Go Back   Professional Soldiers ® > At Ease > The Soapbox

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 09-18-2020, 15:04   #1291
tom kelly
Quiet Professional
 
tom kelly's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Philadelphia,Pa.
Posts: 1,474
THE ATF & E.

Quote:
Originally Posted by cat in the hat View Post
Isn't the guy running for re election supposed to be a second amendment guy?
Why doesn't he direct his agency to stand down on the issue DACA style?
President Trump needs to PURGE the deep state radical democrats in ALL of the AGENCIES...These corrupt career deep state holdovers have more control over "Rules & Laws" than the Congress & the executive branch...DEFUND THE ATF...NOW
__________________
EVERYBODY WANTS TO GO TO HEAVEN: BUT, NOBODY WANTS TO DIE.
tom kelly is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-18-2020, 18:30   #1292
tonyz
Area Commander
 
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: USA
Posts: 4,792
August 2020 numbers and the trend continues.

The people are speaking...3,115,063 background checks for August.

NICS Firearm Background Checks:
Month/Year
November 30, 1998 - August 31, 2020

https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/...month_year.pdf
__________________
The function of wisdom is to discriminate between good and evil.

Marcus Tullius Cicero
tonyz is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-08-2020, 20:34   #1293
tonyz
Area Commander
 
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: USA
Posts: 4,792
An interesting and some might say timely thesis.

Gun Control Puts Your Life at Risk
In the 20th century, far more people were murdered by genocidal governments than by armed criminals.


DAVID B. KOPEL | FROM THE OCTOBER 2020 ISSUE
Reason

According to gun prohibitionists, Europe is much safer than the United States, because Europe has stricter gun control. In fact, the historical record shows that excessive gun control (as in Europe) is about a hundred times more deadly than "insufficient" gun control (as, supposedly, in the U.S.). While a lone criminal with a gun can be very dangerous, a criminal government with a disarmed population is the deadliest thing on Earth.

Let's start with the data. If U.S. gun homicide rates had been as low as European rates in the 20th century, how many lives might have been saved? According to a 2018 article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, in 1990—a bad year for violent crime in the United States—the age-adjusted U.S. firearms homicide rate was 5.57 per 100,000 population. That same year, the rate in Western Europe was 0.53 and the rate in Eastern Europe was 1.31, giving us a European average of 0.92.

The difference between the European rate and the American rate is 4.65 per 100,000. Since the U.S. population in 1990 was nearly 249 million, these data indicate that the U.S. had 11,785 more firearms homicides that year than it would have had if the rate had been as low as it was in Europe. If we apply the estimate of 4.65 additional gun homicides per 100,000 population to every year of the 20th century, taking into account changes in the U.S. population, we find that the United States had 745,162 more firearms homicides than it would have had under the European average.

For the sake of argument, we'll assume that every excess American gun homicide would not have been a homicide if the United States had adopted European-style gun control. That is, we'll assume that other lethal means would not have been substituted for firearms. We also won't consider that many American gun homicides are justifiable self-defense. In other words, when a would-be killer is shot by a law enforcement officer or a citizen, we'll consider the criminal's death to be just as bad as the death of an innocent victim.

Finally, we'll ignore the extensive evidence that nonfatal defensive firearm use often prevents homicides and other crimes.

With the above assumptions, the failure to adopt European-style gun control would be responsible for almost three-quarters of a million excess deaths in the United States in the last century. That is a very large number. It is, however, two orders of magnitude smaller than the number of Europeans killed by governments during the same period.

International homicide statistics usually only count murders by individuals or small groups. A serial killer may murder two dozen people over the course of many years. A mass shooter may murder dozens at once. Those who use explosives or arson sometimes kill even more. But even in the aggregate, individual criminals or criminal gangs perpetrate vastly less homicide than do criminal governments.

In Europe in the 20th century, governments killed about 87.1 million victims, according to research by the late University of Hawaii political scientist R.J. Rummel. That figure does not include combat deaths, such as in World War I or II. It includes only the murder of civilians, from 61.9 million killed by the Soviet Union to 20.9 million killed by Germany. Over the long run, one's risk of being murdered is much lower in the United States than in Europe. It's no surprise that migration between the two has always been very heavily in one direction!

I am alive to write this article because my Jewish German and Lithuanian ancestors migrated to the United States in the 19th century. By doing so, they increased their risk of being shot by an individual criminal but drastically reduced their risk of being murdered by a criminal government. As we all well know, those risks did materialize in Germany (under the Nazis and the Communists) and in Lithuania (under the czars, the Nazis, and the Communists). Because governments are so much more effective at killing than are individual criminals—even looking at all individual criminals combined—the United States was much safer than Europe in the 20th century.

Rummel found that the less free the government, the more likely it is to perpetrate domestic mass murder. Totalitarian regimes perpetrate by far the most; authoritarian regimes less so; and democratic ones least of all. Indeed, no democratic government has committed large-scale murder against a population that was able to vote.

If you could be sure that a given government would forever be democratic, there would be no need for arms to resist a possible domestic dictatorship. Unfortunately, certainty on that score is impossible. The list of nations to have maintained both independence and free government at all times since 1900 is short: Australia, Canada, Sweden, Switzerland, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. That's just seven nations out of 196 worldwide.

Only a foolish version of American exceptionalism would imagine that the United States has been granted permanent immunity from the dangers of tyranny. Democracy was founded in Greece, yet that country has succumbed to dictatorship many times. Germany in 1900 was a progressive democracy and one of the most tolerant places in the world for Jews; a lot can change in a few decades.

According to gun prohibitionists, armed victims cannot meaningfully resist a murderous dictatorship with weapons of war at its disposal. The dictators who do the murdering think just the opposite.

In 1942, Adolf Hitler explained the necessity of disarming his victims: "The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subjugated races to possess arms. History shows that all conquerors who have allowed their subjugated races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by so doing. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that the supply of arms to the underdogs is a sine qua non for the overthrow of any sovereignty. So let's not have any native militia or native police."

Tyrants past and present have come from virtually every continent and ethnic background. Their ideologies have varied, but they are united by a number of common practices. They do not allow freedom of the press or an independent court system. They attempt to bring religion under state control. And they claim for themselves a monopoly of force. Search the history of the world, from ancient times to the present, and you will not find many tyrants who deviated from the principle that the state must be stronger than the people.

Mass shootings by criminal governments occur predominantly in gun-free zones—places where the population has been disarmed. As soon as the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union began on June 22, 1941, special S.S. units called Einsatzgruppen began assembling all the Jews or Gypsies from a village and marching them out of town. The victims could then be easily machine-gunned at once. Within a year, just 3,000 Einsatzgruppen, aided by a few thousand helpers from the German police and military, had murdered about 1 million people.

Regime change is difficult once a tyrant has taken power, as today's China and Cuba illustrate. So as an anti-tyranny tool, widespread citizen arms ownership works most effectively when it deters tyranny in the first place. Among the reasons there was no Holocaust in Switzerland was that the people there were heavily armed and organized in a very well-regulated militia. The German military almost certainly could have conquered its uncooperative neighbor to the south. Yet because of the costs that the Swiss militia would inflict on the Wehrmacht, Hitler never had the nerve to mount an invasion.

Even after mass murders have already begun, victims who obtain guns can save lives. During the Holocaust, armed Jews caused the Nazis much trouble—in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising during Passover 1943 as well as in many lesser-known actions. The Nazi extermination camps of Sobibor and Treblinka were shut down forever because prisoners stole guns from the guards and led mass revolts. The Bielski commando unit in the forests of Belarus grew to 149 armed fighters and saved a thousand more Jews.

During World War I, when the government of the Ottoman Empire began murdering Christians, hundreds of thousands of lives were saved by armed resistance—which relied on guns that the Christians had secreted in defiance of confiscation orders.

"The gun has been called the great equalizer, meaning that a small person with a gun is equal to a large person," observed then–California Gov. Ronald Reagan in a 1975 article for Guns and Ammo, "but it is a great equalizer in another way, too. It ensures that the people are the equal of their government whenever that government forgets that it is servant and not master of the governed."

As the last century demonstrates, the short-term risks of a well-armed civilian population are far less than the long-term risks of a government that is stronger than the people.

https://reason.com/2020/09/22/gun-co...-life-at-risk/
__________________
The function of wisdom is to discriminate between good and evil.

Marcus Tullius Cicero
tonyz is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-21-2020, 09:52   #1294
tonyz
Area Commander
 
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: USA
Posts: 4,792
The National Shooting Sports trade association (NSSF) on Biden and his plans for gun control.

Yeah, tax, tax, tax...ban, ban, ban...mix well with...defund, defund, defund...shake, shake, shake...that oughta work out well.


TAKE BIDEN ON HIS WORD WITH GUN CONTROL
By Larry Keane
NSSF
NOVEMBER 10, 2020

Former Vice President Joe Biden declared election victory, even as President Donald Trump continues to challenge results in several states. Runoffs are slated for both U.S. Senate seats from Georgia, which could decide the balance of power in Washington, D.C. and whether agendas get an unquestioned green light or hit roadblocks.

The Biden camp is already forming the presidential transition team and increased gun control is on the table. While everyone is trying to read the political tea leaves to predict what will happen, the firearm industry is taking a pragmatic approach.

When it comes to gun control, take Biden at his word.

He’s given plenty of public comment to know exactly what he wants to do if he’s unchecked. It’s nothing short of ending Second Amendment rights and reducing them to a nanny-state privilege that’s closely monitored and meted out piecemeal to a select few. It also means the firearm industry would be decimated through harassing litigation, overburdening regulation and a bevy of laws that won’t improve public safety but would render law-abiding Americans vulnerable to criminals.

‘The Enemy’

Biden made it crystal clear his thoughts on firearm manufacturers at the onset of the Democratic presidential primary race in July 2019.

“Our enemy is the gun manufacturers, not the NRA, the gun manufacturers,” Biden said.

Biden’s gun control plan would criminalize private firearm sales, requiring every firearm transfer to be conducted through licensed firearm retailers. He’d also crack down on those retailers, using the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) as an anvil by which to crush businesses for even minor clerical errors in inspections. He argued for the same failed so-called mandatory “smart gun” technology for which he led a task force in the Obama administration. It wasn’t ready for testing then and it’s still not ready today.

That was the beginning of the Biden gun control agenda. That’s now burgeoned to include every radical gun control wish list item. It starts at a national state-by-state licensing scheme and rationing gun rights to just one sale per month for every law-abiding American.

That’s not all. He’d destroy the firearm industry by pushing to repeal the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, exposing manufacturers to harassing lawsuits by activist lawyers that long to bankrupt manufacturers for political means and use the courts to advance an agenda that doesn’t survive legislative scrutiny.

‘Bingo’

Biden unequivocally admitted to CNN’s Anderson Cooper in a 2019 interview that he would pursue an unconstitutional firearm confiscation agenda.

“To gun owners out there who say a Biden administration means they’re going to come for my guns…” Cooper said.

“Bingo,” Biden interrupted. “You’re right, if you have an assault weapon,” which the former vice president deridingly refers to when he speaks of MSRs. “The fact of the matter is they should be illegal. Period.”

That goes much further than reenacting the failed 1994 Assault Weapons Ban, to which in the same interview, Biden agreed it didn’t reduce crime. That means he’d go after the more nearly 20 million MSRs in circulation today.

“What I would do is institute a national buyback program,” Biden explained. He admitted then that outright confiscation of MSRs for lawful ownership was a Constitutional hurdle.

“Right now, there’s no legal way that I’m aware of where you could deny the right if they had legally purchased them,” Biden told CNN of his confiscation plans. “But we can, in fact, make a major effort to get them off the street and out of the possession of people.”

That was 2019. Today, he’s looking for the loopholes. One way Biden’s trying to achieve his agenda is by reclassifying the MSR to fall under the 1934 National Firearms Act so the more than century-old technology would be treated in the same fashion as short-barrel rifles and machine guns. That would require owners to be put on federal lists, submit fingerprints, photos, inform chief law enforcement officers, endure duplicitous background checks, wait more than nine months for approval and pay a $200 tax for the privilege to continue to own what they already legally purchased.

Those who don’t would see their firearms confiscated by a Biden administration.

‘I Don’t Work for You’

A Biden administration would be quickly hounded by gun control cronies like billionaire Michael Bloomberg and his gun control groups Everytown for Gun Safety and Moms Demand Action. They’ll be joined by others including Brady and Giffords. Both groups issued press releases on their laundry list of action items to limit and deny Second Amendment rights.

That’s who a Biden administration would work for and not every day, law-abiding Americans who want to exercise their rights. Biden made that clear when he toldDetroit union worker Jerry Wayne, “You’re full of sh*t.” Biden later added, “I’m not working for you. Don’t be such a horse’s ass.”

Biden, who claims blue-collar roots, doesn’t think much of the “everyday” individual carrying a lunch pail to the factory floor and wants to exercise Second Amendment rights during free time. He’s much more attuned to the far-left radical agenda his running mate U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) brought to the ticket, wanting to bring California-style gun control to the rest of the country.

The firearm industry believes him. There’s no reason to doubt or to equivocate with calls to unite. Taking Biden at anything less than his word is malfeasance.

https://www.nssf.org/take-biden-on-h...e=bulletpoints
__________________
The function of wisdom is to discriminate between good and evil.

Marcus Tullius Cicero
tonyz is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-21-2020, 09:57   #1295
Badger52
Area Commander
 
Badger52's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: Western WI
Posts: 6,817
That was a good reminder

These other people aren't joking. And there is never, in history, since ever, any other reason to disarm a populace except:

They want to do something to you that you'd normally shoot them for.
__________________
"Civil Wars don't start when a few guys hunt down a specific bastard. Civil Wars start when many guys hunt down the nearest bastards."

The coin paid to enforce words on parchment is blood; tyrants will not be stopped with anything less dear. - QP Peregrino
Badger52 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-21-2020, 10:50   #1296
tom kelly
Quiet Professional
 
tom kelly's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Philadelphia,Pa.
Posts: 1,474
Organize to Defend:

The citizens of the U S A who are not communist democrat socialist progressive BLM or any other label that will destroy the U S Constitution & the Bill of Rights will need to ORGANIZE to defend the rights granted by these documents. The MSM will decry the organization as a racist, white Supreme group but the MSM is the propaganda arm of the radical democrat communist left. The enemy of the people is the communist democrat must be neutralized by in their words "By any means necessary" Get it DONE.
__________________
EVERYBODY WANTS TO GO TO HEAVEN: BUT, NOBODY WANTS TO DIE.
tom kelly is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-21-2020, 11:14   #1297
RCummings
Guerrilla
 
Join Date: Aug 2014
Location: Upper Midwest
Posts: 189
Tom, there is an organization it's called, "Americans", and they are being demonized by those who would see our country turned into something it's not. Do not believe what you see on the boob tube or read. For the last 2 years I have worked with young people and they are Americans, they do not like what is going on, any of it. The "force multiplier", media wants all of us to think we are outnumbered. Nothing could be further from the truth, example, why the heck would the enemies of America be spending billions of dollars to convince us of their superiority why not just steam roll over us? They know they are shoveling an agenda/propaganda, nothing more.

Respectfully,

Bob
RCummings is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-23-2020, 12:37   #1298
tom kelly
Quiet Professional
 
tom kelly's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Philadelphia,Pa.
Posts: 1,474
AMERICANS:

Need some additional Information on this group, I am interested in preserving THE U S A , The Constitutionalists and WESTERN CIVILIZATION...
__________________
EVERYBODY WANTS TO GO TO HEAVEN: BUT, NOBODY WANTS TO DIE.
tom kelly is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-23-2020, 18:45   #1299
7624U
Quiet Professional
 
7624U's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Tennessee
Posts: 1,461
Quote:
Originally Posted by tom kelly View Post
Need some additional Information on this group, I am interested in preserving THE U S A , The Constitutionalists and WESTERN CIVILIZATION...
I looked in a mirror today. Yep still American.
__________________
"Make sure your plan fits the terrain or you will be slurping mud puddles”

"Me"
7624U is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-29-2020, 19:36   #1300
pcfixer
Guerrilla
 
pcfixer's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2013
Location: Maryland
Posts: 450
Quote:
Originally Posted by tom kelly View Post
Need some additional Information on this group, I am interested in preserving THE U S A , The Constitutionalists and WESTERN CIVILIZATION...
Quote:
7624U quoted; I looked in a mirror today. Yep still American.
I'm all IN. My Oath has never expired.
pcfixer is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-02-2020, 21:24   #1301
tonyz
Area Commander
 
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: USA
Posts: 4,792
November 2020 numbers are in and the trend continues.

The people are speaking...3,626,335 background checks for November.

NICS Firearm Background Checks:
Month/Year
November 30, 1998 - November 30, 2020

https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/...month_year.pdf
__________________
The function of wisdom is to discriminate between good and evil.

Marcus Tullius Cicero
tonyz is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-03-2020, 08:56   #1302
bblhead672
Area Commander
 
bblhead672's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2016
Location: Texas, USA
Posts: 1,585
Quote:
Originally Posted by tonyz View Post
November 2020 numbers are in and the trend continues.

The people are speaking...3,626,335 background checks for November.

NICS Firearm Background Checks:
Month/Year
November 30, 1998 - November 30, 2020

https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/...month_year.pdf
Get 'em while you can! Biden and his anti-gun ATF are going to go fast and furious to ban as much as possible by executive fiat.
bblhead672 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-11-2020, 22:16   #1303
Paslode
Area Commander
 
Paslode's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Occupied Wokeville
Posts: 4,629
From ARFCOM

Quote:
They are also going after customers. Had ATF at my house approximately 1pm yesterday telling me I need to surrender my P80 or he would return to raid my house with a warrant. Enclosed is my surrender sheet for proof. If anyone purchased a “Buy, Build, Shoot” kit from them they will probably be hearing from the ATF as well.
https://www.ar15.com/forums/General/...rs-/5-2401363/

https://bearingarms.com/cam-e/2020/1...er-ghost-guns/
__________________
Quote:
When a man dies, if nothing is written, he is soon forgotten.

Last edited by Paslode; 12-12-2020 at 07:47. Reason: added link
Paslode is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-16-2020, 18:17   #1304
Paslode
Area Commander
 
Paslode's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Occupied Wokeville
Posts: 4,629
Looks like anyone with a braced pistol will have a decision to make.

https://blog.princelaw.com/2020/12/1...edium=facebook
__________________
Quote:
When a man dies, if nothing is written, he is soon forgotten.
Paslode is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-17-2020, 07:22   #1305
pcfixer
Guerrilla
 
pcfixer's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2013
Location: Maryland
Posts: 450
Quote:
Originally Posted by Badger52 View Post
These other people aren't joking. And there is never, in history, since ever, any other reason to disarm a populace except:

They want to do something to you that you'd normally shoot them for.


“God made man, Sam Colt made men equal, but John Browning keeps men free.”
pcfixer is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply


Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 4 (0 members and 4 guests)
 
Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump



All times are GMT -6. The time now is 03:45.



Copyright 2004-2022 by Professional Soldiers ®
Site Designed, Maintained, & Hosted by Hilliker Technologies