Disinformation » Guns

NYPD Developing Scanners To Detect Concealed Weapons

HAL9000 — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 06:11:46 +0000

Presumably sick of all the bleeding heart liberals whining about civil rights, NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly has devised an elegant solution to sidestep the controversy over his department’s stop and frisk policy. Speaking at a State of the NYPD breakfast this morning, Kelly announced that the NYPD is developing a kind of infrared technology that will enable police officers to detect whether individuals are carrying guns under their clothing. Sure, it’s not as badass as shooting down a plane, but at least cops will finally be able to see what’s under our clothes without having to get out of their cars.

The mechanism, which the NYPD is developing with help from the U.S. Department of Defense, currently only works at a short range of three or four feet. But Kelly thinks they can improve it to scan citizens from a distance of up to 25 meters away. He announced this morning that the gadget will be mounted on NYPD vans with “the infrared rays shooting up the street at the person,” as the Post puts it.

The device detects the radiation emitting from a person’s body, and it can’t penetrate metal, so a concealed gun can be spotted from the image captured by the detector’s lens …

Cosmic Cycles of Violence: John Lennon and Dimebag Darrell Gunned Down on December 8

cybercasualty — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 22:35:07 +0000

Courtesy of Brandt Hardin

From RockStarMartyr.net:

Pantera’s furious music was propelled by guitarist Darrell Abbott’s maniacal claws ripping across a Washburn fretboard. The music was aggression distilled, warfare on vinyl, the hellish harmonics of testosterone-pumped teenagers smashing beer bottles and crucifixes, the pentatonic expression of sociopathic sexual impulse turned loose on loose pussy, power chords and possession, amplifiers and alcohol, whammy bars and whimsical youth. Pantera was pissed. And yet, no one remembers the jolly Dimebag Darrell being particularly pissed in day-to-day life. Not nearly as pissed as John Lennon was, anyway.

Behind the lead Beatle’s circular granny glasses and tireless promotion of peace burned a fury unmatched by most metal enthusiasts. Lennon was pissed at his parents, pissed at his bandmates, pissed at his stay-at-home wife, pissed at Her Majesty the Queen, pissed at America’s war machine, pissed at the world for not giving peace a chance. Lennon was fucking hostile. But neither Dimebag nor Lennon were as pissed as the two pistol-wielding schizophrenics who made them into rock star martyrs, both on December 8, twenty-four years apart.

To be fair, John Lennon’s youth in England was marred by parental abandonment and random death. His sea-faring father left John in 1946 when he was only five, and his eccentric mother, Julia, left her son in care of his aunt Mimi in a house full of women. His mother eventually came back into John’s life a few years later—even buying him his first guitar—only to be run over and killed by an off-duty cop one sunny afternoon when John was only seventeen.

John took his personal pain and pissed disposition to the Liverpool College of Art, where he met the straight-laced Cynthia Powell, who would become his wife, and became best friends with the brilliant painter Stuart Suttcliffe, who for a brief time would become the musically incompetent fifth Beatle during their formative residencies in Hamburg, Germany.

In January of 1962, the Beatles signed a contract with their new manager, Brian Epstein, a closet homosexual Hebrew who immediately fell in love with the young John Lennon. Epstein’s savvy negotiations would see the barely-known Beatles become the biggest band in the world within two years, and that astonishing success would see Epstein become, in Lennon’s playful words, a “rich Jew fag.” Everybody wins until somebody dies.

The Beatles returned to Hamburg in April of that year, where they were to visit Stuart and his new wife. They were greeted with the news that Suttcliffe was dead. Coroners had found a brain tumor below an indentation in his skull—perhaps inflicted when a group of thugs attacked Stuart in a pub, or else by John when he kicked Stu’s head into the pavement for leaving the band. John fell into a somber silence for days, finally pulling it together to console Suttcliffe’s widow, and then resume his raucous rock star ambitions.

In July, Lennon learned that Cynthia Powell was pregnant. Rather than getting pissed and knocking her around, as he would do during jealous rages—or paying a £200 settlement for her silence, as Epstein had done for numerous others—John a sked Cynthia to marry him. Their son Julian was born in April the next year, two days shy of Sutcliffe’s deathday. Family life is usually a total cock-stopper for hard rockers, but unlike many aspiring musicians, becoming a father never stifled Lennon’s rise to ultra-mega-super-stardom. It didn’t slow his groupie-scrogging, either.

That year, 1963, Beatlemania engulfed the UK on the heels of Twist and Shout. These dazzling English chaps with their shaggy mops and spiffy gentleman’s suits rode to the top of the world on a wave of squealing pubescent girls. Twenty years later, Dimebag Darrell (then known as “Diamond” Darrell) would launch what would become the biggest, most aggressive mainstream metal band in the world. Of course, in those days the glammed-out members of Pantera dressed like, well, squealing pubescent girls.

✝✝✝

By all accounts, Darrell Abbott and his brother Vinnie Paul enjoyed a remarkably stable childhood growing up in a working class neighborhood near Arlington, TX. Their father Jerry was a musician, and fervently cultivated his sons’ ambitions to become rock stars. Their mother was no less nurturing, working hard at a factory to support her jobless boys’ hobbies. By this point in history, rock n’ roll was just another pastime.

Darrell spent countless hours alone in his room practicing guitar licks while Vinnie hammered away on his drum set. Unlike many disturbed metal fans, the boys didn’t immerse themselves in hard music to escape from the irritating world outside so much as escape into the powerful fantasy worlds of heavy metal. While other boys went to school, played sports, partied, got laid, got jobs, and all that normal shit, the Abbott brothers continued to rock out at their parents’ house well after most kids had gone off to college and started careers.

Darrell prostrated himself before the guitar gods of his youth until the day he died. He gauged his musical progress by phlegm accumulation—while playing a particularly difficult lick, he would arch back and hock some nostril sauce over his shoulder onto his infamous “loogie wall.” Each thick splat signified another riff under his belt. Listening to the exquisite dynamic between Eddie and Alex Van Halen, the Abbott brothers wouldn’t be satisfied until they became Van Halen.

Pantera’s first six albums were recorded at Jerry Abbott’s studio near the boys’ home. Their father actually created a label for their first releases. Pantera’s early efforts were a dripping cheese sandwich on toasted metal: Metal Magic, Projects in the Jungle, I Am the Night, and finally, Power Metal, which was written by their original singer—who was a pussy—and recorded with their newfound singer, Phil Anselmo—who was pissed. Once Phil showed up, Pantera became what they were always meant to be: cowboys from hell.

Dimebag’s blistering riffs and Phil’s endless anger—at cops, Christ, corporate trendies, and the various cock-nozzles life will throw at you—propelled Pantera to the heights of Headbanger’s Ball and around the planet on multiple world tours. But it didn’t matter where Dimebag found himself—the world was his wet bar, every new face was a new best friend, and each concert was a hysterical joke for which a smashed guitar was the punchline. Darrell rarely found time to be truly pissed. Life was entirely too fun for actual fury.

✝✝✝

Courtesy of Brandt Hardin

John Lennon prostrated himself before many gurus during his life, in his own swaggering manner. Through absorption, projection, and continual metamorphosis, he became the most iconic guru of the revolutionary generation. Lennon became a hero wherever a hero was needed most.

The first waves of Beatlemania saw John Lennon: Sex Icon. He had watched Elvis get all shook up, and now it was his turn. One glance could unleash a spastic spontaneous orgasm—or at least, so it seems from the grainy footage. The Beatles were like sweat-soaked vibrators buzzing across the world. The teeny-boppers lined up in droves, panting, weeping, screaming, fainting, falling all over themselves to get just one inch closer to the sly, if agonized Lennon. Of course, pretty boy Paul McCartney got the lion’s share of adoration, and for the competitive Lennon that would never do.

Fortunately, no other Beatle had the nerve to touch his role as John Lennon: Rebel Icon. Sensible, traditional, down home decent folk balked at his observation that “Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink … We’re more popular than Jesus now. I don’t know which will go first—rock n’ roll or Christianity.” Inflammatory statements like that ensured that kids would love him and parents would hate him, even if they wound up buying their kids more Beatles albums.

After turning off his mind in the mid-Sixties, he became John Lennon: Psychedelic Icon. Inspired by Timothy Leary’s enthusiastic writings and bombarded with a continuous supply of LSD, Lennon began dosing on a daily basis. The first few times were freak outs, but once he got the hang of it, tripping became his fast-track to enlightenment. The Beatles’ music shifted into another dimension. Revolver and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club became psychedelic staples. “Tomorrow Never Knows” and a sugar cube might take you across the universe. It wasn’t long before Lennon got burnt out on chemical mind expansion, though, and set out looking for a heavier trip.

The Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was a creepy little gnome, but his Transcendental Meditation cult briefly captivated the Beatles in 1967, and inspired the development of John Lennon: Spiritual Icon. This short period of navel-gazing and chanting the sacred Om was to be an eerily pivotal moment in the singer’s life. After years of abuse and alienation from John’s life of stardom, his wife Cynthia made the decision to leave John after she was pushed back by a security guard while trying to board a train for the Maharishi’s retreat in Wales. The Beatles went on without her. Lennon’s manager Brian Epstein was wary of the devious guru’s exploitation of his clients’ fame, but Epstein died of a drug overdose while the band was meditating at the retreat, so that was that. “Now you will be able to come to India with me,” the Maharishi told them, which they did. Lennon didn’t last long in India, though, what with all the mindless conformity, bland food, and accusations that the Maharishi had sexually assaulted Lennon’s fellow aspirant, actress Mia Farrow. When the guru asked why he was leaving, Lennon replied, “If you’re so cosmic, you should know.” Lennon’s spiritual quest would not end there, however, as he would soon find himself kneeling at the Goddess’ feet.

John met Yoko Ono at one of her art shows at the same Indica bookshop where he had discovered Timothy Leary’s manual The Psychedelic Experience. He later said that lightning struck immediately, creating John Lennon: Pussy-whipped Icon. After a bizarre courtship in which the witchy Yoko basically stalked Lennon at his home and wedged herself between him and his already estranged wife, the two finally consummated their love. The day before, Lennon had held a meeting with the Beatles and core members of the Apple Corps, where he proclaimed with no hint of humor, “I’ve got something very important to tell you all. I am Jesus Christ come back again. This is my thing.” Yoko became his Mary Magdalene with which he could work on half-baked conceptual art projects, record bizarre noises that barely resemble music, release album covers and photo shoots displaying their fig-leafless flabby asses, abandon his band, his family, and his manhood, and of course, do up massive amounts of heroin.

By the end of 1969, Woodstock had made people believe in the power of music to create peace, Charles Manson had been inspired by The White Album to slaughter of Sharon Tate and friends to start the race war, Altamont had called all possibility of peace into question, the draft had been reinstated for the Vietnam War, and the Beatles had called it quits with extreme animosity, after less than a decade together.

With his leftist lover now permanently attached, he became John Lennon: Revolutionary Icon. The couple moved to New York and met with the Yippies to lend a hand in stirring up the shit. They wore bags during interviews to subvert the prejudices associated with race, beauty, and of all things, hair length. After marrying, they held a highly publicized “Bed In” as an eccentric “commercial for peace.” John took Yoko’s last name, becoming John Oko Lennon, and began calling his wife “Mother.” He wrote cynical songs about working class heroes, hopeful songs imagining no religion, countries, or possessions, provocative songs about women being the niggers of the world, doubtful songs about not believing in Hitler, Jesus, Kennedy, Kings, or Elvis, desperate songs asking people to just give peace a chance.

They projected the image of perfect soul mates, inspiring people who had given up on love to open their hearts. But in 1973, John took some time off from the marriage. He moved out of the house, got wasted every night, and perhaps most importantly, he started banging his twenty-two year-old personal assistant, the petite Asian May Pang—all at Yoko’s insistence. After a year and a half of belated bachelorhood, he crawled back to Yoko with his tail tucked between his legs. In 1975, Yoko gave birth to Sean. They both retired from public life to raise their son, and the new father settled into John Lennon: Family Man Icon for the last five years of his life.

Three weeks after the release of their comeback album, Double Fantasy, John Lennon signed a copy for a disgruntled fan waiting outside the Dakota apartment building in New York. A few hours later, that same fan shot him dead. The signed copy is presently on sale for nearly one million dollars.

✝✝✝

Dimebag Darrell’s story isn’t nearly as complicated or convoluted. The details of his life are scant compared to someone like Lennon, whose every burp and fart was documented and filed away, but by all appearances, life was really quite simple for Dimebag. He celebrated Halloween like it was New Year’s Eve, and approached life like every day was Halloween. Special occasions called for a drink, and every moment was a special occasion. If you were invited, you had to drink, most likely a black tooth grin (two shots of whiskey and a splash of cola.) And it didn’t matter who you were, everyone was invited.

If he didn’t have a guitar in his hand, Dimebag had a drink or a bottle rocket ready to blast it in your face. He was a tireless prankster. If he caught you asleep, you were canvas. If you were looking the other way, you were a target. If you took yourself too seriously, like the time he stumbled across tedious guitar god Yngwie Malmsteen at a hotel and had his roadie accost him with a bag of donuts (“No, I don’t like donuts! I don’t like donuts!”), you were a piece of performance art for his home video collection. One of his posse’s finest productions was short skit in which a roadie gets his hand smashed off by a road case and stolen by a random passerby. Had he not been so engrossed in music, Dimebag may have been an America’s Funniest Home Videos contender.

First and foremost was family. Dimebag was fiercely dedicated to his brother, Vinnie Paul. When Dave Mustaine left Metallica, he offered Dimebag the spot as lead guitarist in Megadeth. Darrell agreed, on the condition that his brother would be the new drummer. But Megadeth already had a drummer, and Dimebag had better songs to write, anyway.

Whenever Darrell came home to Texas from touring, the first thing he did was have a drink. The next thing he did was visit his mother and pay off her credit cards. Even after he had earned a small fortune, Dimebag’s home was never more than a few miles away from the house he grew up in, which was just a few miles from his father’s recording studio. Pantera’s first six albums were recorded with his father, and the seventh, Far Beyond Driven, was recorded with another producer at their father’s new studio in Nashville, TN. Dimebag never tired of familiar places. His love life was no exception.

Darrell met Rita Haney at the age of eight when she kicked him off of his bicycle. They remained friends until they were teenagers, when he made his first move. They never looked back from that kiss, and were joined in common law marriage until the day he died. By all accounts, Rita never slowed Dimebag down. At the very least, she never asked him to wear a fucking bag during interviews. If Dime wasn’t partying at home or playing onstage, he was doing both at a strip club. How many women Dimebag slept with is not a matter of public record—it could have been one, it could have been one thousand. Considering the typical road rules of the rock star fraternity, one is inclined to believe the latter. A gentleman does not kiss and tell, but it’s doubtful that Rita would care if he did either.

When the band settled into their final four-piece—Phil, Dimebag, Vinnie, and Rex—they shed their girly outfits for regular street clothes. Pantera’s true debut was Cowboys from Hell in 1990, and it blew up like a car bomb. Vulgar Display of Power had twice the blast radius, and 1994’s Far Beyond Driven remains the most aggressive album to ever chart at #1. Any pissed off kid who didn’t want to be pissed alone gathered around Pantera. Their message was blood simple: Fight for your friends and fuck up your enemies.

Phil Anselmo wrote all of the lyrics, but of course, Dimebag sang along to every song. The message flowed through him. Phil was an archetypal warrior male, furious at the world. His words aimed the machine gun and Dimebag fed him the gain-heavy ammunition. Fuck your parents, fuck your girlfriend, fuck the cops, fuck their government, fuck the Christians, and on a bad day, fuck the Christ they stood for. Pantera’s sound was as provincial as Dimebag’s drawling Texas accent, as Southern as the Confederate flag on his custom Washburn, as damaging as the black tooth grins soaking into his liver. Funny thing is, Dimebag never stopped smiling. Everything was a laugh.

While the trials must have been many, Dimebag’s biographies only describe three traumatic experiences in his life. The first was the death of his mother, who succumbed to cancer in 1999. The second came after 9/11, which left Pantera stranded in Ireland for two weeks. Phil had been struggling with heroin addiction for years, exacerbated by degenerating discs in his spine. The tension was mounting over his erratic behavior. When the band arrived back in the States, they went their separate ways but never came back together. In 2003, they finally announced the break up of Pantera. The Abbott brothers had become the “enemy” that Phil was so intent on fucking.

So far as Dimebag was concerned, Pantera and their road crew were family, thick as blood. Nothing could hurt him like the dissolution of his tribe. The Abbotts formed a new band, Damageplan, but had fallen from playing packed arenas to filling small clubs. “The highs and lows of rock n’ roll,” was all the bitching Dimebag would indulge. To make matters worse, a war of words continued in the press between Anselmo and the Abbotts.

In December of 2004, Metal Hammer published an ominous interview with Phil Anselmo in which he unleashed his fury:

“[W]hat comes around obviously goes around, and that is definitely something that is a very powerful force in my life…Cycles on top of cycles. Revenge on top of revenge. I suggest no one do me wrong…Things don’t go so well for them…And I lift not a finger…”

When the subject moved on to the Abbotts, Phil said:

“[Dimebag] would attack me vocally, and just knowing that he was so much smaller than me, I could kill him like a fucking piece of vapor…He knows that and the world should know that and so, physically of course, he deserves to be beaten severely…

“I was…a unique, unbelievably magnetic front man…I have a devoted following that would do anything for me, anything that I say.”

One week later, a crazed fan jumped onstage and gunned Dimebag Darrell down as well as a body guard, a stagehand, and a fan, before being shot by Officer James Niggemeyer. Talk about unfortunate timing.

✝✝✝

Happiness is a warm gun. So heavy in the hand. So easy to pull the trigger. One flick of the finger makes a tiny hole. God-like power. Any idiot can do it.

Nathan Miles Gale grew up in small town Ohio. He was batshit crazy, and pissed as all hell. He believed that Mike Judge was watching his every move, basing Beavis and Butthead off of his pathetic life. He also believed that the guys in Pantera were up to the same tricks. He listened to their music so much that the songs became his own. They were stealing his lyrics for their songs. Why wouldn’t anyone else understand that?

He saw menacing faces hovering above his bed at night. Their voices taunted him, called him a homosexual, told him to hurt people.

Nathan enjoyed drugs. He smoked dope, dropped acid, ate pills, snorted coke. When the Twin Towers fell on 9/11, Nathan was alone in thinking that Marilyn Manson was behind the attacks. He joined the Marines at nineteen, but was discharged when it was learned he was schizophrenic. He moved into an apartment next to his mother. In December of 2002 she bought him a 9mm Beretta. Two years later, he took it to a Damageplan concert at Alrosa Villa in Columbus, Ohio to find Dimebag Darrell and settle the score.

Mark David Chapman was born in Texas, but went to school in Georgia outside of Atlanta. He traveled the world from there. He also smoked dope, dropped acid, ate pills, snorted coke, and became a born again Christian. He was also batshit crazy, a god in his own mind, ruling over the voices which he called the Little People.

After cheating on his fiance, he decided to go to Hawaii where he would kill himself. He was committed to a mental facility there, but was so liked that he was hired on part time after his release. He eventually married a Japanese-American woman, just like John Lennon. He listened to Lennon’s music obsessively, just as he read The Catcher in the Rye. After reading a book about Lennon’s lavish lifestyle in New York, he was extremely pissed. He was indignant that Lennon would arrogantly disavow Jesus. And how could John Lennon: Revolutionary Icon tell people to imagine no possessions and yet live as a millionaire? He told the Little People that he would kill John Lennon. They begged him not to, but his mind was made up. The Little People fell silent.

After two previous attempts were aborted in last minute panic, Chapman arrived in New York on December 6, 1980. The last thing he did before finding John Lennon was buy yet another copy of The Catcher in the Rye, in which he would write: “This is my statement” signed—Holden Caulfield. He left the book in his hotel room, but brought a copy of Double Fantasy and a loaded .38 with him.

By demons be driven.

✝✝✝

John Lennon gave his final print interview to Rolling Stone the day Mark David Chapman arrived in New York, but it was never published until thirty years after his death, one year ago. Many people claim that Lennon had shown foreknowledge of his death, and this interview shows an eerie prescience that makes one wonder if Yoko’s nutty New Age ideas of cosmic connections were really that far-fetched, though it raises a number of questions about the couple’s belief that projecting one’s thoughts and intentions can create one’s reality.

“They only like people when they’re on the way up,” Lennon told Jonathan Cott, “and when they’re up there, they’ve got nothing else to do but shit on them. I cannot be on the way up again. What they want is dead heroes, like Sid Vicious and James Dean. I’m not interested in being a dead fucking hero….So forget ‘em, forget ‘em.”

To see the full collection of the sanctified dead, visit RockStarMartyr.net

Turn Deceased Loved Ones’ Ashes Into Bullets

JacobSloan — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 16:10:37 +0000

The Alabama-based company Holy Smoke will do just this, loading cremated remains into live shotgun rounds — allowing for numerous possibilities of sweetly perfect, Tarantino-esque posthumous vengeance:

My friend smiled and said “You know I’ve thought about this for some time and I want to be cremated. Then I want my ashes put into some turkey load shotgun shells and have someone that knows how to turkey hunt use the shotgun shells with my ashes to shoot a turkey. That way I will rest in peace knowing that the last thing that one turkey will see is me, screaming at him at about 900 feet per second.”

I realized that my friend was describing almost exactly how I wanted my ashes to be spread. How perfect to have my family and friends honor me by using shotgun shells with a little bit of my ash in each one. Whether my shells get shot at sporting clays or live birds or put on the shelf, even in death I could be ecologically sound and useful.

From that statement, we started a company that can take your or your loved ones ashes and produce an eco-friendly way to spread or use those ashes while conducting a favored activity.
With care and reverence, we can place the ashes of your loved ones into almost any caliber or gauge of ammunition.

TSA Finds Four To Five Guns In Carry-On Bags Every Day At Airports

Join Or DIE — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 04:09:24 +0000

Reports Mike M. Ahlers on CNN:

Federal airport screeners still find four to five guns at checkpoints on a typical day, the Transportation Security Administration’s chief told a Senate hearing Wednesday.

“Yesterday we found six, including one at … Bradley (airport in Connecticut) — a loaded gun with seven rounds in it, in a checked bag that (a passenger) was trying to get through,” Administrator John Pistole said.

Passengers typically say they forgot the weapon was in their bag, TSA officials said. But in one recent case, a passenger at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport tried to board a plane with two pistols, three ammunition magazines, eight knives and a hand saw in a carry-on bag, the TSA said. That passenger was arrested by local law enforcement.

More: CNN

The Black Panthers And The Right To Bear Arms

JacobSloan — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 18:36:27 +0000

The founding fathers of the modern “gun rights” movement in America was…the Black Panthers ?? Yes, or so the Atlantic argues in an interesting piece on the twisted, tangled history of firearm ownership in America:

The Ku Klux Klan, Ronald Reagan, and, for most of its history, the NRA all worked to control guns. The true pioneers of the modern pro-gun movement? The Black Panthers. In the battle over gun rights in America, both sides have distorted history and the law, and there’s no resolution in sight.

It was May 2, 1967, and the Black Panthers’ invasion of the California statehouse launched the modern gun-rights movement. On the west lawn of the state capitol in Sacramento 30 young black men and women [arrived] carrying .357 Magnums, 12-gauge shotguns, and .45-caliber pistols. The 24 men and six women climbed the capitol steps, and one man, Bobby Seale, began to read from a prepared statement. “The time has come for black people to arm themselves against this terror before it is too late.”

Opposition to gun control as what drove the black militants to visit the California capitol with loaded weapons in hand. The Black Panther Party had been formed six months earlier, in Oakland, by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale. Like many young African Americans, Newton and Seale were frustrated with the failed promise of the civil-rights movement. Brown v. Board of Education, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were legal landmarks, but they had yet to deliver equal opportunity. In Newton and Seale’s view, the only tangible outcome of the civil-rights movement had been more violence and oppression, much of it committed by the very entity meant to protect and serve the public: the police.

Inspired by the teachings of Malcolm X, Newton and Seale decided to fight back. Before he was assassinated in 1965, Malcolm X had preached against Martin Luther King Jr.’s brand of nonviolent resistance. Because the government was “either unable or unwilling to protect the lives and property” of blacks, he said, they had to defend themselves “by whatever means necessary.” Malcolm X illustrated the idea for Ebony magazine by posing for photographs in suit and tie, peering out a window with an M-1 carbine semiautomatic in hand. Malcolm X and the Panthers described their right to use guns in self-defense in constitutional terms. “Article number two of the constitutional amendments,” Malcolm X argued, “provides you and me the right to own a rifle or a shotgun.”

The Pathers’ efforts provoked an immediate backlash. Republicans in California eagerly supported increased gun control. Governor Reagan told reporters that afternoon that he saw “no reason why on the street today a citizen should be carrying loaded weapons.” He called guns a “ridiculous way to solve problems that have to be solved among people of good will.” In a later press conference, Reagan said he didn’t “know of any sportsman who leaves his home with a gun to go out into the field to hunt or for target shooting who carries that gun loaded.” The Mulford Act, he said, “would work no hardship on the honest citizen.”

Honor Your Loved One’s Memory By Firing Away

Join Or DIE — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 07:48:47 +0000

Via Neatorama:

If you’d like to go out with a bang, Holy Smoke LLC offers to pack your cremated ashes (or those of your loved ones) into ammunition cartridges. You tell them the caliber or gauge, ship the remains to them, and they’ll load the cartridges:

Once the caliber, gauge and other ammunition parameters have been selected, we will ask you (by way of your funeral service provider) to send approximately one pound of the decadent’s ash to us. Upon receiving the ashes our professional and reverent staff will place a measured portion of ash into each shot-shell or cartridge.[...]

Our return shipment to the sender will be the finished ammunition, boxed in available labeled ammunition boxes. We also offer mantle-worthy wooden carriers with engraved name plates. Your return shipment will also include any unused ash in a separate, labeled container.

Ohio Cop Goes Beserk, Threatens To Execute Man During Arrest (Video)

BananaFamine — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 18:28:26 +0000

On June 8, 2011 the following unfortunate arrest took place in Canton, OH. Notifying the policy when you have a firearm is required by Ohio Law, but when this individual with a thirty-day old license tries to do that he is repeatedly ordered to look away, shut up, or interrupted and “forced” to change what he is speaking about by the actions of an aggressive cop who maintains verbal control of the situation.

A two man car dealing with three people put itself at risk when one officer started what appears to be an illegal search of the rear of the car without extracting or securing the driver — which would have given him an opportunity to notify. What follows is horrific example of a police officer losing all self-control, threatening to beat the female, threatening to beat the driver and eventually saying he should have executed him “and wouldn’t have lost any sleep over it” that night.

Officials in ‘Panic Mode’ Over Failed Government Anti-Gun Trafficking Program

BananaFamine — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 17:40:35 +0000

“The hearing is billed as ‘Reckless Decisions, Tragic Outcomes’”. William La Jeunesse writes on Fox News:

Officials at the Department of Justice are in “panic mode,” according to multiple sources, as word spreads that congressional testimony next week will paint a bleak and humiliating picture of Operation Fast and Furious, the botched undercover operation that left a trail of blood from Mexico to Washington, D.C.

The operation was supposed to stem the flow of weapons from the U.S. to Mexico by allowing so-called straw buyers to purchase guns legally in the U.S. and later sell them in Mexico, usually to drug cartels.

Instead, ATF documents show that the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms knowingly and deliberately flooded Mexico with assault rifles. Their intent was to expose the entire smuggling organization, from top to bottom, but the operation spun out of control and supervisors refused pleas from field agents to stop it.

Only after Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry died did ATF Agent John Dodson blow the whistle and expose the scandal.

“What people don’t understand is how long we will be dealing with this,” Dodson told Fox News back in March. “Those guns are gone. You can’t just give the order and get them back. There is no telling how many crimes will be committed before we retrieve them.”

But now the casualties are coming in. Mexican officials estimate 150 of their people have been shot by Fast and Furious guns. Police have recovered roughly 700 guns at crime scenes, 250 in the U.S. and the rest in Mexico, including five AK-47s found at a cartel warehouse in Juarez last month.

For more information, see original article.

Because I Can: How This American Celebrates Osama Bin Laden’s Demise (Video)

vulcan — Thu, 05 May 2011 00:54:05 +0000

Adrian Chen on Gawker got in touch with the video’s creator:

I made this video because I felt like it represented a feeling many Americans shared regarding the brave and daring actions of our service members who tenaciously and doggedly pursued Osama Bin Laden. I feel like it represents something in the collective consciousness of America at that particular moment in time. A cathartic release.

Bullet Lodged In Man’s Brain For 23 Years

BananaFamine — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 04:01:12 +0000

Myles Burke writes for The Telegraph:

Doctors have finally discovered why Wang Tianqing has been suffering from epilepsy for more than two decades.

A two-centimetre rusted bullet, embedded in the head of a farmer for 23 years, has been removed at a local hospital.

In 1988 Wang Tianqing, who lives in Zhangjiakouin city in northern China’s Hebei province, was knocked unconscious on his way home by a blow to the head.

“I thought I’d been hit by a slingshot,” said Wang. “I saw a man standing on a hill and thought he’d hit me.”

He woke up in a hospital bed, was given anti-inflammatory drugs by the doctors and sent home.

Shortly afterwards he started having epileptic seizures which grew progressively worse over the next two decades.

On a return trip to the hospital for treatment for his convulsions, the bullet was spotted on his CAT scan.

Wang Zhiming, an attending surgeon from Neurosurgical Oncology department, said that the survival rate for being shot in the head would usually be one out of several thousand, but the bullet missed his brain’s main veins and not injured his brainstem…

For more information, see original article.

ATF Purposely Allowed Drug Cartels To Buy And Smuggle Thousands Of Assault Weapons

JacobSloan — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 17:54:26 +0000

In a secret program called “Fast and Furious”, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms knowingly let thousands of assault rifles (such as AK-47s) “walk” across the border into the hands of drug cartels in Mexico — ATF planned to track the guns for intelligence purposes and “see where they ended up.” The weaponry in question has been used in a spree of deadly crimes, including the murders of U.S. government agents Jaime Zapata and Brian Terry. A whistleblower at ATF brought the matter to light, CBS News reports:

Mexico’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs is asking the U.S. government for details about ATF’s “Fast and Furious” operations.

As our CBS News Investigation has revealed, “Fast and Furious” was a secret program under which, sources say, ATF purposely allowed thousands of assault rifles and other weapons from the U.S. into the hands of drug cartels in Mexico. Insiders call it letting the guns “walk.”

Documents show that ATF-walked guns began turning up at many violent crime scenes in Mexico from the start. Two of them – AK-47 variant semi-automatic assault rifles – were found at the murder scene of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry on December 14, 2010.

Nebraska Senator’s Bill Would Allow Teachers To Carry Guns

BananaFamine — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 13:24:28 +0000

The Lincoln Journal Star reports:

On the heels of the fatal shooting of an Omaha-area school administrator by a despondent student, Sen. Mark Christensen of Imperial introduced a bill Tuesday to allow teachers, administrators and school security guards to carry concealed guns.

The bill (LB516) would allow local school boards to choose by a two-thirds vote whether to allow such weapons on their property. The bill also applies to colleges and universities.

Christensen said he introduced his bill in response to the Jan. 5 shooting at Millard South High School, where 17-year-old student Robert Butler Jr. shot Assistant Principal Vicki Kaspar and then shot Principal Curtis Case. Kaspar had suspended Butler from the school earlier that morning. She died of her injury; Curtis has been released from the hospital.

Police found Butler about 45 minutes after the shooting in a parking lot about a mile from the school, dead from a self-inflicted gunshot…

For more information, see original article.

Schumer Pushes For Military To Report Applicants’ Drug Use to Prevent Gun Purchases

majestic — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 03:47:43 +0000

Charles Schumer

Thanks to Chris W. for sending this along, commenting, “Admit you’ve used illegal drugs? You may be disqualified if Senator Chuck Schumer has his way” (reported by Fox News):

If someone admits to a federal official that he’s used illegal drugs, that information should be sent to the FBI so that person can be disqualified from purchasing a gun, Sen. Chuck Schumer said Sunday.

Noting that the alleged shooter in the Tucson massacre had admitted to military recruiters that he had used drugs on several occasions, Schumer said he is proposing to the Justice Department and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives that the military be required to notify federal officials about such admissions. The New York Democrat said such a process does not require new legislation.

Jared Lee Loughner is charged with five federal counts in the killing of a federal judge and shooting of Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. The mass shooting January 8 outside a Safeway grocery store resulted in six dead and 13 injured.

A military official told Fox News last week that Loughner was rejected from enlisting in the Army in 2008 because he admitted he had used drugs. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because privacy laws prevent the military from disclosing such information about an individual’s application.

Schumer said if military recruiters or other officials report admissions of drug use to a national database, those individuals could be denied a gun…

[continues at Fox News]

Would You Have Sold Bullets to Jared Loughner?

ralph — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 19:07:51 +0000

I am sure this post will spark, the perennial “Guns Kill People” Vs. “People Kill People” debate we have in the United States, and my interest is to further the discourse, not draw an opinion in this debate as related to what happened in Tucson yet. Here are some things I’ve noticed reported by the media:

The Wall Street Journal has revealed Arizona shooting suspect Jared Loughner was actually turned away at one Wal-Mart but able to buy bullets at another Wal-Mart just hours before the attack. To the right is his mugshot, released from the Pima County Sheriff’s Office.

There is also some debate as to whether the Federal Assault Weapons Ban that expired in 2004 would have prevented (or lessened the number of victims in) the shooting.

Furthermore, it’s a bit of a mystery how Loughner was able to buy an expensive pistol in the first place.

Thanks for your thoughts.

BU ACLU: ‘When Criticizing Rhetoric, Remember Freedom of Speech’

ralph — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 20:32:15 +0000

Today I received an interesting email from the Boston University ACLU (text below). It’s also on their Facebook Page:

Jared Lee Loughner, charged with Saturday’s shootings, has invoked his right to silence, leaving us ignorant of his motives. Sources disagree on his politics — an acquaintance calls him an “extreme” liberal; a government memo links him to a “racial-realist” journal (one that denies any ties to him). His online writings point to an unhinged mind. But though much remains unclear, people are withdrawing some of their first theories, which rashly labeled the shootings a Tea Party / Republican plot.

Replacing those accusations is a broader look at how the shooter may have responded to intense political rhetoric. Critics again blame the right-wing, mainly Sarah Palin, whose PAC last year produced an image with crosshairs on congressional seats such as Giffords’. It was only a slight escalation from the usual manner of treating politics as war (Targeted districts, swiftboating, battleground states, political campaigns). But it was an escalation, and people called Palin out on it. Giffords herself spoke against it, stating her fears of a possible response.

Some critics now ask Palin to apologize for the graphic , which her site has now removed. The petition reads: “Violent threats have consequences.” Fine. We must all consider our words’ consequences. And reducing vitriol would improve politics.

But other people want to go further. Thousands across the web now call for victims’ families to sue Sarah Palin, or for us to charge her criminally for inciting violence. Some, without a trace of irony, post these suggestions to ACLU message boards. Pennsylvania’s Rep. Bob Brady has proposed a bill banning imagery that uses gun-sights or cross-hairs. Like those from elsewhere on the political spectrum, these critics, after a tragedy, are forgetting Americans’ rights under the law. The First Amendment allows figurative calls to arms — and much, much more.

In this particular case, nothing proves that the image influenced the shooter. And if it did influence him, Palin need not have foreseen that it would have. The image was a political rallying cry to fellow party members. We might avoid similar calls from now on, but we don’t criminalize all that may motivate deranged assassins. If we did, we would have to ban Catcher in the Rye and permanently incapacitate Jodie Foster.

Even if the image’s designers could have foreseen its consequences, they did not intend them, which should remove criminal liability. Yet even if they did intend them — and this is what people so easily forget — the law would still protect that speech. Sarah Palin could have, for the sake of argument, declared: “Citizens! You should shoot all the Democrats in Congress.” The law would have protected her.

We punish dangerous speech only when it incites imminent lawless action. So if you were present on Saturday in Tuscon and urged the shooter to act, you would have broken the law. If you instructed him beforehand to act on that day and in that place, you would have broken the law. But advocating lawbreaking in general, despite the consequences that may follow, merely expresses an opinion. The Constitution protects that, even if the opinion is objectionable or dangerous.

This standard exists, in part, because of the ACLU. In 1964, Klan leader Clarence Bradenburg called for “re-vengeance” against blacks and Jews at a televised rally. This invitation for violence earned him a fine and a sentence of up to ten years. But the ACLU defended Brandenburg all the way to the Supreme Court, which then revised the legal standard for criminal speech.

Bradenburg v Ohio legalized racist speech and other violent calls to action. It also allowed legitimate political advocacy that had for the previous 50 years been illegal. According to the First Amendment, you may advocate anything, even positions the majority abhors, and argue for it however you want — so long as you don’t infringe on someone else’s rights. Others’ interpretation of your message does not undermine your right to express it. Not do the criminal actions others may later take.

People must choose their words carefully. But encourage self-restraint — don’t ask the government for censorship.

Jared Loughner Pre-Planned Assassination Of Rep. Giffords

majestic — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 16:07:02 +0000

The only story that matters as we start the week is the Giffords shooting, for which a nationwide moment of silence is about to begin as I post this story. The New York Times is reporting that the attack was premeditated:

TUCSON — Prosecutors charged Jared L. Loughner, a troubled 22-year-old college dropout, with five federal counts on Sunday, including the attempted assassination of a member of Congress, in connection with a shooting rampage on Saturday morning that left six people dead and 14 wounded.

Evidence seized from Mr. Loughner’s home, about five miles from the shooting, indicated that he had planned to kill Representative Gabrielle Giffords, Democrat of Arizona, according to documents filed in Federal District Court in Phoenix.

Special Agent Tony M. Taylor Jr. of the F.B.I. said in an affidavit that an envelope found in a safe in the home bore these handwritten words: “I planned ahead,” “My assassination” and “Giffords.”

Mr. Loughner, who is believed to have acted alone, is in federal custody and is scheduled to make his first court appearance before a magistrate judge in Phoenix on Monday.

Ms. Giffords was in critical condition after surviving, against the odds, a single gunshot wound to the head at point-blank range. Her doctors were cautiously optimistic that she would survive, and said on Sunday that they had removed nearly half of her skull to prevent damage from the swelling of her brain.

An outpouring of grief was on display all over Tucson, where friends of the many victims joined complete strangers in lighting candles and offering tear-filled prayers. From the back of the temple Ms. Giffords attends, Naomi Present, the distraught daughter of a rabbi, cried out on Sunday morning, “Why, why, why, why?”

Many across America were asking the same thing, and the state found itself on the defensive, with its top lawmakers asserting that Arizona was not a hothouse of ugly rhetoric. President Obama called on Americans to observe a moment of silence at 11 a.m. Monday in honor of the wounded and dead…

[continues in the New York Times]

Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords Shot By Gunman

ralph — Sat, 08 Jan 2011 20:45:13 +0000

Via NPR:

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot in the head by a gunman at a public event in Tucson on Saturday. There are conflicting reports about whether she was killed.

The Pima County, Ariz., sheriff’s office told member station KJZZ the 40-year-old Democrat was killed. A hospital spokeswoman said Giffords was in critical condition and undergoing surgery.

At least eight other people, including members of her staff, were injured. There also were conflicting reports on the number of deaths at the scene, but President Obama, in a statement, said “we know that some have passed away” and that Giffords was “gravely wounded.”

Giffords, who was re-elected to a third term in November, was hosting a “Congress on Your Corner” event at a Safeway in northwest Tucson when a gunman ran up and started shooting, according to Peter Michaels, news director of Arizona Public Media.

The suspect fired indiscriminately from about four feet away, Michaels said. A congressional official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity that the gunman was using an automatic weapon.

The TSA Let a Loaded Gun Get on an Airplane (Video)

HAL9000 — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 03:51:46 +0000

Kevin Quinn reports for ABC KTRK-TV:

HOUSTON (KTRK) — TSA checkpoints at airports are at the front lines of preventing terrorism. When you go through security, you expect to be scanned and searched. And you expect TSA to prevent contraband from getting on planes, but as we’ve learned, that doesn’t always happen.

Houston businessman Farid Seif says it was a startling discovery. He didn’t intend to bring a loaded gun on a flight out of Houston and can’t understand how TSA screeners didn’t catch it.

Nearing the height of last year’s Christmas travel season, TSA screeners at Bush Intercontinental Airport somehow missed a loaded pistol, one that was tucked away inside a carry-on computer bag. “I mean, this is not a small gun,” Seif said. “It’s a .40 caliber gun.”

Florida Truck Dealership Gives Out Free AK-47s With Vehicle Purchases

JacobSloan — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 22:03:18 +0000

Ah, America, where machine guns are dispensed like party favors. Via Aol News:

A truck dealership in Florida is firing up sales with the promise of a rapid-fire machine gun.

Customers have been streaming into Nations Trucks in Sanford, near Orlando, purchasing two dozen vehicles since the sale campaign began on Veterans Day last week. Each new truck owner also walks out with a free AK-47. “We’ve tripled our business,” general sales manager Nick Ginetta told AOL News. “We knew it would be controversial, but it’s been a phenomenal response.”

An image of the semiautomatic rifle is taped to the showroom’s window to lure shoppers. Buyers receive a $400 voucher good for one Kalashnikov at Shoot Straight, a weapons dealer with several locations in the Sunshine State.

All prospective gun owners must meet state and federal gun-control laws, but Ginetta has still drawn fire from anti-gun activists and alarmed neighbors. “I’ve had calls from mothers who say, ‘You’re giving my son a machine gun.’ But once I explain exactly how it works, people are understanding,” he said.

If drivers don’t want to bear arms, Ginetta will apply the money to the price of the truck or give them cash back. But he said most people opted for the Romanian-made AK-47 model, famous for its durability in extreme environments.

Amtrak To Allow Guns On Most Trains

Pelliciari — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 21:55:13 +0000

Want to travel through the country with your firearms, but can’t get through airport security? No worries, take the train! Amtrak will soon allow passengers to transport their firearms, unloaded and stored away. The Sacramento Bee reports:

Reversing a near decadelong ban, Amtrak will allow passengers to bring guns on most trains starting next month, including several that stop in Sacramento.

The change, pushed by gun rights advocates and ordered by Congress, aligns Amtrak’s firearms policy with air travel rules that allow unloaded guns to be stored in locked baggage holds.

Federal Homeland Security officials on Monday said they are OK with guns being on trains as long as security protocols are enforced.

“It’s deemed safe and appropriate,” federal Transportation Security Administration spokesman Nico Melendez said. “If people follow the rules, it’s pretty simple.”

[Continues at The Sacramento Bee]

Carving a Halloween Pumpkin … With A Gun? (Video)

bluemana — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 18:45:52 +0000

YouTube user Hickok45 demonstrates his method for carving a pumpkin:

Basil Marceaux: He Wants Everyone in Tennessee to Have a Gun, and He’ll Fine You For Not Having One

Join Or DIE — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 04:12:20 +0000

Stephen Colbert sums up the candicacy of Basil Marceaux much better than I ever could. Remember Tennessee voters, that state has an open primary system … so anyone can vote!

Thought Control On Modern American College Campuses

Christa Brashier — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 20:29:46 +0000

In April of 2009 I designed and printed fliers for the group Students for Concealed Carry on Campus at a Pittsburgh community college. I included facts such as “The Supreme Court ruled that police have no obligation to protect the people.” These fliers earned me a meeting with the Dean of Student Development, Yvonne Burns, who angrily promised that the club would never be allowed on “her” campus, and ordered me to destroy all related literature.

I had been in a public quad handing out informational pamphlets–and had asked for permission to do so! Dean Burns told me I was soliciting; she had obviously been fed that line by a superior without thinking about it. When I told her that the legal definition of “solicitation” involved trying to sell something, she told me I was trying to “sell an idea.” Wait, isn’t that… college?

The SCCC website, concealedcampus.org, contains a link to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE; www.thefire.org), which recognized the violation of my First Amendment rights and worked with me to restore them — not because it supports gun rights, but because it supports free speech on campus. FIRE throws a wrench into the system of disinforming entire generations of college students — who are treated like children in need of supervision and protection from wayward improper ideas — with one simple tool: publicity. So, even if you hate guns or just don’t like me – please take a moment to look at www.thefire.org. You’ll be shocked by some of the things that college administrators do when they think no one’s watching. The moral outrage you feel after reading a few cases might inspire you to want to help FIRE restore liberty to our campuses.

As an SCCC campus leader, I welcome opposing points of view. I would love for someone to make me understand how an object can be “bad.” There is a disparity between reality and rationale here. There are signs on my campus reading “drug free weapon free school zone.” Imagine a drug free college campus … then tell me why I should feel safe from “weapons”. Criminals do not follow rules; signs don’t stop them! It’s already illegal to kill someone. Why should it be against the rules to have one specific tool that can do so? Let the college drain the pool, ban sharp pens and pencils, and forbid cars on campus. We’ll all be safer then, right?

Like many of my heroes, I love inspiring people to question their rote dogma; Disinfo favorite RAWilson’s tongue in cheek “guns and dope” political party slogan begins “guns for everyone who wants guns, no guns for anyone who doesn’t” — but too many colleges are more interested in forcing everyone to hum the mantra “guns are bad” without considering the real arguments about them. For me, refusing to buy a gun because you think it will lead to violence makes as much sense as not sending your kid to karate class in hopes that he or she will never get in a fight. I tried to nudge people to question the college’s dogma, even if that questioning only led them to reinforce their existing beliefs, and for that I was treated like a misbehaving child. Thanks to FIRE, my liberty was restored, my club was recognized, and I have new pamphlets which begin “You are an adult entitled to your civil liberties. Please, think for yourself.”

Christa Brashier is a student at CCAC/IUP. She is a self-proclaimed constitutionalist who is currently fighting for free speech as an intern for FIRE. The views expressed in this article do not represent the views of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.

Jesus, Sodomy, and Glocks

Stacie Adams — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 03:00:59 +0000

Via the First Church of Mutterhals:

That sounds like a Warren Zevon song from hell, but it’s not. It’s what I saw on someone’s car on the way to work today. Three bumper stickers, right in a row; the first one said Jesus Saves, Obama Spends. The second said Obama is Socializing and Sodomizing America. The third said Body Piercings by Glock.

Let me pull up my favorite arm chair and give this guy a go. I think his choice in bumper stickers has less to do with his distaste for Obama and his policies and more to do with his fervent desire to get reamed long and hard by a Jewish hippie. Of course, that’s really none of my business. But is it appropriate to put your deep seated sexual fantasies on the back of your car?

Also, I thought christians were supposed to be anti-sodomy? I distinctly remember a ‘no spilling your seed in a rent boy’ clause in the bible. And who among us is still threatened by body piercings? Who even has body piercings anymore? Is this guy also confounded by Jnco jeans and skateboarding video games and ska music?

I probably lost you there. I’m not sure what my point was. When I try to incorporate Jesus and sodomy and guns, people call me an awful human being. This guy does it as some kind of affront to the effete, bruschetta eating, liberal elites. People like me, I guess. I am rather high siddity. Sometimes Quake and I just sit in the living room talking about what color to paint the walls. I didn’t see that coming.

Make My Day Pastor: Bring Your Gun Into Church in Louisiana

ralph — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 07:07:59 +0000

Thou Shall Not Kill. Unless it’s Time for Worship. The Times-Picayune reports:

Gov. Bobby Jindal has signed into law one of the more controversial bills from the recent legislative session, one allowing guns to be carried into houses of worship.

Jindal’s office said Tuesday the governor acted on the bill in the past few days after receiving it June 20.

Including the “gun-in-church” bill, House Bill 1272 by Rep. Henry Burns, R-Haughton, Jindal has signed into law 940 of the 1,067 bills the Legislature sent him, vetoed 12, and used his pen to line-item spending measures in four different budget bills.

Burns’ bill would authorize persons who qualified to carry concealed weapons having passed the training and background checks to bring them to churches, mosques, synagogues or other houses of worship as part of a security force.

Supreme Court Extends Handgun Rights

majestic — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 15:33:52 +0000

Handguns. Photo: Joshuashearn (CC)

What do you think – was the Supreme Court right to uphold U.S. citizens’ right to carry handguns, even in major cities? I can appreciate both sides of the argument, but as a New York City resident I’d prefer not to see handguns in an urban environment. David G. Savage reports for the Los Angeles Times:

The Supreme Court reversed a ruling upholding Chicago’s ban on handguns Monday and extended the reach of the 2nd Amendment as a nationwide protection against laws that infringe on the “right to keep and bear arms.”

The 5-4 decision appears to void the 1982 ordinance, one of the nation’s strictest, which barred city residents from having handguns for their own use, even at home.

The ruling has both local and national implications.

Two years ago, the high court ruled in a case from Washington, D.C., that the 2nd Amendment protects the rights of individuals to have a gun for self-defense. Since the District is a federal city and not a state, the court did not decide then whether the 2nd Amendment could be used to challenge other municipal ordinances or state laws.

In Monday’s decision, the court said the constitutional protection of the 2nd Amendment extends to city and state laws, not just federal measures.

Gun-rights advocates have been closely following the Chicago case. They said a victory for the 2nd Amendment would clear the way for constitutional challenges to restrictions on firearms to be heard in federal courts nationwide…

[continues in the Los Angeles Times]

United Nations Wants To Take Guns Away From Americans

majestic — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 18:21:19 +0000

I’m not sure who made this video but it’s quite an effective piece of anti-UN, pro-guns propaganda (no editorial slant intended – let us know in the comments if you agree or disagree with the filmmaker):

Chicago’s Pointless Handgun Ban

Raymond — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 23:58:51 +0000

From Reason.com:

When Chicago passed a ban on handgun ownership in 1982, it was part of a trend. Washington, D.C. had done it in 1976, and a few Chicago suburbs took up the cause in the following years. They all expected to reduce the number of guns and thus curtail bloodshed.

District of Columbia Attorney General Linda Singer told The Washington Post in 2007, “It’s a pretty common-sense idea that the more guns there are around, the more gun violence you’ll have.” Nadine Winters, a member of the Washington city council in 1976, said she assumed at the time that the policy “would spread to other places.”

But the fad never really caught fire—even before last summer, when the Supreme Court struck down the D.C. law and cast doubt on the others, including the Chicago ordinance before the court Tuesday. The Second Amendment may kill such restrictions, but in most places, it wasn’t needed to keep them from hatching in the first place.

Maybe that’s because there were so many flaws in the basic idea. Or maybe it was because strict gun control makes even less sense at the municipal level than it does on a broader scale. At any rate, the policy turned out to be a comprehensive dud.

[Read more at Reason.com]

U.S. Supreme Court Set To Extend Gun Rights

majestic — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 21:42:01 +0000

Handguns. Photo: Joshuashearn (CC)

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments Tuesday in a landmark gun rights case that could apply the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms to both cities and states. Warren Richey reports for the Christian Science Monitor:

The US Supreme Court appears to be on verge of extending the constitutional protection of the Second Amendment’s right to keep and bear arms to every jurisdiction in the nation.

During an hour-long oral argument at the high court on Tuesday, several justices exhibited a willingness to enforce their landmark 2008 gun-rights decision at the state and local level.

If they do so, the decision may doom not only the Chicago handgun ban at the center of Tuesday’s case, but other handgun bans and some of the toughest state and local gun-control laws in the country.

The only remaining question in McDonald v. Chicago was which constitutional mechanism the majority justices might use to apply the 2008 holding to state and local governments. (For a preview of the case, click here.)

Two years ago, the high court recognized an individual right to possess handguns in the home for self defense. By a 5-to-4 vote, the court struck down a ban on handguns in Washington, D.C. That case was District of Columbia v. Heller.

Because the Second Amendment has never been applied to the states, the ruling could only be enforced against the national government and in federal enclaves like the District of Columbia.

A similar handgun ban is at issue in the Chicago case. But before judges can consider the constitutionality of the ban, the Supreme Court must decide whether the same Second Amendment rights it imposed in the Heller case will also apply in Chicago and across the country. (For Monitor commentary, click here.)

There are two possible ways for the high court to extend Second Amendment protections to state and local governments. Both are found within the text of the 14th Amendment.

Questions and comments by four of the justices who formed the five-justice majority in the Heller case suggest a preference for using the due-process clause of the 14th Amendment…

[continues in the Christian Science Monitor]

Guns at Starbucks? Pushing the Right to Bear Arms in Public

Raymond — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 14:46:52 +0000

Don’t be “flashing your piece on the lanes,” kids. These Starbucks cowboys have every right to carry those pistols, but does anyone really want to live in a community where they’re always reminded that people have the ability to easily murder each other? It makes me a bit uneasy, but I would rather be uneasy than lose the right to be a cowboy myself.

From The Christian Science Monitor:

Small groups of armed Californians have been turning up at cafes and coffee shops with handguns holstered to their belts to raise awareness about gun rights and what they call unfair limits on concealed weapon permits.

The loosely organized “Bay Area Open Carry Movement” will gather in the Presidio, a national park in San Francisco, on Saturday, just days after a new law took effect allowing weapons to be carried in national parks and wildlife refuges.

David LaTour, a student at San Jose State University, has been carrying his Springfield XD 9mm handgun on his hip for about a month now and plans on attending the event, in which gun rights advocates will be picking up trash in the park and, they hope, talking to anyone interested in state gun laws.

California allows its citizens to openly display and carry unloaded weapons without a permit, but many gun advocates complain that the state is too restrictive when it comes to issuing licenses to carry concealed weapons.

“I looked into concealed carry permits, but unless you’re well-connected it’s impossible to obtain,” says Mr. LaTour. However, he says, “I personally prefer open carry because of the visual deterrent.” (Monitor report: “Cities’ gun restrictions begin to topple”)

[Read more at The Christian Science Monitor]