“The nutty notion that a citizen can be heavily enough armed to fight off the government went up in smoke near Big Bear Lake,” George Skelton opines at latimes.com. “This may sound crazy to most normal people, but there are some obsessed gun owners — although a minority, surely — who believe they need to arm themselves to perhaps combat government oppression.” Skelton proceeds to quote readers’ emails to paint gun owners as deranged right wing racists and proto-terrorists. Which doesn’t really matter because they’ve already lost the argument over the Second Amendment, apparently . . .
I’m certainly no constitutional lawyer, but it should be obvious to everyone by now that the right to bear arms can be “infringed.” We’re not allowed to bear bazookas. Or machine guns. No automatic rifles. What’s mainly at issue these days are semi-automatics — so-called assault weapons — and mega-magazines that hold more than 10 rounds.
In Skelton’s humble not-to-say-ill-informed opinion “assault weapons” (all semis?) and “mega-magazines” (standard capacity?) are no damn good when it comes to preventing government tyranny. As Christopher Dorner’s demise proves—despite the fact that he managed to stay alive for so long without any logistical support, forcing police to spend millions in his pursuit.
As of this writing, it’s not clear what suspected killer Christopher Dorner had in his arsenal. But it was enough to hold off law enforcement in Tuesday’s shootout until someone upped the firepower, literally, by lobbying incendiary tear gas into the cabin where the axed cop apparently was making a last stand against the government.”
The government virtually always wins.
And here I was thinking that we the people—armed as we are—ARE the government. Silly me.
If anything, the Dorner case proves how armed citizens could cause some real trouble.
That was one guy, and look at everything they expended on him? (Note: I am not defending him nor his actions, merely taking an objective look at tactics) What would happen if every armed American, or even just half of them, got upset enough because of a tyranny too extreme some day? The government wouldn’t be able to hold out.
The government’s force is overwhelming, but it has to be localized and depends entirely on that overwhelming force. They can’t project that overwhelming force nation wide, all at the same time.
It was hundred’s against one.
He “won” every time he went up against better odds.
Hard to call a 5:1 kill ratio “losing”.
The guy was a danger and needed to be apprehended, but if anything he demonstrated that a determined, well-trained gunman is not to be taken lightly.
*no happy about the captcha – we should have accounts if we need captchas*
I book marked this yesterday, this LA Times guy is a quack.
IF anything, like many of you said, it shows how much chaos A SINGLE MAN can cause. 1 guy had the ATF, FBI, LAPD, and SBPD hunting for him. 1 guy…… THEY USED DRONES for christ sakes.
It blows me away that these morons would rather laydown and die, and allow government to do whatever it wants when ever it wants. Look, if our guns are not strong enough, than we need more of them. It doesn’t mean just give them up because resistance is futile.
Look at Vietnam…. We threw everything we had at them short of a nuke, and those farmers with AK47’s did quite a number on us.
Also, if there was all out war, there is (I hope) a percentage of personell who would stand down and refuse to obey unconstitutional orders. The problem being is that they’ll just be relieved of duty and replaced with someone who doesnt want to rock the boat. The orders will be followed by someone . I’m sure of that.
what, you think the true Patriots in the military will simply sit back and remain silent once they’re relieved of duty for refusing to follow an unconstitutional order? you have much to learn about Patriots my friend.
Off topic but that ad at the bottom has become THE most annoying thing on this site.
My 2 cents.
If the government ever gets too powerful for a united people to control it, then we are truly lost. The LA Times seems to relish the end of the American experiment in freedom.
One man can’t hold back an army, and no one has ever claimed such. But no government can keep the entire population oppressed if we are all united and armed.
The point that gun nuts seem to miss entirely is that no government can keep the entire population oppressed if we are all united. PERIOD. Guns are not a necessary part of that equation – no government in history has managed to stay in power for long against the will of the majority, it just isn’t physically possible.
The most oppressive regime I can think of in the world right now is North Korea, and they would still fall in a day if all the citizens rose up, with or without any guns.
I plan to give flowers and candy to the nice folks herding me into a prison camp
Maybe the citizens don’t rise up because they don’t have guns? And if unarmed citizens rise up they may prevail, but at what cost? You seem to favor making it as hard as possible on the oppressed.
But you claim to be British and a large part of your people’s history is about making it hard for the oppressed to rise.
Name one territory the British have held on to with force over the will of the local majority. Just one.
Yeah – I love it when idiots disprove their own position, don’t you?
Speaking of idiots, way to miss the point hmmmmmer. I never said that the locals couldn’t rise up, even if unarmed. It just makes it harder and more bloody and allows the oppressors to last longer.
But you already knew that. Troll.
How utterly simplistic of you to come up with that. As someone who’s actually been to NK I can tell you there is no way they can do what you propose. It is a police State with a Military First policy. It is illegal to say anything bad about the dear leader. The secret police are everywhere and control everything. They have no cell phones, no unrestricted Internet access, and no freedom whatsoever. They aren’t allowed to own guns, to assemble, to protest.
They will never be able to organize an uprising and are utterly, hopelessly enslaved.
Try again.
If it’s as bad as you say then having guns would be of no help to the people of North Korea either, would it slick.
if if if if if if
How many decades or centuries does it take before the oppressed unarmed masses to rise up fearing life more than death to overthrow an armed regime? Did the masses of Soviet or Chinese citizens rise up? Before you refer to others as idiots go look in your mirror.
Dorner was 1 lone nutjob and he tied southern california in knotts. Think of 1,000 plus nutjobs organised and fighting in units. Or 10,000. Or several million with defecting cops and servicemen. Surely we can do what the Syrians and the Libyans and the Egyptians can do. We did it once before in 1776.
Rather think of just 100 nut jobs spread around the country working individually with no connection but a belief in the Constitution, picking off targets of opportunity when they arise.
The key here is that potential oppressors are also our neighbors. People know where they live, what their cars look like, where they shop for groceries, etc. This has been a theme in fiction more than once.
Without leadership or organization 100 lone nutjobs can do a lot of damage. But the point is to end the oppression. Not just create a body count.
So long as the patriots and those doing the negotiating are actually on the same page with each other.
I put this as a reply to a draft dodger comment but here it is for general consumption, seems it needs repeating.
The draft?
OK 2A guys, what part of “Shall not be infringed” do you not under stand?
My guess is that you understand it perfectly.
13A , what part of “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, … shall exist within the United States.”
What part of DRAFT is voluntary?
I guess the underground railroad was just a bunch involuntary servitude dodgers.
Do we ALL like the 2nd and 13th?
I hope so!
Consistancy of values guys, consistancy!
yeah, I would say the opposite, they needed the resources of a whole state and displayed gross misconduct to catch one guy. What would have happened if an organized group started popping the cops (or random civilians, but the LAPD seem to have that market cornered)? I’ll bet that the anti’s will suddenly wish they had spent a little time on the range and had a gun or 2.
I’ve never understood the “resistance is futile” argument. Maybe he should tell his (assumingly) beloved Lakers they should forfeit the rest of the season then…
One person with a gun going up against the police/military/government doesn’t stand a chance, the same way if one Syrian rebel tried to overthrow their government or a single colonist decided to try to take on the British redcoats by himself.
Overcoming oppression and tyranny by an armed citizenry was never meant to be a one-person job. When a sufficiently armed population bands together under a common goal, nothing short of nuking everyone could stop them.
Excellent points. Look how those little guys in black pajamas in Vietnam gave the mighty U. S. military a (metaphorical) bloody nose. Dorner was just one man, there are millions of freedom-loving American patriots.
He didn’t mention the biggest reason NOT to choose a forty… cost. On my budget, I can shoot more 9mm than I can .40. The more I shoot, the better shooter I become. I’d rather be a good shooter with a nine than a mediocre shooter with a forty.
It really is that simple.
Quick! Take all the Secret Service’s guns! They’re gonna go off! We must protect our king!
George Skelton must have been drinking the kool-aid a tad too long. One dude tied up pretty much the entirety of the southern Kalifornia law enforcement agencies, as well as garnered some federal assistance. One guy cost them millions of dollars. One guy was able to elude them for days. If anything, this shows rational people that the govt is not the superior, overwhelming power they want you to think they are.
OK, I’ll play, but I’ll keep it really simple.
A bunch of guys we call our “founding fathers” were so frustrated with their government that they declared their independence. Declaring independence was an act that could be considered treason by their government, and though it was risking punishment by death, they did it anyway. The government from which they wanted independence did, in fact, view it negatively, so that government sent its military to preserve the colonial order. War happened. Lots of people died, but our founders prevailed over the government’s army.
So to recap, a free people that hated their government asked for their freedom and received a war with the government army instead.
So when it comes to original intent there are actually three possibilities:
A. Liberal: After fighting off the government army, the founding fathers wrote the second amendment to guarantee that only the government army can have guns.
B. Liberal: Fighting off a government army is exhausting work, so the founding fathers codified the right to rest and relaxation in the form of hunting and fishing.
C. Realist: After a hard-won victory over a government army, the founding fathers said “Never Again.”
Win.
+1 🙂 🙂 🙂
Uh…last time I checked. Dorner had CA law enforcement pissing themselves, so badly they lit up a blue toyota tundra carrying innocent people instead of Droner’s black nissan titan. Most of SOCAL LE was tied up looking for one, angry overweight guy with a rifle.
It would be a mistake to underestimate a nation full of gunowners that are willing to resist tyranny.
They lit up TWO trucks driven by innocents. They rammed a pickup and shot a few rounds into it. The driver, a white guy who bore no physical resemblance to Dorner, was injured in the collision.
I dont condone what Dorner did but I would think that Dorners escapades would prove that the people can effectively fight tyranny through attrition. The man killed multiple police and forced the government to spend tons of money while he spent little to none.
“Congress should at the very least give it enough funding to carry out its basic missions”
I say someone should look into why they continue to fail to do their job on basic issues (like processing paperwork) yet find the time to run a multi year surveillance, do a full on raid and confiscation, yet not charge the person with any crime.
If I went to my boss and told him I needed a raise to be able to do my job, I’d probably have to find a new job. Yet somehow, the .gov agencies just keep on getting raises in the form of more taxpayer dollars, with little to no appreciable return. If you can’t use your existing budget properly, then you don’t deserve the budget you have, let alone “more”.
I am glad the tories are making it so easy to spot them. The same thing was said in the 1770’s. One battle does not make a war and one man does not make an army. Does anyone really expect one man, no matter how well armed, to take on a professionally army?
The 2A secures both an individual right and a collective one. A militia can defeat the weight of the DoD. However, it will need foreign help and time; guns in hand help to secure both.
Yes. silly you.
“…–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,…”
And opinion writers like George wonder where these “nutty notion(s)” originate.
George is correct though is his assertion that “…the right to bear arms can be ‘infringed.’ ” It clearly can be and currently is being infringed. The question to ask though is not, “Can it be infringed”, and not even, “Is it being infringed?” But rather the issue is, “Should it be infringed?”, in contradiction of the constitution and, ” For how much longer or by how much will the governed Citizens allow it to be infringed?”
Not only do elections have consequences (for us), the actions of our legislators have consequences (for them)
Wow, yeah this guy really missed the boat. Like many others have said above: It took millions of dollars in resources, every LEO in the area looking for him and then when they finally found him, it took hundreds of heavily armed LEOs to keep him pinned down. 100 patriots fighting tyranny in a guerrilla fashion would likely cripple most states and their infrastructure rapidly. MOST OF ALL it’s important to note that if patriots must rise up against tyranny, “to die” does NOT equal “to lose.” If every dead patriot took just 5 jackboots with them liberty would soon win out. Heck, even a 1-to-1 ratio would take its toll!
Funny, if the founding fathers believed what this tool does there wouldn’t be a USA.
Following is my email yesterday to Mr. Skelton:
[email protected]
Re: The Los Angeles Times, George Skelton, “Dorner Case Shows Folly of Arming Oneself to Combat Government”, February 14, 2013.
Dear Mr. Skelton,
The sophomoric premise of your article, it is a “nutty notion” that “a [single] citizen can be heavily armed enough to fight off the government”, is completely irrelevant to your ensuing implication that Mr. Dorner’s conduct invalidates or undermines the foundations of the Second Amendment. To attempt to link Mr. Dorner’s demise to abolishing gun rights demonstrates a callous, immeasurable ignorance regarding the purpose, context and practical application of the “right to keep and bear arms.” The fact that the overwhelming militarism of a modern day government is sufficient to overcome asingle armed individual is adequately understood, punctuated, and obviouswithout resort your article. Indeed, your main point is immaterial, a myopic attack on the Second Amendment, and another useless example of unsupported supposition attempting to legitimize civil disarmament.
It is unimaginably sad that someone so naïve, narrow-minded, and so lacking in basic understanding of fundamental constitutional principles, has been given such an unbridled voice for opinions masquerading as “news” or “commentary”. Your World War II analogies are both unconscionable and miss the mark by a margin that suggests the most basic disconnect from historical fact. Our own American history, modern 19th and 20th century world history, and the world history being written as we speak tells us that not a single individual, but an armed civilian populace is capable of breaking the chains of tyranny. From our Founding Fathers to present day Syria, examples of armed citizen rebellion overthrowing dictators and despots permeate grade school history books.
Your argument related to a government’s overwhelming military arsenal should rightfully fall on deaf ears. I suspect that not many of the folks advancing on the Syrian international airport in Aleppo share your view that “the government … always wins”, or that “[g]uns to overthrow tyranny, irrational.” Look around George; broaden your mind a little. Committed people, driven by purpose and principle overthrow tyrants and despots. Not unlike our Founding Fathers. Neither Syrian rebels today, the citizen resistance of occupied Europe in WWII, nor our Founding Fathers fighting for freedom against the tyranny of King George, would put any credence in your biased and prejudiced opinions.
Looking most objectively at your hypothesis regarding overwhelming firepower and its use by the government: at last count, in all the gunfire by southern California law enforcement during the hunt for Christopher Dorner, the only person hit by police fire was 47 year old Maggie Caranza, driving a blue Toyota pick-up, delivering newspapers with her 71 year old mother. If this is in fact standard training for LAPD, at a minimum you would think the 2nd Amendment should be interpreted to also protect us against anincompetent government, as well as a tyrannical one.
A quick lesson in American history. Your acknowledgment that “[y]es, the 2ndAmendment was written by patriots who did successfully rebel against the tyranny of aforeign power” is a tad bit off the target. You may want to consult your handy pocket edition of the Declaration of Independence. No worries George, you don’t have to read the whole thing, the clue is right in the first sentence: “When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another.” I’ve underlined the really relevant part to help you out. The British government, led by the monarchy of King George was not a foreigngovernment. It was the government that ruled the Colonies at the time of the American Revolution. Our Founding Fathers rebelled against the government that ruled them, that promulgated laws, and that enforced those laws in an arbitrary and capricious manner to the detriment of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. That is the basic premise of our Constitution, amplified in the “Bill of Rights”. It protects us, its law-abiding citizens, against the tyranny of ourgovernment; not “against the tyranny of aforeign power”. This is a critical distinction; and a basic principle that someone entrusted to inform our public should readily be familiar with. A friendly nudge; you may want to think about that distinction in the context of the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, 13th, and 14th Amendments to the Constitution. Our Founding Fathers did, as well as their distinguished “descendants” following in their footsteps. By the way, they didn’t attach a “sunset clause” to any of them.
Apart from Dorner’s anti-gun politics, just imagine what 100 or 1,000 or 10,000 committed citizens like him could do. Imagine what 100,000 or a 1,000,000 could accomplish. The Continental Army and George Washington lost the vast majority of battles against the British on the conventional battlefield. I once read that Washington won only about one in ten battles. I was 10 years old when South Vietnam fell. Based on what I’ve read of the conflict the US never lost a major fight. Yet, over time and through the willingness to incur loss and wear down their opponent the corrupt South Vietnamese elitist government the North Vietnamese and remnants of the Viet Cong won.
BTW, it cracks me up when the gun-grabbing pro police-nanny state anti-liberty journalists use an event completely out of context to try and prove some point they want people to believe.
As i understand it, Aharon. George Washington kept loosing battles but the one thing he did was keep the continental army intact and viable even though he rarely won. The Brits could never seem to land a knock out punch or force his surrender.
Washington lasted long enough for the French to come into the war on our side, which changed the whole outcome. There’s something to be said for enduring.
Situation 1.
Dorner was the initiator, he killed people, he was an individual. He needed to be captured (or killed) for the safty of others. The police were and should have been highly motivated to eliminate the threat. Done.
Situation 2.
Law abiding peaceful citizens are keeping and bearing arms and if the police or military are ordered to violently disarmed them then the police will be the initiator. Those potentialy being disarmed would be the highly motivated actors. Some but not all of governments agents are robots. There will be a hesitation to send brother against brother and brother to kill brother.
A police officer has the right and voluntarily acts in others defence. He has to be ordered to raid and kill an otherwise peaceful gun owner. That is a large moral threshold to cross.
There is no moral dilemmae in the capture of Dorner. We have to make sure that the military and the police know the difference between protecting and attacking the citizens of this country.
It is obvious that the knob in the article above thinks that the order givers and takers can’t nor wont see a difference. I hope that is so untrue.
Even if civilians couldn’t go up against the government(though I think we could if it came to that), that sure as hell is no reason to just lay down and become subjects before a revolution even starts. It means that we need to roll back the infringements on the second amendment so that we could overthrow them if necessary. Then they’d think twice about backing us into a corner in the fist place.
I’m a Taurus “fanboy”, loved ’em since my Dad got me a pair of PT92’s for my birthday many years ago. I still have both of them and have added a 24/7 GEN2 and a 24/7 GEN2 compact. Many, many rounds down range with no issues at all. Cheap steel case Tulammo likes to FTF, but with the “strike 2” it fired them off EVERY time. I have even modified my failure drill to include a second pull of the trigger before “tap-rack”.
As to customer service, I have never had to send a pistol back, but I have had this experience;
I bought a couple of spare mags (Taurus brand) from an online store. The store didn’t make it clear that the mags I bought were for the GEN1 24/7 and would not work with my GEN2. I thought I had defective mags so I called Taurus, zero wait time, when I explained my “problem” the guy walked me through a couple of things and we figured out what the problem was. Now, keep in mind that I bought these mags from another retailer, not Taurus. But, once we figured out that I had screwed up and ordered the wrong mags, the CS rep had me send in the wrong mags and replaced them with the correct mags! The turn-around time was about 10 days from the phone call to receiving the new mags. Taurus has my business for life. As always, YMMV 🙂
About 200 IRA soldiers did s pretty good job holding the British Government at bay. Plus most true asymmetric warfare would likely be a bit trickier for our government to combat. The gov knew whom to hunt in this case. That’s not usually the case.
First off let me be absolutely clear that I do not support Dorner’s actions and I’m not interested in modeling any part of my life after his.
Having said that, he brought a sh**storm of attention to his complaints and, ultimately, escaped tyranny (via the grave but for some people that’s better than being under the thumb).
Not the sort of outcome I have any interest in but I suspect that might be considered a “win” by some people.
The cops who fried Dorner weren’t taking rounds in the back plate.
There is a difference between on armed psycho-cop, and a limitless number of armed Americans is a general struggle.
Interesting – because I got the completely opposite message from the Dorner incident. A single guy essentially froze multiple MAJOR jurisdiction’s police departments for several days. The resources he locked up were insane and he set the stage for the LAPD to erode the public’s confidence by attempting to murder three citizens who did not match Dorner’s description in any way (we’ll likely never hear anything about those shootings again, they’ll be brushed aside).
As a totally theoretical question for the author of the LA Times piece – what would have happened if Dorner wasn’t one guy? What if he was 10 or 20 guys who worked loosely in concert? What if it was an unknown number of shooters? It’s obvious that the police can’t effectively deal with such threats and it’s even more obvious that such a threat would cause them to commit so many illegal actions that the public would yank the rug from underneath them.
One nut-job dead ok but how many cops are dead and/or injured.?
Just looking at the numbers this guy’s assertion is very incorrect.
Dorner by himself killed 4 LEO and injured 4 more.
There are said to be around 800,000 federal and state and local police in the united states. Assuming naively that there is no force multiplication provided by resistance acting in groups rather than singly and that every LEO would take orders from some hypothetical authoritarian dictator, it would take only 200,000 Dorners to kill all of the LEO in the country.
If you are just concerned with taking them out of commission, then 1 Dorner is worth 8 LEO’s taken out of combat, so it would only take 100,000 Dorners to incapacitate all the LE in the country.
If you are looking at how many Dorners to fully occupy the attention of LE, 1 Dorner is worth about 10,000 LE (the size of the LAPD). So it would take about 80 Dorners to fully tie up the attention of all of the LE in the country.
There are about 4,500,000 NRA members. This number of people could fully occupy the attention of 45,000,000,000 people, or approximately 5x the population of the Earth (7 billion).
875,000,000 Dorners could put out of commission the entire population of Earth.
Again, this is assuming no force multiplication in acting in groups vs. singly, no gains from multiple fronts, ambushes, coordination, etc. All pretty naive assumptions in favor of the LA times thesis.
If they win this would set precedent to overturn every law, like in CA where people need to bribe, eerrr I mean meet with the sheriff.
I agree criminals should not have guns, but if you are law abiding, there should be no reason to not be able to carry. Also They will be looking into the costs. NTC costs somewhere around $500 in fees, where the rest of the state is like $125. They will push for a ruling which could force other states to adopt the you can only charge what it costs to run the program rule.
Criminals should be in jail! Once out of jail, they are no longer criminals and have the same rights you and I have. This is why I don’t believe in background checks.
So we should just give up? FU!!! I guess resistance if futile because 100 cops can surround your house and burn it down with you in it? And riddle you with FULL AUTO FIRE if you try to escape. $hit on that. And the drones haven’t been implemented yet! Something evil this way comes. Some of you who voted for these subversives should be ashamed of your selves, to put it mildly. This is your doing.
Gura has been my hero since Heller…we are talking superman hero in my book
Do not forget that this case (Kachalsky v. Cacace) has a 4th circuit court case in conflict with it (Woollard) and a 7th circuit ruling against Illinois’s concealed carry ban, penned by a leading jurist, Posner. So this is no long shot.
Woollard is a trial court decison that has been appealed by Maryland to the 7th, and therefore does not create a circuit split as it is not binding on any other federal court. It has been cited as persuasive authority, specifically the trial court’s conclusion that the only “good cause” needed to exercise one’s second amendment right is the existence of the right itself, a pithy statement that has an inherent indisputable logic.
So, The Dumbass of the Living Dead is finally (hopefully) returning to the grave? The author of the UNCONSTITIONAL LAUTENBERG AMENDMENT (please reference Article 1, section 9, of the U. S. Constitution regarding ex post facto law)?
This is a blessing from God.
I wil never forget the effect of “The Launtenberg Amendment”. When city prosecutor, I got a call from a man who’d pleaded guilty to misdemeanor harassment the lowest level of assault in AL) in 1976. His ex-wife had made a false complaint to get leverage in their divorce case. The divorce was granted. His laywer told him it would never come back on him, so plead and pay the $25 fine and court costs. When he called me in 1997, he said the sherriff had denied his concealed carry renewal b/c the Lutenberg Amend. had now forced the sherriff to deny it. The man explained that he was now wheelchair bound, his kids lived out of state, and asked,”How can I defend myself now?”
I told him I sympathized and thought this law was an unconstitutional ex post-facto law, but there was nothing I could do. I told him to call his congressman.
Good riddance to a man who’s been a boil on the butt of the Constitution during his entire tenure in the Senate!
.
How long will this take?
The first step in getting a case to the Supreme Court is to convince it to grant certiorari, which is the stage we are at now. The court will usually decide these petitions befor the end of its current term in June. If cert is granted, then the briefing cycle begins. Oral argument is possible in the next term, but not terribly likely. So look at a couple more years.
Which is absurd. Bills should be reviewed for Constitutionality before they are signed into law. It’s ridiculous that the government set up a nice little system where they can violate the Constitution as much as they want and you just have to raise tons of money and hope that you can get the SCOTUS to hear the case and HOPE that they’ll rule in favor of the Constitution.
Yup, this is a big problem. On top of waiting for them to pass the law, you then have to solve the “standing” problem. This is an annoyance in 2nd Amendment cases but it’s a huge problem when it comes to 4th Amendment “surveillance state” cases. For instance, you can’t sue the government for secret surveillance of your e-mails, because you can’t show they’re doing it, because it’s secret.
The amicus brief can be found on The Firing Line, Law and Civil Rights forum. Here is a link. http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?p=5415910#post5415910
It runs 25 pages and is rather elegantly written.
“The government virtually always wins.” Not just virtually. Doubt is doubleplusungood. The government is always right…right?
Nod your head yes, and make sure you’re super enthusiastic when the daily Two Minutes of Hate comes around. Big Brother is watching.
So, they managed to get Donner after several days, a million dollar reward, a general idea of his location (i.e., region), committing hundreds of state a federal officers to the task and, literally, straining the resources of law enforcment to the breaking point. Well done. Now, let’s see how the government does against a couple dozen equally well-armed and trained people when they do not even know who or where they are. A couple hundred? A couple thousand?
By the way, in case it is in any way unclear, there could scarcely be a better place to put your money than the SAF. If there is any doubt of that, simply visit their home page at http://www.saf.org/ and look at the list of “SAF sues…” headlines. They are the front lines of this fight.
Yea pro gun until she has a “change of heart”. I live in PA and just learned my lesson with the Bob Casey, Jr flip.
Prove the gun grabber are losing the argument when Nanny state Bloomburg throws million dollars at her yet she is doing well and if she win become a BIG counter weight to the Obama minded politicians who think its different from November 1994.
If I where unfortunate enough to live in Illinois id vote for her.
Let us hope and pray we dont have to try some of the above theories!
The deterrent factor is what we hope for, that the idiots restricting our freedoms might stop to think they are pushing a bridge too far.
The second amendment allows the first amendment to exist, ie in demonstrations and protests, if these are harshly put down, then the second amendment is appropriate to exercise to support the first.
Syria, Egypt and Libya do prove it can happen today.
Hope they good Reps kill her bills show whats antis are like they have no gonads to fight because they have no facts to back them we do.
A recent study shows that suicides are down. When the two age groups studied are lumped, gun suicides look to be a wash (no change).
Can you say “agenda”?
I’d rather have a pro-2A person than a anti-2A person any day of the week. Even if I don’t agree with the rest of her causes, the 2A is my defining issue.
This hardly helps me as a student in NYS, since you can’t bring a handgun into NYS that’s not registered here. So my Maine permit or a potential future NY non-resident permit would both be useless.
They’re running attack ads against her on TV nearly around the clock. The ads are of course completely biased and misleading, and focused entirely on her pro-2A stance and NRA rating.
She was my congressman back from 2009 to 2011 and I voted for her twice. The guy we had before (Jerry Weller, a Republican) did pretty much nothing in his last two terms except to collect a paycheck, so she was a welcome replacement. She did some good work during her term, but was voted out in 2010.
I’m glad to see she’s running for office again.
A pro 2nd amendment democrat is better than an anti 2nd amendment republican.
I could see S&W signing on, the other 2, not so much.Let’s also push FN Remington etc
It is doubtful that the larger manufacturers would be able to survive in their current capacity without government contracts. A portion of these profits also go to fund lobbying efforts (NRA). To require these manufacturers to give up their market share is unrealistic. There are other entrepreneurs in industry (who may not have a high regard for the 2nd Amendment) that would fill the production void and profit off of government contracts.
Others have lived under much worse conditions, for far longer and still won their freedom without resorting to armed uprisings. The key is to win over the public. The civil rights leaders knew they had to be the better people, to suffer the beatings by police with grace, and to have the courage to stand up and continue marching. That clearly painted one side as good and the other bad. So if the 2nd Amendment supporters believe armed insurrection is necessary, and keep speaking about it as such, they are going to lose the public.
at beginning when i want to went to hunter, i was not had required luggage then i found an online site for bow and arrow my luggage and finally I get it and then I found an online site about hunting this site is very cheap i used it since 2 year
Best thing to do is to make yourself as “small” as possible. To many talk about what they have. To many buy with credit cards. Cash, unless I am wrong, is not traceable. Limit quantities, at least make it look like you have very little that can draw attention.
It was intended to mean well, maybe, but is not going well. The powerful are apparently scared that the people will get the spirit of 1776, and that has the establishment worried, a lot.
A better bet, low profile, stay out of sight.
In today’s news, NYC teachers’ pension fund dumps its investment in various gun companies, including S&W, Ruger, and Taurus, stating that “There is no need to support these companies, whose products can destroy lives and shatter communities in the blink of an eye,” Liu said in a statement. “Our investment portfolio gains nothing by doing business with these firms.”
Seems to me that tit for tat (you won’t do business with us, well then we won’t do business with you) would be an appropriate response.
I thought this was already covered…the answer to me is NO. Never another penny of my money. Their shipping prices are ridiculous anyhow.
Dead to me. Even if they donated me $100k, I would still have issue. It’s the principle.
They inflate their prices to take advantage of politics and tragedy, even when their distributors/suppliers haven’t increased the price. If other companies can sell pmags for the same price they did 6 months ago, then CTD could do it as well. Their shipping policy sucks too.
Not as long as Davidson’s Gallery can offer me the firearms I need, And there are plenty of other places for accessories and ammo. I always check my LGS first. They have served me well and deserve first chance at EVERYTHING. CTD just jumped the shark after Newtown as far as I’m concerned.
Papaw said, “A burned child dreads the fire.” Their immediate gouging, cryptic messages about evaluating their policies, and did I mention their immediate gouging?I’ll be very leery of CTD for a long while. Never bought a firearm from them, but bought other stuff. I’ll still wait…for a long, long time.
Emails sent to S&W and Sig
lets collect email addresses from firearm manufacturers as well ammo manufacturers like ATK and distributors like RSR Group.
Here kitty kitty.
I actually have the scoop on this one. One of my buddies just graduated from the Baltimore Police Academy and according to him, the officer who shot the trainee placed the simunition pistol in his pocket without removing his actual pistol from his holster. Then when it came time for training, he mistakenly drew his duty pistol and shot the trainee in the head. Sheer stupidity.
“Eeeek! A mouse! These are Mousers, yes?!?”
What is just so mind boggingly stupid about the whole “High Capacity” argument is that for an AR15 based weapon, a 30 round magazine is actually STANDARD. It’s the hundred round POS C-Mags that they should worry about. Well not too much to worry since I haven’t seen too many that feed reliably.
Dead to me, dead and in the ground.
Some here have characterized my original email to RF as a case of over reacting to a highly admired corporate CEO’s slightly flawed example that was not “prejudicial against firearms.”
I would submit that it was not an over reaction and the fact that SWA was so quick to write an apology validates that. SWA’s corporate communications staff recognized that Mr Kelly had stepped over a bright red line by equating guns with sin thereby causing offense to at least some gun owners. SWA may have learned from this episode that gun rights are precious to at least some Americans and that we don’t like being called sinners for having a personal defense weapon. I am a sinner for sure but not for having a gun.
Just as important though is that gun owners learn that we are at war with an enemy who is a master of propaganda and psyops who is working to stigmatize and isolate gun owners as pariahs. As Lenin said, “A lie told often enough becomes the truth.”
Lenin also knew that a disarmed population was a prerequisite to the absolute supremacy of the state because “One man with a gun can control 100 without one.”
Christopher Dorner recently showed what a threat one rifleman is to a police state. Therefore the elites must disarm the American populace and the conditioning of the masses against gun ownership is central to that plan. Mr Kelly’s overlooking of the a staffer’s inclusion of gun excise tax in the sin tax category reflects the effectiveness of the campaign in subtly shaping even the attitudes of a native Texan born in San Antonio, the home of the Alamo.
This organized effort to stigmatize gun owners is led by an “ends justifies the means” cabal that dances in the blood of slain children to advance its agenda. Like useful utopian idiots and greedy public sector employees, many big businesses would be fellow travelers seeking to curry favor with the state if it were not for their CEO’s fears that a boycott by gun owners would hurt this quarters financial performance and their bonus.
Lenin understood the heart of big business, “The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.” Gun owners through the power of the purse should not be reluctant to make big business afraid of collaborating with a runaway government that seeks to eliminate our individual freedom. Lenin knew individual freedom and the state desired by our current President cannot co-exist. “When there is state there can be no freedom, but when there is freedom there will be no state.”
For those who doubt there is a concerted effort to stigmatize and isolate gun owners I offer up the following examples that took all of five minutes to find via Google.
“Breitbart.com has uncovered video from 1995 of then-U.S. Attorney Eric Holder announcing a public campaign to “really brainwash people into thinking about guns in a vastly different way.” Holder was addressing the Woman’s National Democratic Club. In his remarks, broadcast by CSPAN 2, he explained that he intended to use anti-smoking campaigns as his model to “change the hearts and minds of people in Washington, DC” about guns.” What was Fast and Furious other than an attempt to drum up support for re-institution of the AWB.
A year before Eric Holder made his remarks, Dr. Mark Rosenberg, as Director of the Centers for Disease Control’s National Center for Injury Control and Prevention, advocated treating guns like cigarettes, until they become “dirty, deadly, and banned.”
Valerie Jarrett and Barack Obama were both on the board at the Joyce Foundation. “Since 2003, the Joyce Foundation has paid grants totaling over $12 million to gun control organizations. The largest single grantee has been the Violence Policy Center, which received $4,154,970 between 1996 and 2006, and calls for an outright ban on handguns, semi-automatic and other firearms, and substantial restrictions on gun owners. – Wikipeida article on the Joyce Foundation. ” A listing of the grantees shows that all of them fall within the education, medical, public health, children’s health, gun control advocacy, media, consumer and local government groups. Again to quote from Lenin, “Give us the child for 8 years and it will be a Bolshevik forever.”
From the Huffington Post, 12/21/2012, Breaking the American Gun Culture Once and For All, Bob Cesca, “Due to effective marketing and lobbying, gun ownership has evolved from being a frontier necessity to a creepy, penile, Freudian symbol of masculinity and power. American guns have become unmistakable displays of virility and strength — of aggression, resolve and heroism….. The campaign against Big Tobacco, for example, has been highly successful on both fronts: cigarettes are more difficult to purchase (advertising has disappeared and prices have skyrocketed, though not enough), and the very act of smoking has become increasingly stigmatized, with smokers banished outside to huddle like societal pariahs under awnings and in bus shelters. It’s absolutely possible to accomplish the same goals with firearms.”
David Hemenway is the Director of the Injury Control Research Center at Harvard University. During an NPR interview he described how to curb gun violence. His argument was society needs to treat guns like cigarettes. There was a time when cigarettes were glamorous, and now they are considered disgusting. Everyone has been educated about the health risk and as a result, those who still smoke have become largely inconspicuous.
From the Daily Kos, 12/14/2012, “Let’s make guns as unpopular as cigarettes”, These mass shootings have amounted to a public health crisis. The gun industry reminds me of the tobacco industry — selling a lethal product but washing their hands of the consequences. Well, the tobacco industry eventually had to admit their lies. They have had to put warning labels on their products. They’ve seen their sales shrink. And tobacco has been taxed and banned in many places. People still smoke, but we are no longer duped into believing that cigarettes are safe or just an individual choice….We can do the same thing with guns.
Gun owners are in a fight to preserve our individual liberty. The enemy from within is relentless and will use every means available to convince low information voters that the state is a kind mother figure who is trying to save them from testosterone crazed, macho, gun owning sinners ready to slay their children. We must push back against this meme that lawful gun owners are the pariahs responsible for the murder and mayhem caused by 50 years of coddling of the criminal and insane members of society.
As for Mr Kelly, who is the Chairman-CEO of the largest US domestic airline with over $17B in revenue, he is not a low information voter. Since 1999 FEC records show he has given $32,500 to Democratic candidates and $6,600 to Republican candidates for federal office. He is a Certified Public Accountant and former CFO of SWA. A CPA and CFO of a fleet of 600 airborne bars which pay “sin taxes” on all of the liquor consumed in those bars should be more knowledgeable about the history of sin taxes.
Lumping the excise taxes on ammunition and guns in with tobacco and booze was a mistake. Maybe Mr Kelly can fly back down to his hometown, San Antonio on Warrior One and walk around the hallowed grounds of the Alamo to reinforce his commitment to the second amendment and the why free men have guns. We have them to prevent tyranny. Concurrent with his trip to the Alamo, I am sure the NRA would appreciate him presenting a nice check to Eddie Eagle.
Mr Kelly by all accounts seems to be a man of integrity who leads by example. He is the leader of one of America’s top 10 most admired companies. Although his unintentional mistake does not rise to the same level as SWA Captain James Taylor’s, I think it is appropriate that he be held to the same high standard that SWA held Captain Taylor who in 2011 unintentionally broadcast a conversation with his co-pilot that was peppered with foul language directed at gay, overweight and older flight attendants. According to SWA Captain Taylor was reprimanded, temporarily suspended without pay and received diversity education before being reinstated. Captain Taylor also sent an e-mail apology to all of Southwest’s employees, especially the crew bases they criticized.
I don’t think calling attention to Mr Kelly’s unintentional misinterpretation of “sin tax” is an over reaction and I don’t think Mr Kelly took it as one either.
Notwithstanding that, as that great libertarian Barry Goldwater said in his 1964 Republican presidential nomination acceptance speech, “I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!”
I see a rise in violent crime in Colorado’s future. More gun control=bolder criminals. It always happens every time it’s tried.
I thought this was more telling of the mindset:
Because people in law enforcement deal with criminals every day, Grebert thinks they have, “a greater right” to weapons, “to deal with potentially violent situations.
I should move to NY, apparently neither criminals nor violence are experienced daily by the residents there.
I’m sad for the employees of Magpul that will now lose their jobs because of the elected officials that do not care about them. The lunatics are running the asylum for sure. I would love to see Magpul come to Alabama but I’m sure Texas will likely be the new home for them.
I need to see these guys maintain this round of posturing for no less than 12 months before I can consider them worth my hard earned dollars.
That being said, Keep it up CTD folks!
I converted the pages to jpg and posted on Free Republic. If you want to grab them to share just click and save from http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2989334/posts
It was way up in the thread but I have two territories the English kept by force against the will of the natives, Wales and Scotland.
England today might be included since there seems to be broad dissatisfaction with their government and a policy in place to keep the peasants from having weapons.
So idiots like this want to persuade those of us that believe that we actually can and should resist tyranny, that we had better just give in and lye down for the despots and their supporters like him. Let them take all your property, murder your sons, rape your daughters and do nothing to resist it now before it ever starts. That’s my take here. And, by the way, the government’s ability to hunt down and eliminate ONE man (and a racist criminal at that)proves absolutely nothing of the kind. We who follow the founder’s advice and philosophies know that divided we are defeated, but united against the forces of tyranny, we prevail!