Harvard Carr center
Courtesy Carr Center for Human Rights Policy
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You may have heard about the “report” released by Harvard University’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy titled Reimagining Rights and Responsibilities in the United States: Toward a More Equal Liberty. I thought I should take a look at it.

This supposed scholarly work is “dedicated to the legacy of John Lewis and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.” In general, my impression of this tract is that it should have been titled Reimagining America as Cuba or Venezuela. If you are on blood pressure control medication, you’ll probably want to avoid it. If you aren’t, you may need meds after you’ve read it.

My interest being firearms policy, I skipped ahead to that section and began a quick skim before going back and reading it in-depth. Sadly, when I spotted the authors’ explanations of the Firearm Owners Protection Act and Dickey Amendment, I had to stop.

I looked up the two leads on the report, Mathias Risse and Sushma Raman, and sent them an email.

Good day,

As a firearms policy and law analyst, I fast forwarded to your section on firearms-related issues, with an eye to writing a column about your report.

I’m going to pick out just two items that make it clear you have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.

1. “Other federal laws have loosened gun restrictions, including the 1986 Firearm Owners Protection Act, which prohibited a national database of firearms dealers. That law, in turn, laid the groundwork for the “gun show loophole” which allows offsite sales by licensed gun dealers without a background check.”

No; FOPA forbade building a database of firearm OWNERS. By definition Federal Firearm Licensees are databased; I access that database routinely in my own research. And FFLs are required to perform NICS checks anywhere they do business, including gun shows, their back door, or a street corner out of their car trunk.

The “gun show loophole” you describe does not exist.

2. “Federal laws passed in 1996 and 2003 limited government research on gun safety and information the government can collect on gun sales and trafficking.”

You are referring to the Dickey amendment, I believe; but you have grossly mischaracterized it. It actually mandated that “none of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or promote gun control.”

Research was always allowed at the CDC, and continued. They were only forbidden to — as they had been doing — divert funds FROM research to conduct gun control activism.

With such blatant errors so easily found, I suspect your entire report is riddled with falsehoods, mistakes, or misunderstandings. Perhaps you should withdraw the report for revision and correction. I would be happy to assist you with the firearms section since you apparently do not currently have a knowledgeable source for the topic.

Sincerely,

Carl “Bear” Bussjaeger

The Dickey Amendment mischaracterization is so common I would almost understand that error coming from a run-of-the-mill journalist, but not from allegedly professional academics studying the topic. The blatant lie about FOPA, on the other hand, is far worse than anything even the Moms who Demand Action or the Brady Bunch have come up with in their continued attacks on the right to keep and bear arms.

Errors in basic information such as these discredit the entire report and expose the authors’ clear biases and the narrative they’re trying to push. Neither Risse nor Raman have responded to my offer. I don’t expect them to, any more than I expect the report to be withdrawn.

The agenda is everything. Damn the reality.

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67 COMMENTS

    • Hey now can’t let the facts get in the way of a good story after all how else would we get the serfs to vote for further infringements.

    • The article referenced ” professional academics”.

      I remember the days when academics were respected for their knowledgeable and factual writings. That is no longer the case. I don’t know if there are knowledgeable academics any more but I do know that most academics today routinely produce screeds that say whatever the money men desire.

      I wish congress would cut funding to most if not all universities. They are now socialist indoctrination centers, not turning out educated people.

      • I worked in that field from ’76 to 2012. In 1978 admin decided that the researchers would be rewarded by how much grant money they brought in. That did absolutely nothing for the search for knowledge!

        In later years I sat in on “Data Meetings” where the PI would review the results of each experiment one point at a time and decide which results to keep and which to discard. These results were not subjected to statistical analysis. They were accepted or rejected on the basis of whether they fit the thesis! This isn’t science! It’s herasy!

        Charlie

    • This is NOT about political parties. It’s about our Form of Government. The Constitution specifically guarantee’s a Republican Form of Government. Which by definition excludes any other form of government.

      Article 4, Section 4 of the Constitution states:

      “Section. 4.
      The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.”

      This means that Democrats, Socialists, and others who promote “transformation/reimagining” are in violation of the Constitution by their very existence, and should not be allowed any representation in any part of the US Government. Period.

      • Bingo ! this is what the supposed law of the land states, much as the phrase that is totally ignored “Shall Not Be Infringed”is.

        • Too many people in this country are treating this as if it is some political game. It isn’t. It’s a serious Existential Threat to this country, and must be addressed as such.

        • The Letist/Democrats are not playing a game, they have been at war for over a decade, however, conservatives and independents have been busy saying “Nah, (fill in the blank)______ will never happen here.”

        • There is a block of voters (mostly women and mostly from the suburbs) that say they like what Trump has done, and they generally agree with what he says…BUT…they don’r like the way he says it…so they are going to vote for Biden (But really Harris, who they generally dislike).

          Pure insanity…

        • The “democrat party” (communist party USA) is a clear and present danger.

          Be Prepared !!!

          Semper Fi Gunny !

  1. A real university would repudiate this kind of trash with their name on it and discipline or fire the authors. Sadly Harvard is quickly turning into one of those hack for profit schools that separate fools from their money.

    • As Harvard is about decimating Marxism to the masses,NO,defund, eliminate as that line of political theory is antithetical to the Constitutional republic.

      • I’m sure that was an auto-correct error or something for “disseminating”, but decimating Marxism – in the literal, Roman sense – sounds like a fantastic idea!

        For a memorable (though I’m not sure how historically accurate as to method) depiction, see “The Fall of the Roman Empire” (1964).

  2. denocrats are lying when they claim that they want Australian-style gun control. democrats really want Venezuelan or Cuban gun control, which is to say prohibition, and confiscation. Perhaps we should work on reimagining Harvard’s endowment instead.

      • “And policies based on feelings and appearance instead of actual designs and operations.”

        Your point being? We believe in truth over facts…as should any right-thinking person who cares about people. Facts are hurtful things, proof of a lack of compassion.

        • “I’m referring to the “logic” behind Australia’s firearm laws.”

          Yeah? Well, either way, facts are fantasy; truth is truth. Facts ain’t got no heart, no compassion. Facts turn people into factoids, not humans. Factoids become facts, and facts become statistics, and statistics are bloodless monsters, used to prove anything for anybody. You can’t trust facts, only truths. You have a right to your own “facts”, but not to your own truth.

          Viva Che’ !
          Viva Max !
          Free the Whales !
          Free the Internet !
          Free the Parking !
          Workers of the World, untie !!

    • Yeah, Harvard’s politics are plain, and their endowment makes the path forward very clear. Harvard should be required, henceforth, to provide education to all comers at no charge. It is what they advocate, the endowment allows it, I’m certain no one would object, I mean, they’re not hypocrites, are they?

  3. lets reimagine self defense:
    like…if theres a bunch of you on my property hurling terroristic threats of violence against me and my family and my home i can stand on my front porch with a rifle and not be prosecuted
    or…or…if theres a bunch of you trying to beat me to death in the street and shoot me in the head during a riot while im holding a rifle i can open fire on you without being prosecuted

  4. THESE ARE NOT “ERRORS IN BASIC INFORMATION”. They are blatant, intentional mis-characterization, mis-information, anti-America propaganda from the Socialist movement. Once these propaganda sources are published by “scholars” they are used as truth from which to further pollute the information knowledge environment. It is all part of the 46-47 point plan (…take over the educational system….as read into the
    Congressional Record January 1961 or 1963 by Florida Rep Hurlong….) to feed Socialism to America under the guise of Liberalism. America has been over run as promised by Nikita Khrushchev in the late 1950s. No longer a plan, now a completed checklist, Socialism is poised to pounce with the next Liberal Left election win…..November 3 or four years down the road….it is inevitable. America is lost without implementing the Second Amendment. And, that, boys and girls, is why the Left hates our gun rights with so much fervor.
    Soap Box; Ballot Box; Cartridge Box; Pine Box. We have lost what our Founding Fathers gave us via the first two. It will take a liberal….pun intended…..application of the last two to regain and preserve our Liberties, Rights, and Freedom. All is on the line.
    BROKEN ARROW!!!! BROKEN ARROW!!!! BROKEN ARROW!!!
    Expend all available ordnance our coordinates!!!!!

      • No, Broken Arrow is the call when a unit is massively over run with all hope of surviving lost, and the only option is massive ordnance placed on your coordinates opting for a miracle.

        • “No, Broken Arrow is the call when a unit is massively over run with all hope of surviving lost,…”

          Both are correct, and context sensitive. One use regarding nukes, another regarding TIC. When declaring either, it is important the reader know which context is under discussion, prior to use of the term (or explained immediately after).

  5. The more the marxist democRats talk the more they expose themselves as the frustrated slave masters they are. Their DNA just cannot let go of their good old days of slavery, lynching, Eugenics, etc. To once again sit high above the fray, cracking the whip and calling the shots is their only life goal…First thing to do? Get Your Guns.

    TRUMP/PENCE 2020.

    • “The more the marxist democRats talk the more they expose themselves as the frustrated slave masters they are.”

      Apparently, there is a serious number of people in this country quite satisfied with that…so long as they can get what they want, otherwise.

      • It is the Allure of Free Shit Syndrome that attracts the Government Plantation Dwellers to vote Demorat. They are willing to sell their souls, Freedom, Liberty, Rights….and ours….for Santa Claus free shit…..which we pay for with our hard earned tax dollars.

        • The Free Shit for Everybody program isn’t funded by tax dollars anymore.

          There isn’t enough tax money in the world’s 7 biggest economies combined to pay for all that — and they’ve gone beyond such unimaginative limitations now. Thanks to fiat money creation and debt monetization, money itself is free and endless. In fact, at the national and international levels, the more debt you have, the richer you are.

        • Ing, that is what is happening, but you should mention and everyone should know, that will not work. Sooner or later, society will discover that, yes, we are all rich, but there is nothing to buy, at any price. Yes, you can finally afford that Bentley, but they’re not being built anymore because the assembly line has taken the decade off to travel the world in their yachts. Their FREE yachts. Which won’t actually cause any problem once we discover that there is no food being produced, all farmers have retired.

        • No, we will not all be rich and retired under Socialism. Where have you seen that occur??? Socialism free shits everyone toward the bottom in poverty….except the rulers. Socialism seems like a great idea until they run out of other people’s money.

  6. Any “scholarly” works out there lately dedicated to the legacy of the founders of the country? Oh forgot, they really didnt mean what they wrote! Pathetic and dangerous!!!

      • The best data we have shows 218,174 Dead Americans under Trump’s watch. That fact over whelms all other considerations. No American President has ever failed so horribly, allowed so much death and suffering and economic loss to hit the American People:
        https://www.bing.com/covid/local/unitedstates

        The moronic thing here is to imagine there is only one issue to decide upon. After 218,174 deaths and growing, and that is only one of his many failures to lead and many acts of treason, it is moronic in the extreme to claim that only gun law should be used to decide who to vote for.

        Biden is the lesser evil by far. It’s as simple as that.

        Ironically the Federalist Society pulling at Trump’s puppet strings has handed us a true prize. Once Barrett is confirmed, we can expect anything the Democrats do in the way of gun control to get beaten back in the Supreme Court.

        • Wait wait wait. New York and NYC implemented some of the toughest shut down orders in the nation, yet still have the highest death rate (although California, the most populous state, is trying hard to catch up). Why is this Trump’s fault?EAch state governor was free to implement any shutdown policy deemed appropriate, and the feds had shot to say about it. When Trump ordered the border shut, the Democrats were screaming that he was a racist and xenophobic, and went strolling through Chinatown (sans masks). This is Trump’s fault? When the pandemic first broke out, Dr. Fauci was not too worried–but that changed over time. This is Trump’s fault? Same with the CDC. Trump devoted billions of dollars to fund research to come up with an effective vaccine; what was he supposed to do, fart one out of his ass? All that you can say about Trump is that he poo-pooed the mask wearing requirements. Europe had, generally, strict shutdown requirements–and now they are starting a second wave. Is that Trump’s fault too? Young adults, desperate for companionship and fun, violated all the rules about social distancing and wearing masks, instead partying hearty. Is that Trump’s fault?

        • “Is that Trump’s fault?”

          Boy, are you clueless. EVERY, as in EVERY, bad thing in this country, going back 231 years, is Trump’s fault.

          Do try to catch up and come along.

        • Don’t you mean 1.1 million dead, the worldwide death toll, is Trumps fault? (Sarc)

          BTW is Obama/Biden responsible for the 600,000 plus Opioid deaths under their “Watch”?

          This headline from that far right publication the Washington Post thinks so;

          Obama officials failed to focus as fentanyl burned its way across America

          https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/national/fentanyl-epidemic-obama-administration/

          Biden is the lesser of evils? Really?

          Here’s an article from another right site (sarc) the Atlantic from 2012 before the media began to protect him.

          Joe Biden’s History of Making the Wrong Call – The Atlantic

          https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/01/joe-bidens-history-making-wrong-call/332431/

    • “Killing is a matter of will, not weapons.
      You cannot control the act itself
      by passing laws about the means employed.”
      as noted in 1958 by the late Col Jeff Cooper, handgun expert and founder of Gunsite Academy.

      A politician with a law never stops a bad guy with a gun.
      He only controls the good guys which is his true agenda.

      Making good people helpless does not render bad people harmless. It only turns good people into victims.

      A legislator with a bill is far more dangerous to the populace as a whole than a citizen….good or bad….with a gun. A politician with a law is a greater threat to citizens than any bad guy with a gun. The bad guy with a gun poses short term danger. The politician’s danger grows constantly and lasts forever. A bad guy with a gun can always be shot by a good guy with a gun. A politician…not so much so…yet.

      The bad guy with a gun…..or the mentally deficient guy with a gun……or the TERRIBLY DISTRAUGHT FAMILY MEMBER OF A GUN SHOOTING VICTIM…….or the Feelz-Gooder Social Do-Gooder….. or the the “hair-on-fire, we’re-all-gonna-die” contingent……are the politician’s easily manipulated Useful Idiot Tools to achieve his power and control agenda.

      The new agenda for humanity requires that no one will have the capacity to fight back. It has been said: “Our Task of creating a Socialist America can only succeed when those who would resist us have been totally disarmed.” No other explanation is possible.

      History has repeatedly demonstrated that disarming good people in the name of making bad people harmless only eventually facilitates politicians shooting their own countrymen. History…learn from it or be doomed to relive it.

  7. How about we just adhere to our present Constitution and Bill of Rights as it was written?

    The Left has been “reimagining” those documents into irrelevancy for the last 60 years.

    • What’s with the Imagine Shit at this point Freedom is an Imagined Right to Our enemies. The time for Imagining anything is long past otherwise Freedom will only be a Remembered Ideal. In 22 days a debt will be due on Our Freedom and the price may well be higher than many are prepared to pay. Win or Lose the election. One side or the other will not be satisfied with a chance neither side will be. I see a lot of Big Talk on the Interweb which decides nothing. People point fingers at one side or the other over who did what first, when or why. At least these people regardless of ideology are Standing Up and Fighting for something they believe in. When the lights are dim and you prepare to fall asleep the night. Ask yourself: What have I done? A Citizenry who fears the consequences of fighting for Their Freedom…More than they Fear the loss of that Freedom…Have become Subjects and allowed Tyranny to Prevail.

  8. What kind of person lives in a Country where people literally die by the thousands to come here and spouts this insane manure?

    While each one of us acknowledges our Country is not perfect, we as citizens since the founding have worked to improve our Government and our selves. We have grown a lot, fought among ourselves and fought together against outside forces, and now fighting among ourselves again.

    Yet, with our our imperfections, people around the world risk everything to come here. Some for nefarious reasons, but many for what we are.

    How many of people who want us to reimagine have the same guts and fortitude of those who risk everything to come here? Maybe they can change places with some of these people so they can see why they are fleeing these places Harvard “intellectuals” want us to emulate.

    We could trade 10 of these Harvard people for everyone one person who wants to be here. We get people who want to be here and these other places get 10 less than efficient laborers in the camps. Maybe even a few will get academic appointments to teach the evils of individual rights .

    Just them, the horses they rode on in did nothing wrong.

    • “Absolute conformity to a social structure inhibits the progression of man.”

      Which one would think is good for Possums.

  9. “Harvard’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy … Wants Americans to Reimagine Their Rights.”

    Sounds like a redux of an old ’70s Paul McCartney tune… Real drug-induced fantasy, that one. And the ancient hippies still sing it every day.

    Americans would be idiots to “reimagine”, or even imagine their rights when they already exist in writing and are acknowledged as coming not from men, nor government, but from God. As always, I’ll follow my Creator, not some flash-in-the-pan nuevo egg heads who have probabaly never held a position of authority higher than a Starbuck’s barista before being conferred with some Piled Higher and Deeper degree in some vague area of trivial studies. (And I appologize to some of the baristas…)

    Good men and women have died to maintain those rights over the past 250 years or so, just so robed royalty at “esteemed institutions” can try to convince us into gambling them away to achieve their Utopia.

    I don’t think so.

  10. Colleges are indoctrination centers. They don’t foster critical thinking, they foster groupthink. Disagree with your professor? Might be bad news. Disagree with your professor politically? Kiss that credit goodbye.

    Learn how to learn, not regurgitate. Learn how to learn on your own (i.e. researching and vetting data, minding sources and repeatable scientific methodology) and there will be no limits to your knowledge. The only thing college is good for anymore would be things like engineers, chemists, geologists, doctors, lawyers i.e. high-end math and science-based fields (well Lawyers are something of an outlier there).

  11. Before our kids go off to college, they need to work about five years working construction or managing a convenience store. By then they might have enough experience and maturity to ignore effete academic radicals. Second, never vote for a Democrat.

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