the truth can’t possibly hurt. Being mush mouthed about it doesn’t do any good. I’m glad this gal is not in the least PC about it.
Not sure the “enforce the existing law” is a good message, however… there are lots and lots of very bad laws. And catching criminals after the fact doesn’t solve the problem – even if the cops did catch them.
I am curious, however, just why these gun dealers are increasingly being hit. Are they really? Or is it more fake news? In any case, I would think that they have every incentive right now to put a stop to this theft. If nothing else worked, I’d think the people of the gun should be lined up halfway around the block to volunteer to stand guard.
What are “WE” doing about it? Besides making videos?
“And catching criminals after the fact doesn’t solve the problem.” It does stop the crimes the criminals would commit while they are locked up, which would probably be numerous.
Sure, TX… what was that clearance, conviction rate again? And how soon do they get turned loose? I don’t think so.
Mama – The tale of a LGS I used to patronize as a cop is illustrative of the problem. After the first break-in, the owner “hardened the target” by installing steel bars over all of his windows. These were defeated in the next break-in by ramming a truck through the front window. To prevent that from happening again, the owner installed steel and concrete barriers in front AND back of the store. Next came kidnapping him as he arrived home from work and forcing him to return to the store, open it, and allow some of the gang to clean it out. Oh, in case they were somehow stymied, one member of the gang held the owner’s family hostage with instructions to kill them all if the rest of the gang didn’t return with the goods by a specified time. That was “the straw that broke the camel’s back” and the owner closed the store, likely never to be in the gun business again.
So, you have an entire posse of POTG standing guard over the gun store and a vehicle pulls up with the owner, a gun pointed at his head. He gets out and tells you to go away or his family will be murdered. What do you do then?
How did the gang get hold of the store owner/family? The failure goes farther back than the guards at the store.
Funny thing… the gun store in my town is in a very old building, entrance at the back. Common wood door with a doorknob… maybe a deadbolt, can’t remember. We’ve never had any kind of break in at that store, and damn few of any other kind. One vacation home was broken into a few years ago, but the criminals had to leave the guns… they couldn’t get the safe open… Dumb crooks, of course. The city kind might have been successful. But out here we have very few criminals. Everyone is armed, and even the newest transients know that and keep moving on…
It’s a matter of context, not just bars and barriers.
The most effective and moral outcome for any violent attack is the death or serious bodily injury of the attacker at the hands of the intended victim and/or their guardians/ companions. Do the criminals fear the people where you are? Or do the people fear the criminals?
“I am curious, however, just why these gun dealers are increasingly being hit. Are they really?”
Here in Florida, Mamma, the answer is *yes*. It has spiked dramatically.
It appears to be gang related focusing on mom-n-pop gun stores and pawn shops.
(And am I the only one who thinks Dana looks much hotter when she is pissed off? 😉 )
Here in Colorado, gun store “smash and grab” burglaries have been a huge deal. Two of the stores I go to regularly have been hit in the last three months. Not just something I’ve seen on the news, but went to the stores and saw the damage a truck backing through the front wall has done.
My LGS was hit earlier this year. They were cased out thoroughly. The thieves cut a hole in their backdoor and crawled along the floor to avoid being picked up by their motion sensors. They were just about cleared out, something like 50-60 guns
You get flack when you are over the target.
And boy, is Dana ever getting flack.
Keep it up, girl, you are obviously hitting a nerve.
The word you want is “flak” from the German “fliegerabwehrkanone”, literally “aircraft-defense gun” “Flack” is a slang word for a publicist. Don’t feel bad. I see this all the time, so you sure ain’t the only one.
Apparently Im a little slow…
Explain exactly how what Dana said is incendiary.
In the instance of “rape shaming”, the victim is blamed for her own rape i.e. “You should not have dressed that way.”, “You should not have been alone.”, “You should have not have been in that part of town.”, etc.
The same thing is happening here. “You should have locked it up.” Victims of crime are being blamed for the criminal actions of others and penalized for it. In terms of any logical progression it is exactly the same thing.
The only thing that I can see that might be labeled incendiary is the realization that the logic goes up in flames when these to scenarios are compared, because they are exactly the same.
But i’m reasonable. Let’s find a middle ground. Lets have fewer words and make them less easy to speak, that way we can have a positive impact on those who might otherwise be easily triggered.
Actually, it isn’t exactly the same. It’s a more logically extreme position. An analogous situation is blaming the rape victim and calling for Sharia law. “We should have a law that requires these sluts to cover up.” “We should stone her for adultery.” And this from the sort of people who say the NRA is as bad as ISIS.
Logic isn’t “extreme”. Something either follows a logical progression or it doesn’t.
“Rape Shaming” is perhaps a more “extreme” example of the exact same logical progression, or perhaps not since guns are blamed as the tools of criminals including rapists an murderers. i.e. Not locking up your gun makes you complicit in downstream crime and therefore requires the gun owner that was victimized to be punished, consequently, “rape shaming” – the same thing.
Shaming is saying “the crime committed against you is your fault.” Saying “the crime committed against you is your fault. We suggest laws punishing people for behaving as you did so such people aren’t victimized” is different. It’s not the same logical progression. It might be the same logical path.
One position is a more extreme position than the other. You have to go further down the path of logical progression to reach it. You have to go extremely far down the path.
Perhaps you’d prefer the word “reasoning” to “logic” even though one is considered a synonym of the other.
Ok then, according to the way you are laying this out, storage laws are WORSE than “rape shaming” since advocates are demanding the criminalization of the preceding behavior, whereas in “rape shaming” the victim is simply publicly derided. No one, for the moment at least, is attempting to criminalize the preceding behavior as in your Sharia example, i.e. skimpy clothes, etc.
If in fact this is what you are saying, then as I originally asked how is this speech incendiary? Since rape shaming, according to the way you have laid it out is in reality a lesser offense, less “extreme”.
I said that shaming and advocating punishment is a more extreme logical position than just shaming. I didn’t say storage laws are worse. There is a qualitative difference between rape and property crime. There is a quantitative difference between shaming, and shaming and advocating punishment.
I didn’t say the her speech was incendiary. I was pointing out that calling for punishment of victims goes further than simply shaming them.
And of course her language is incendiary. Incendiary – tending to inflame the senses. Just about any mention of rape is incendiary. Kind of like calling your opponent a racist.
Okay, since I used the term “incendiary” in this thread first, I’ll explain.
Dana very deliberately chose to use the rape analogy to the gun bigots argument. While a victim of a car theft does suffer from their victimization, it is nowhere near as traumatic as the pain suffered by a victim of rape. Likewise, we the readers also have a proportionately stronger sympathy for a rape victim than a car theft victim. Dana wants the reader to feel that sympathy, to trigger the desired emotional response she’s looking for. Thus, she is being “incindiary” – and that is not at all a bad thing. The gun bigots arguments are based solely on emotion and never on provable facts… so I see no harm in using emotional arguments right back at them.
“Dana wants the reader to feel that sympathy, to trigger the desired emotional response she’s looking for.”
Dana is using the Left’s own tactics against them.
Since gun right are a war being waged on the hearts an minds of the American people, I say “All’s fair, in love and war.”…
2 : a person who excites factions, quarrels, or sedition : agitator
Above is the applicable definition of incendiary. I simply don’t see how that is applicable in the context of the video linked above. Dana simply compared “gun storage laws” , something the left clearly doesn’t understand, to “rape shaming”, something that the left does understand and has a sympathetic disposition for those who have been its victim.
Showing how both are despicable bahaviors that should be avoided (victim blaming) is not something that meets any reasonable definition of incendiary IMHO FWIW.
It may not specify as exactly how someone must store a gun in Maryland as the law does in Massachusetts but as a practical matter, the laws have the same force and effect. On the Maryland State Police FAQ’s page is: “Is there a law for storing firearms in the home?” and the response is “Yes. Under the Maryland Annotated Code, Criminal Law, Article 4 Section 104, it is unlawful for any person to store or leave a loaded firearm in a location where the person knew or should have known that an unsupervised child would gain access to the firearm. (For safety purposes, the stored firearm should be unloaded and the use of a trigger lock is recommended).” Not only is it recommended, it is MANDATORY to sell a gun lock with every firearm. Yeah, I have a couple of gun safes and a LOT of useless gun locks.
In Texas it’s only a crime if a child gets hold of your gun. It’s only a serious crime if the kid seriously injures or kills someone.
“A person commits an offense if a child gains access to a readily dischargeable firearm and the person with criminal negligence: (1) failed to secure the firearm; or (2) left the firearm in a place to which the person knew or should have known the child would gain access.”
There are four exceptions, and I think one of them is for farmers who were farming at the time it happened or maybe a kid who was farming at the time.
I don’t like things that are mandatory. Responsible gun ownership requires people to take appropriate action to secure their firearms. It should be up to the owner to decide how to accomplish that. If they are negligent and someone dies because of their negligence they should be held accountable.
“Responsible gun ownership requires people to take appropriate action to secure their firearms. It should be up to the owner to decide how to accomplish that.”
The problem is, who decides what’s a secure firearm?
That’s a potential ‘Camel’s nose under the tent’, as we all know the Leftists will use that against us.
Imagine a Progressive ‘gun safety’ law that requires a certain security rating on a safe and is alarm wired to the local PD.
And the gun owner is required to pay the monthly fee for the wired alarm. When in the future SCOTUS eventually falls to a Progressive majority, you can bet they will rule that to be Constitutional…
Geoff PR – That would be one of those “commonsense gun regulations” which the progs love so much.
I am a Dana fan…she’s absolutely correct. Enfore the freakin’ law-big time. I do believe gunshops should harden up security but the laws are generally on the books. In Chiraq we see the result of slap on the wrist lawenforement. And mandating gun storage sucks. Shall not be infringed!
“The question is, does Ms. Loesch’s incendiary language in support of the Second Amendment as writ hurt the gun rights cause?” – No. It gets clicks. The HuffPo article you tricked me into clicking came pretty close to fairly presenting both sides of the argument. That will help convince most rational people to our side. Unfortunately, as the old quote goes, “that’s not enough, madam, we need a majority!”
Of course it’s gun control. Dealers already have alarms, bars on the windows and security shutters on the doors. What the gun grabbers want is to force every dealer to keep their guns in safes after hours. Even a small dealer may have 100 guns on display. That means aside from the cost of the safes, someone has to take every gun off the rack and out of glass cases and move them to the safe after closing. Then every morning take them out and put them back.
And there will still be robberies, no safe is bombproof. So the gun grabbers will keep upping the requirements until the dealers can’t afford to meet the regs and have to go out of business. It’s the same tactic they tried with suing gun makers and operation chokepoint. Make it impossible to do business.
Safes aren’t 100% theft-proof…perhaps they’ll suggest we barricade our homes next. We already know they want all gun owners behind bars…they’re being magnanimous enough to have us put bars in our own windows while they work on putting us behind tax-payer funded ones. May they rot in torment first.
How about we have safe storage laws for automobile sellers?
Think about this, a stolen car can facilitate far more killing than any gun can, and these dangerous consumer items are just sitting in parking lots in every city in America, JUST SITTING IN PARKING LOTS!!! Why, anyone could just walk up to a seller and take one for a so-called “test ride”, it’s easier to get a car than a book!
*The above is a smattering of gun control obfuscations, dodges, bull, and desperate attempts to link nonsense together, it is NOT logical, but emotional blackmail to the uninitiated, a yearning for legitimacy through calls to pathos*
Giving up your “incendiary” arguments is tantamount to retreat. And every time we retreat the left occupies that ground and fortifies it. Being “nice” is a one-way street in the right-left battle. The right as been notably nice forever. No riots, no threats, far less ugliness, peaceful demonstrations and marches leaving no litter, etc. The left follows no polite rules, yet in the media the threat of violence, ugliness, etc., is always portrayed as from the right. We on the right should continue to be nice, but not give up or moderate any arguments. Nor should we worry about it, criticize our own, if one of us gets a little loud now and then.
How do people know the guns are not locked up? Every gun store that I have ever been to locks their crap up because it is is their own best interest. And there already still, federal penalties for stealing from an FFL holder. I mean seriously how hard is it to steal a gun and then cut a cable after words? Guns are “things” and things get stolen from time to time.
No, getting your shit stolen is not like rape in any way shape or form. Saying so makes you sound like an idiot. Much like getting your unsecured weapons stolen makes you look like an idiot.
“Massachusetts is the only state that requires that all firearms be stored with a locking device in place when the firearms are not in use”
Any guns not in my safe are “in use”, unless you have some kind of magical definition of what that even means. If I left them out for the kids to play cowboy with, or to shoot out the neighbor’s windows, they are “in use”. Law seems rather meaningless, perhaps “feelgood”?
Silly Citizens…. Your having something of value makes it totally your fault when that thing gets stolen. If you didn’t have anything of value you wouldn’t get robbed…. duh.
/sarc
Dana is correct. I would be a heck of a lot more harsh.