Interesting numbers.

This is a thought that must be pushed back at with history lessons whenever brought up; something that must be done in our daily conversations. I wonder what the survey numbers would be if more of the populace in general were aware of what the Weimar Republic was instead of haggling over the latest OS version of their smartphone.

I know many have read about this incident but watching the video makes it a bit more real...this is what's coming folks...don't believe them when they say they're not coming after your firearms...ammo...those rich donors tell the real story.

HIDDEN CAM: Russ Feingold Says Hillary Might Issue Executive Order on Guns
Project Veritas Action

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-HrUUXOHgzg

I think we all know what will happen if some idiot issues an order banning guns.

1st No one's going to listen, except Rosie O'Donnell.

2nd No one's going to enforce that law , except the Chicago PD and NYPD.

3rd After the first wave of "gun collectors" are killed, the moron that issued the "executive order" will be hiding in Cuba with close friends and relatives.

We will vote ourselves into submission, it ain't going to happen by "executive order".

And what need to be repelled is the term "assault weapon". This liberal term should be replaced with the term gun. Then try to ban them.

TS agree - executive order will not be an effective frontal assault. And we will vote ourselves into the problem...already have.

The video captures the motivation of donors - oh, they want your guns and ammo.. I can imagine a substantial increase in taxes on various supplies.

As evil and power hungry as BHO and HRC are, the real evil-doers are the super-elite wealthy donors who are pulling all the strings worldwide. All the politicians are merely willing paid-for pawns doing their masters bidding.

On Oct. 27, 1787, the first of the Federalist Papers, a series of essays calling for ratification of the United States Constitution, was published.


(What would Hamilton, Jay and Madison think of us now?)

The Federalists believed that the Constitution, as drafted, would effectively restrict the powers of the federal government. They did not believe a Bill of Rights was necessary.
However, the group that did not trust the document to prevent corruption of the government leading to eventually tyranny were the Anti-Federalists. If you think the BoR was necessary, it is the them you need to thank.

In your opinion, how accurate was their belief?

History has proven the antis prescient. Hamilton and the pros on the other hand would probably be ecstatic given the current state of affairs. Biographies of the FFs make for fascinating reading. Politics have always centered around money, power, and angry men (and women) with petty jealousies.

I wonder what message people take away when they realize that our constitution was a document written by our young government, knowing that we would need to be protected from our old government later on down the road...

...free speech
...right to bear arms
...freedom from having to quartering government troops


The first three seem to free up citizens enough for them to be able to shoot move and communicate
...is it a coincidence?


The next three are supposed to prevent the gubmint from digging in my business, forcing me to give testimony, and preventing them from arbitrarily punishing me without a trial
...after practicing the first three amendments, a citizen might need the protection of the second three
...is THAT a coincidence?

The next three tend to govern HOW those court proceedings move forward and the last one says when in doubt its up to the state
or the people


This isn't at ALL about protecting the second amendment.
The bill of rights isn't just one amendment - it is ten of them.
Liars and criminals, the likes of those on the left only need to break one link in the chain to enslave the common man.
...don't be blinded or distracted by the attack on the 2d amendment. They are ALL under assault.


Don't believe me?
Your free speech is censored by political correctness, assaulted by SJWs, and ignored by the political elites.

Right to bear arms not infringed? Why then do purchase certificates and CCW permits cost money?

You think you have privacy from illegal search and seizure?
...hahaha of course you do
...just make sure you let the NSA know first


5th amendment?
...my shiny white ass. You try that shit and you'll get hit with contempt of court. Those protections are only for the privileged.


The bill of rights protects "the well born conspirators" today just like those pesky old forefathers said it would. Just like some of those uneducated hillbillies without internet and Blackberry smart phones told us it would.
How did they know?
Funny how back in the late 1700's the idea that Washington DC would become “the asylum of the base, idle, avaricious and ambitious.” was no less conspiratorial than suggesting that hilLIEary clint0ns e-mails are about anything but yoga classes and grandchildren.



...but hey, that's just my opinion - I could be wrong.

Great posts.

The anti-tryranny aspects of the 2A and indeed the complete BORs anticipates the inevitable corruption of men (and women) of power and the subsequent oppression of ordinary citizens the likes of Stalin's atrocities, Chairman Mao's purges, the killing fields of Cambodia, the Holocaust, to name but a few examples of armed troops dominating unarmed populations.

Those hillbillies back when sure knew a thing or two.

Thank you.

I agree. Hamilton, Jay and Madison were idealists and coming from their experience with the crown and breaking with GB, they would probably assume it was insanity to enumerate all the things the government could NOT do to you. Of course every citizen had the right and needed to have the ability to defend themselves, declare their support or opposition to a topic, not be randomly imprisoned or have their property taken from them. What IDIOT didn't understand that (in 1789)?

Enter the weasel-worders that slither through society (the first one was in the Garden)..... Now the snakes are so busy cranking out laws and rules and regulations (and executive fiats) that it reads like that 600 foot long caution/danger disclaimer in a prescription drug box.

Good job NRA
 

As part of its efforts to stay relevant during the election, and raise money, the National Rifle Association has described a way to build an AR-15 rifle on a budget.

A nice easy read below that summarizes the basics nicely for newcomers - a review of the entire thread might be timely for the revived Second Amendment Caucus (a group of conservative U.S. Representatives has banded together to form a caucus that will work towards shepherding a host of pro-gun bills in the new Congress).

http://www.guns.com/2016/12/14/repub...ndment-caucus/

Second Amendment: A fundamental principle of American liberty
By Dr. Joyce Lee Malcolm - - Monday, December 12, 2016
Washington Times

The Founders would not have been surprised that the Second Amendment “right of the people to keep and bear arms” survives.

What would have surprised them was that it very nearly didn’t.

The right of self-defense it protects had been considered the primary law of nature since antiquity. Other governments may have forbidden their people to have weapons to protect themselves, but the English did not. Englishmen had a long-standing duty to be armed to keep the peace and, beginning with the English Bill of Rights of 1689, that duty became a right.

Like other rights Americans derived from England, the original English right to have arms had restrictions — in this case religious and class limits, although these fell away by the early 19th century. In his classic work popular with the Founders, “Commentaries on the Laws of England,” William Blackstone referred to the right of having arms as a “natural right of resistance and self preservation, when the sanctions of society and laws are found insufficient to restrain the violence of oppression.”

He insisted no government could take the right to self-defense away. In contrast to any limitations on the English right, the American Second Amendment assumed “the right of the people to keep and bear arms” and decreed it “not be infringed.”

For most of its history, the Second Amendment was understood to confer an individual right, notwithstanding hundreds of various regulations. But in the 1960s, widespread riots and three political assassinations led to demands for stricter gun controls. Campaigns began for onerous restrictions on private ownership of firearms, including total bans.

Along with these, came a debate over the core meaning of the Second Amendment. The gist was that Americans had been wrong to believe the Second Amendment guaranteed them an individual right. The words of the amendment were parsed to disabuse them of that idea. Rather than the “well-regulated” militia as a reason for general ownership of weapons, it was argued that the amendment merely ensured that states have a militia and that membership in the militia, today’s National Guard, constituted the only right to be armed.

To advance this hypothesis, the amendment was interpreted as exclusively military. Unlike reference to “the people” in the First and Fourth Amendments protecting individual rights, we were told that in the Second Amendment “the right of the people” merely intended a “collective” right.

“Arms” meant only military weapons, “to bear” meant carrying weapons in a military force. “Keep” was ignored.

There was even the claim that if an individual right were intended, it only protected 18th century weapons.

Those opposed to the individual right interpretation even claimed the individual right was a brand new idea. Laurence Tribe, in the 1979 edition of his popular textbook, “American Constitutional Law,” relegated the Second Amendment to a footnote. A generation of law students were taught accordingly.

In 2008, the Supreme Court acted.

In the case of District of Columbia v. Heller, the Court examined the meaning of the Second Amendment for the first time. The justices overturned Washington, D.C.’s ban on residents keeping handguns in their homes, affirming the individual’s right to keep and bear those weapons in common use for self-defense and other lawful purposes.

Two years later, in McDonald v. City of Chicago, the Supreme Court incorporated the Second Amendment’s individual right throughout the country, finding it “a fundamental principle of American liberty.”

Despite these decisions, debate continues. Both landmark opinions affirming the right of Americans to keep and bear arms were passed by 5-4 majorities, with the dissenting justices asking that they be overturned. Further, some judges are choosing to ignore the high court.

Moves to protect and expand the right to be armed are, however, rapidly advancing in the states. Forty-four state constitutions include a right to be armed, and only nine of the 50 states have restrictive rules to prevent residents from carrying a concealed weapon, while 11 states permit any resident who lawfully owns a firearm to carry it concealed without further requirements.

Millions of Americans own and use firearms peacefully. Despite the recent uptick in gun violence in a few cities, the past 20 years have seen a dramatic drop in gun crime and gun homicides.

The Second Amendment affords Americans a right and ability to protect themselves and their loved ones. It places ultimate trust in the good sense of the American people, as the Founders intended.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...ple-of-americ/

• Joyce Lee Malcolm, Ph.D., is Patrick Henry Professor of Constitutional Law and the Second Amendment at Antonin Scalia Law School. She has written extensively on the English and American right of the people to be armed.

NICS background checks for the year 2016 at link below.

That's a lot of heaters.

https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/...month_year.pdf

And those are just the ones that need/require a background check. I've not needed an FBI background check since I got my AZ CWP. ;)

That's what really gives statists pause (or nightmares); as well as thoughts, perhaps, about the patriarch with dozens distributing some out to a grown kith & kin as simply exchange of private property among 2 free persons. If it gives them heebee-jeebees then I'm all :D

Same here in Texas.

Obama's tenure 2009-2016: 157,233,157

Not included are how many background checks were approved for purchase, which would be a good number to publish. Although that still wouldn't give a 1 to 1 correlation of actual purchases considering multiple firearms purchased at one time and purchases made in states like Texas and Arizona that do not require an NICS check for license holders.

One industry is gonna miss BHO...the gun salesman of the year...this is a good opportunity to buy. Complete article and graphs/charts at link below,

Crashing "Post-Obama Era" Gun Sales Lead To Remington Mass Layoffs

Tyler Durden's picture
by Tyler Durden
ZERO HEDGE
Mar 14, 2017 12:46 PM

As we noted last summer, the Obama administration’s constant gun control threats did little more than flood American homes with more guns as people looked to stockpile weapons ahead of anticipated new regulations. In fact, both of Obama's elections resulted in massive and unprecedented spikes in gun sales.

Meanwhile, Obama's presidency was a boon for the gun manufacturers whose revenue, profitability and stocks all soared during his presidency.

But while the constant threat of new regulations under Obama resulted in a massive full forward of gun demand and pushed gun stocks to all-time highs, the election of Trump, and thus the removal of those threats for at least the next 4-8 years, is having exactly the opposite effect.

If fact, Remington Outdoor just announced layoffs of 120 people at their upstate New York manufacturing facility due to sinking gun demand in the Trump era. Per the Wall Street Journal:

Meanwhile, other firearms makers, including American Outdoor Brands, formerly known as Smith & Wesson, say demand for weapons, particularly handguns, has been ebbing since Trump's election. Earlier this month the company posted disappointing sales and higher inventories and admitted to investors on their quarterly earnings call that business had slowed...all of which sent the stock into a downward spiral.

Meanwhile, Wedbush equity analyst James Hardiman expects FBI background checks, a good indicator of gun sales, to be down 10-15% in 2017.

<snip>

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-0...cturing-facili

I'd like to see "accessory sales" spike because a suppressor is an OTC item in a bubble-pak.

COSTCO should have handy 5 packs...everything else there is packed family size.

Prediction was already made last year........ :munchin (Post #49)

http://www.professionalsoldiers.com/...t=51694&page=4

Gotta love it !

Just got back from the range - timely bump for an important thread.

Quote of the Day: In China, Gun Control Is About Government Control
The Truth About Guns
Dan Zimmerman
April 10, 2017

“The Chinese government took away people’s guns to prevent them rising up. Do you think they would be able to demolish peoples’ homes if they hadn’t?”- Renin University sociologist Zhou Xiaozheng in In gun-taboo China, tourism to U.S. firing ranges grows [via usatoday.com]

http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/201...nment-control/

"Free men do not ask permission to bear arms."
 

TS and many others posted in another thread about the goings on in Venezuela - the short article below ties the actions of those Statist/communist thugs with an important reminder.

A lesson in Democracy from Venezuela
By Russ Vaughn
American Thinker
April 21, 2017

The socialist government of Venezuela has just provided American gun owners with an excellent lesson in why it is of paramount importance never to let the government take our guns. Back in 1998, after four decades of the Latin American variety of democracy, military leader Hugo Chávez, a moderate leftist, was elected president. From that time until his death in 2013, he continued to take Venezuela further left, founding the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) in 2007, which has remained the ruling party to the present, inexorably moving the country into a quagmire of socialist poverty. Chávez died in 2013, but one of his last acts is now coming into full play in a way that provides our lesson.

In 2012, Chávez and PSUV began consolidating their hold on the Venezuelan people by banning guns in public places using the usual leftist excuse of reducing crime. Since that first gun control measure, those in charge have incrementally, to the point of recent total confiscation, taken away gun ownership rights until the only legally owned firearms are those of the military, the police, and favored security organizations, and they can obtain those only through government sources. The civilian populace of Socialist Venezuela has been effectively disarmed.

...unless your political views align with the socialist leadership, that is. Chávez's handpicked strongman successor, Nicolas Maduro, has decided to hand out military-grade weaponry to those civilians who agree with him politically – that is, his hard-left socialist supporters.

From an excellent accounting at Washington Free Beacon:

"A gun for every militiaman!" Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro said to uniformed militia members outside the presidential palace, Fox News reported on Tuesday. The Bolivarian militias, created by Maduro's predecessor Hugo Chavez, already number in the hundreds of thousands and are being used to supplement the regime's armed forces. Maduro is boosting the number of armed supporters in hopes of keeping control over the country from what he labels "imperialist aggression."

Therein lies your lesson, American gun owners: the American left constantly pushes for more gun control, never satisfied, slowly chiseling away at our 2nd Amendment rights, even to the point that a President Hillary admittedly would have considered the Australian buyback form of voluntary gun confiscation. With the American left moving ever more radically in that direction, who is to say that a future dedicated socialist president like Elizabeth Warren might not stack the Court and get the reading of the 2nd Amendment that the Democrats have long wanted: that the only legal guns in America, like Venezuela, are those in the hands of government?

And who's to say that an even more rabidly socialist successor to a President Warren might not decide that she feels her position threatened, like President Maduro, and decide to issue arms to her loyalists? Thanks to our recent election victory, we are now enjoying a respite from liberal gun grabs and fears of a liberal-dominated Supreme Court. However, as the Democrats have recently learned regarding national power, nothing is forever.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/...venezuela.html

No matter what successes liberty minded people have in elections and legislation, we must remember that the left will never rest in their quest to take away the 2nd Amendment rights of the American people.

The armed citizen is what stands between liberty and the globalists/leftists agenda of dominance.

Tell us something we don't know!

US murders concentrated in 5 percent of counties - Fox News
https://apple.news/AHDeUV0vSSsS5BhQX2UBL6A

One of the most interesting findings in the report is that areas with the highest gun ownership rates have low murder rates.
"While many factors explain these concentrated murders, it is also striking that the counties with zero murders are the counties with by far the highest gun ownership rates," Lott said.

Brother, you know you can't introduce logic into this equation....:p

Logic was old school, it went out when kids quit "getting" to wash the blackboards for doing well.

Obama and Hillary supporters are undoubtably well represented in that deadly 5%...illegal immigrants? Sanctuary cities? Gangs? Illegal drugs? Gun control advocates? Community organizers? Statists? Globalists?

Contrast the leftist carnage with the counties experiencing essentially zero murders and possessing lotsa iron.

Maybe, and I'm going out on a limb here...it's not the pencil after all...but the writer...

Just read that President Trump is going to visit the NRA convention in Atlanta tomorrow. Wish I were there just to hear the cheering and applause. ;)

Not for naught, but if you dig a bit, you can usually find somebody livestreaming on either Periscope, Facebook Live, Youtube or Twitter.

http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files...-v-california/

Issue: Whether the Second Amendment entitles ordinary, law-abiding citizens to carry handguns outside the home for self-defense in some manner, including concealed carry when open carry is forbidden by state law.


•Judge Neil Gorsuch now sits on the US Supreme Court. Possibly we could see a favorable 5/4 ruling!

There are some pretty weighty amici curiae briefs in there. For the barristers or SCOTUS watchers (looking at that link), is that part of their "process" to update once/week like that, and/or are meeting on it, or does it appear they are kicking the can down the road?

Hope it leaves a big ugly bruise on Kali when it lands.

Kicking the can down the road as two or more justices are trying to convince one or more to vote to hear the case. Need at least 4 justices to agree to put the case on the docket.

4th Circuit En Banc- 2A doesn't protect assault rifles and magazines
 

https://www.supremecourt.gov/search....es/16a1074.htm

May 10 2017
Application (16A1074) granted by The Chief Justice extending the time to file until July 21, 2017.

https://www.ammoland.com/2017/03/4th...#axzz4j8fJm6ez

Read more: https://www.ammoland.com/2017/03/4th...#ixzz4j8grWw2M
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution
Follow us: @Ammoland on Twitter | Ammoland on Facebook

The 4th Circuit en banc declared that “contrary to the now-vacated decision of our prior panel — the banned assault weapons and large-capacity magazines are not protected by the Second Amendment.
That is, we are convinced that the banned assault weapons and large-capacity magazines are among those arms that are ‘like’ ‘M-16 rifles’ — ‘weapons that are most useful in military service’ — which the Heller Court singled out as being beyond the Second Amendment’s reach…Put simply, we have no power to extend Second Amendment protection to the weapons of war that the Heller decision explicitly excluded from such coverage.” It further stated that the appropriate level of scrutiny to apply to such a challenge was intermediate scrutiny. In other words, the Court believes that the Second Amendment does not warrant the highest level of protection when analyzing a challenge to the constitutionality of a law it may infringe upon.
Many people have been asking “how will this affect me”? Remember at the beginning where I listed the states the 4th Circuit covers? This decision is only binding on lower federal courts in those states. Unfortunately, that means if a law restricting certain types of firearms is passed in any of those states and someone brings a challenge to the constitutionality of it under the Second Amendment, it has now opened the door for restrictions on what firearms the Second Amendment protects. If you reside in a different state, no courts are bound by the decision. However, they can cite to it as persuasive authority, which is problematic, especially if other courts begin to adopt the perverted logic employed by the 4th Circuit.
When we were reviewing the script for this episode, Jon asked me how we could fight such a terrible decision. The fact of the matter is, there isn’t really any way to do so, short of contacting your congressional representatives. As you probably know, we have a system of government that is designed to have checks and balances on one another. If you didn’t know that, don’t worry, I’ve included another School House Rock episode for you to enjoy.

I find it fascinating how this language from the Heller decision:

"We may as well consider at this point (for we will have to consider eventually) what types of weapons Miller permits. Read in isolation, Miller’s phrase “part of ordinary military equipment” could mean that only those weapons useful in warfare are protected. That would be a startling reading of the opinion, since it would mean that the National Firearms Act’s restrictions on machineguns (not challenged in Miller) might be unconstitutional, machineguns being useful in warfare in 1939. We think that Miller’s “ordinary military equipment” language must be read in tandem with what comes after: “[O]rdinarily when called for [militia] service [able-bodied] men were expected to appear bearing arms supplied by themselves and of the kind in common use at the time.” 307 U. S., at 179. The traditional militia was formed from a pool of men bringing arms “in common use at the time” for lawful purposes like self-defense. “In the colonial and revolutionary war era, [small-arms] weapons used by militiamen and weapons used in defense of person and home were one and the same.” State v. Kessler, 289 Ore. 359, 368, 614 P. 2d 94, 98 (1980) (citing G. Neumann, Swords and Blades of the American Revolution 6–15, 252–254 (1973)). Indeed, that is precisely the way in which the Second Amendment’s operative clause furthers the purpose announced in its preface. We therefore read Miller to say only that the Second Amendment does not protect those weapons not typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes, such as short-barreled shotguns. That accords with the historical understanding of the scope of the right, see Part III, infra

....

It may be objected that if weapons that are most useful in military service—M-16 rifles and the like—may be banned, then the Second Amendment right is completely detached from the prefatory clause. But as we have said, the conception of the militia at the time of the Second Amendment’s ratification was the body of all citizens capable of military service, who would bring the sorts of lawful weapons that they possessed at home to militia duty. It may well be true today that a militia, to be as effective as militias in the 18th century, would require sophisticated arms that are highly unusual in society at large. Indeed, it may be true that no amount of small arms could be useful against modern-day bombers and tanks. But the fact that modern developments have limited the degree of fit between the prefatory clause and the protected right cannot change our interpretation of the right."

Became Heller decided M16s are not protected by the 2A.

I'd say misquoted Heller is either stupidity or judicial activism in the decision. Quite possibly both.
Also the argument over "common use", that the AR-15 is not considered common use!

http://articles.baltimoresun.com/201...y-act-Maryland

It is also of a note than many in Maryland purchase %80 lowers and put on HB uppers completely within the law. Many dealer also now sell gas piston AR's that are not regulated by the FSA 2013 law in fact as sold as cash and carry only with ATF 4473. Explain that to a progressive liberal?

The May 2017 numbers are in.

NICS Firearm Background Checks:

Month/Year

November 30, 1998 - May 31, 2017

https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/...month_year.pdf

.

:lifter

Exactly!