I think that the point Thomas brings where the 2nd Amendment is treated as a "disfavored right" where the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendments are not limited to the "confines of ones home".

For that matter, is the First Amendment solely for private conversations away from public space?

Why is the 9th Circus Kort allowed to perpetuate this level of complete disregard for the Constitution?

Amazing

I think such jurists make a conscious choice to ignore the history of what it took to get the BoR passed after the USCon's ratification. (Many of the time, for example, were distraught that there would still be no religious test for office-holders, "...lest Turks, Jews and other Infidels" find their way into the new national government.) The 9th Circuit's composition is usually an embodiment of that selective allocation of freedom, as they've become an arm of the states where the infringements take place rather than a check on oppressive states. Pushing back against that is, alas, a task that doesn't go away.

Big News in Wrenn and Grace Cases!

Today, the D.C. Circuit denied the District of Columbia's petition for rehearing and rehearing en banc in the Wrenn and Grace cases (the lead case is Wrenn). In the consolidated appeal in those cases, a 3 judge panel of the D.C. Circuit had struck down as unconstitutional the DC requirement that an applicant show a "good reason" for a permit to carry a handgun outside the home.

Significantly, the court's order denying en banc noted that no judge even requested a vote on the petition. What a contrast with the Ninth Circuit! That circuit has granted en banc in every case from a favorable panel decision applying the Second Amendment. You can find the panel's decision HERE. The court's order denying rehearing can be found HERE. This denial of rehearing makes the D.C. Circuit's decision final!

At this point, the DC government can choose either to file a petition for a writ of certiorari before the Supreme Court or accept the D.C. Circuit's decision. In Heller, DC sought certiorari and ultimately lost on the merits. Given how irrationally and rabidly anti-gun DC is, our expectation is that DC will once again seek certiorari in Wrenn. If it does, there are good reasons to believe that the Supreme Court will agree to hear the case.

First, the Wrenn decision openly disagrees with the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Circuits, all which have sustained as constitutional similar "good reason" requirements.

Second, not only does the Wrenn decision create a square conflict in the circuits, it invalidates a DC law on Second Amendment constitutional grounds.

Third, we now have a full Court of nine Justices, including Justice Gorsuch, and while it takes five to win, it only takes four Justices to grant certiorari. Not to get ahead of ourselves, but if the Supreme Court does take the case and the plaintiffs prevail, that Supreme Court decision will effectively overrule the 4th Circuit's decision in Woollard, which sustained Maryland "good and substantial reason" requirement.
At that point, Maryland would become a "shall issue" state (as would the rest of the states that have imposed "good reason" requirements)!

DC has 90 days in which to file a petition for certiorari, subject to extension. In the meantime, under its local rules and prior order, the D.C. Circuit will issue its mandate seven days from today, including its instruction to the district courts in Wrenn and Grace to enter a permanent injunction against DC's "good reason" requirement.
Once those permanent injunctions are issued by the district courts (it will take some time), applicants *should* be able to file carry applications with DC without regard to the "good reason" requirement, particularly if the applicant is a member of the Second Amendment Foundation, which was one of the plaintiffs in Wrenn. Of course, it is still possible that DC may seek to delay the court's mandate or ask for a stay of the mandate pending a petition for certiorari. Nothing in Wrenn changes Maryland's law. It will take a Supreme Court decision to do that.

Kolbe v. Hogan Pending petition
 

http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files...kolbe-v-hogan/

https://newswithviews.com/supreme-co...t-and-the-nra/

Supreme Court, The 2nd Amendment And The NRA
Oct 17, 2017 Read More Articles by Edwin Vieira Jr.

As the readers of my columns on News With Views are aware, for more than the past decade I have attempted to awaken Americans who consider themselves “constitutionalists”, “patriots”, “friends of the Second Amendment”, and like-minded people to the importance of revitalizing “the Militia of the several States”.
But my efforts have met with scant success. Whether the fault lies with the author of these missives or the audience to which they were directed may be debatable. The facts remain that, not only have vanishingly few Americans evinced any interest in this matter, but also all too many who have taken note of my work have reacted to it in a singularly negative, if not overtly hostile, fashion.

The latest manifestation of this dog-in-the-manger attitude is the refusal of the Petitioners in the pending case Kolbe v. Hogan, No. 17-127 (U.S. Supreme Court) to consent to my filing of a brief amici curiae on their behalf.
The decision which is the subject of this petition—Kolbe v. Hogan, 849 F.3d 114 (4th Cir. 2017)—is, in my estimation, the most egregious affront to the Second Amendment which has ever been handed down by any court in the United States. So my attempt to intervene in this case is not simply a quixotic, let alone an uninformed, effort on my part.

For those who are unfamiliar with procedure in the Supreme Court, a potential amicus curiae (“friend of the Court”) first seeks permission from the parties to file a brief, usually on behalf of one of the parties. If either party refuses consent, the amicus may file a motion for leave to file, requesting the Supreme Court to accept his brief notwithstanding that refusal.

Now, usually, parties who desire the Supreme Court to review their case through a petition for a writ or certiorari want to marshal as many amici briefs on their behalf as possible, in order to convince the Court that their petition not only has theoretical merit but also raises issues of general rather than merely passing concern.

Indeed, in yesteryear, the all-too-close coördination of various amici with the parties they supported became something of an abusive “cottage industry”, which resulted in the Supreme Court’s issuance of its Rule 37.6, under which an amicus must certify that no counsel for any party has authored the amicus brief in whole or in part, and that no such counsel or any party has made a monetary contribution intended to fund the preparation or submission of such a brief.

So, today, an amicus must be completely independent of the party whose position it supports, except to the extent under Rule 37.1 that the amicus brief brings to the Court’s attention matters which not only support that party but also apprise the Court of matters that the favored party will not emphasize in its petition but which nonetheless will be useful for the Court to consider.

In my brief amici curiae, as something of an expert on the Second Amendment I seek to inform the Court of critical matters related to the first thirteen words of the Amendment—to wit, “[a] well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State”—that (as my brief explained)

continued Kolbe v. Hogan
 

will “not * * * [be] brought to [the Court’s] attention by the parties”, but nevertheless “may be of considerable help to the Court.” Because these matters have* “not [been] specifically noticed in the objections taken in the records or briefs of counsel” for the parties in a satisfactory manner to date, and are unlikely to be raised hereafter, th[e Supreme] Court should take them under consideration by way of the Amici’s brief, “that the Constitution may not be violated from the carelessness or oversight of counsel in any particular.” See Pollock v. Farmer’s Loan & Trust Co., 157 U.S. 429, 604 (1895) (separate opinion of Field, J.).

Of course, one would expect that the Respondents (here, Hogan et alia) would balk at having such information brought to the Court’s attention—but that, on the other hand, the Petitioners (here, Kolbe et alia) would be grateful for whatever assistance they could obtain from an amici brief prepared by someone who knows his business. After all, at the petition stage, the strategy must be for the Petitioners to amass whatever support is available that could convince the Court to hear the case on the merits.

If the reader goes to the SCOTUSBLOG on the Internet, and searches for Kolbe v. Hogan in the compilation under “Petitions”, he will find, not only Kolbe’s Petition for a Writ of Certiorari, but also the amici briefs filed on the Petitioners’ behalf. These include briefs from such amici as the NRA and the Cato Institute. Of these briefs, mine is the only one as to which the Petitioners have denied their consent to file.
When the reader peruses these briefs, he will see that mine is the only one which focuses on the first thirteen words of the Second Amendment. The rest rely on what I should describe as the erroneous “law-school solution” to the problem raised in Kolbe—focusing on such really irrelevant matters as whether so-called “assault rifles” are in “common use” by average Americans for individual self-defense in the home,
and such ultimately self-defeating arguments as whether “the right of the people to keep and bear [such] Arms” is subject to one or another anti-constitutional judicial “balancing test” (so-called “strict scrutiny” or “intermediate scrutiny”) under the Supreme Court’s decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008).

None of these briefs, other than my own, points out that the actually controlling precedent is United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939); and that, applied in tandem, both Miller and Heller demand reversal of the Court of Appeals’ decision in a manner which absolutely guarantees—indeed, if the Second Amendment is properly construed, requires—average Americans’ possession of “assault rifles”.
Under these circumstances,
one would expect that my amici brief would at least be welcomed sotto voce by the Petitioners, because they have nothing to lose, and everything to gain, from having the Supreme Court made aware of the arguments which that brief, and no one else, presents.

But no—the Petitioners do not want my amici curiae brief even to be considered by the Court. Having kicked around in Supreme Court practice over the years—and not without some notable successes—I find Petitioners’ reluctance to further their own interests rather perplexing. This is a conclusion in which I expect those of my readers who study the various amici briefs to concur.

So the question I raise for my readers’ consideration is: “What is going on here?” Why do the Petitioners (and, for that matter, the other amici ostensibly on their side) treat the first thirteen words of the Second Amendment, not simply as irrelevant to their case, but also as so dangerous to mention that they refuse both to address them in their own briefs and to consent for my amici brief to bring them to the Supreme Court’s attention?

Do these people really believe that the first thirteen words of the Second Amendment are actually irrelevant to the last fourteen words, even though they all are included in the very same sentence? If this the way English grammar works? Is this the way constitutional interpretation works (or ought to work)?

At this point, the matter is in the hands of the Supreme Court. But, in the long run, the problem goes beyond what happens to my amici curiae brief or even to the petition for a writ of certiorari in Kolbe itself. Kolbe, after all, will not represent the final battle over radical “gun control” in this country.

The struggle to secure “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms” will continue, unabated, until all of the twenty seven words of the Second Amendment are either upheld in their entirety or so disregarded, discounted, or diluted by ridiculous decisions of the Judiciary that the Amendment is reduced to the palest shadow of what the Founders intended it to be.

To be sure, readers of this commentary who are not members of the Supreme Court Bar are not in a position to influence the Court. But many of them are capable of bringing this matter to the attention of leaders of the NRA—who, more than anyone else, are responsible for floating the mistaken notion that the Second Amendment’s overriding concern is to enable average Americans to possess “Arms” for the purpose of individual self-defense. Not simply the words of the Amendment, but especially the pre-constitutional history which informs them, teach that community self-defense is that concern. See my book The Sword and Sovereignty: The Constitutional Principles of “the Militia of the Several States” (CD-Rom Edition, 2012).

So I urge my readers—in particular, those who are members of the NRA—to contact that organization and encourage its leadership to reevaluate its position. At no time in this country’s history could such reconsideration be more vital.

Hours and hours and hours of entertainment at link below...that damn inanimate object just won't get violent.

I've watched some in my home for decades...nuthin' ...maybe some of y'all will be able to spot the iron jump up and turn violent...good luck !

:munchin

http://montego.roughwheelers.com/gun_cam.html

National Shooting Sports Federation calls on bureaucrats to do their jobs and keep criminals and the mentally ill from possessing firearms - rather than blanket bans on law abiding folks from possessing common firearms.

NOVEMBER 8, 2017
NSSF ON CNN HEADLINE NEWS: FIXNICS | GUN BACKGROUND CHECKS

America’s firearms retailers are on the front line of preventing firearms from getting into the hands of those who should not have them. The system is only as good as the records in the database. Appearing on CNN Headline News Network’s S.E. Cupp Unfiltered last night, NSSF’s Larry Keane discussed our industry’s FixNICS initiative and called on the Department of Defense to ensure it is doing its part to enhance public safety.

Since 2013, NSSF has led the successful nationwide FixNICS initiative effort to improve the reporting of all criminal and adjudicated mental health records by the states to NICS. To date, 16 states have adopted NSSF-led FixNICS changes. Since the campaign was launched through the end of 2016, the number of disqualifying mental health records submitted to NICS increased by 170 percent to nearly 4.5 million, from about 1.7 million in December 2012.

https://www.nssf.org/nssf-cnn-headli...t+Relations%29

Mass shootings in gun-free nations
 

An interesting article below.

Mass shootings in gun-free nations
David Kopel
Washington Post
November 9, 2017

The global history of mass shootings demonstrates that the vast majority of these crimes are perpetrated in places where citizen firearms ownership is close to nil. While people can argue about cause and effect, the facts are indisputable.

This might seem surprising to people who read a recent article in the New York Times claiming that the mass shootings in the United States are a direct consequence of the high density of gun ownership in the country. But the article is analytically flawed, as Robert VerBruggen detailedfor National Review Online. For example, the Times article is based on a study by a professor who refuses to allow skeptics to see his data or his methodology. But let’s hypothesize that the assertions by the professor are correct. It is still true that mass shooting fatalities are heavily concentrated in areas where citizen firearms possession is prohibited.

Consider, for example, some of the deadliest mass shootings of the 20th century. As soon as the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union began on June 22, 1941, special SS units called Einsatzgruppen were deployed for mass killings. All the Jews or Gypsies (also known as Roma) in a village would be assembled and marched out of town. Then they would all be shot at once. (Yehuda Bauer, “Jewish Resistance in the Ukraine and Belarus during the Holocaust,” in Jewish Resistance Against the Nazis, Patrick Henry ed. [D. C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2014], pp. 485-93.)

Within a year, the 3,000 Einsatzgruppen, aided by several thousand helpers from the German police and military, had murdered about 1 million people, concentrating on small towns in formerly Soviet territory. (Hillary Earl, The Nuremberg SS-Einsatzgruppen Trial, 1945–1958 [Cambridge, U. K.: Cambridge Univ. Pr., 2009], pp. 4–8; Reuben Ainsztein, Jewish Resistance in Nazi-Occupied Eastern Europe [London: Elek Books, 1974], pp. 222–25.) Einsatzgruppen mass shootings took place not only in today’s Russia but also in nations that the Soviet Communists had taken over, and which were then over-run by the Nazis: eastern Poland (taken by Stalin pursuant to the 1939 Nazi-Soviet Pact), Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.

Because of psychological damage to the Einsatzgruppen, the Nazis attempted to replace mass shootings with mobile gas vans. But these did not work out well, partly because herding people into the gas vans required even closer contact with the victims than did mass shooting. (Earl, p. 7). Therefore, the Nazis invented extermination camps with huge gas chambers, which were more efficient at mass killing, and which created a larger physical (and, consequently, psychological) distance between the murderers and their victims.

In pre-WWII Poland and in the Soviet Union, “no firearm, not even a shotgun,” could be lawfully possessed without a government permit. For most people, “such permits were impossible to obtain.” (Ainsztein, p. 304; see also Chaika Grossman, The Underground Army: Fighters of Bialystok Ghetto, trans. Schmuel Beeri [N.Y.: Holocaust Library, 1987; first pub. in Israel 1965], p. 3.) “Not to allow the peasants to have arms” had been the policy “from time immemorial.” (Ainsztein, p. 304.) In this regard, Lenin and Stalin carried on the Russian czarist tradition, as they did in many other ways. (See generally Eugene Lyons, Stalin: Czar of All the Russias [Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1940]; Simon Sebag Montefiore, Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar [N.Y.: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004].)

In Poland, the main way that firearms got into citizens’ hands was peasant scavenging of rifles that had been left behind from the battles of World War I (1914-1918) and the Russo-Polish War (1919-1920). Usually the rifle barrels would be sawed short, for concealment. (Ainsztein, p. 304.) But thanks to the 1939 Hitler-Stalin Pact, the Soviet Union invaded and conquered the eastern third of Poland at the beginning of World War II. The Soviet secret police, the NKVD, “took great care to disarm the local population, and was very successful.” (Ibid.)

The one big chance to acquire arms was in the chaos immediately after June 22, 1941. In those first weeks, the Soviet army reeled in retreat, leaving large quantities of weapons behind. But the abandoned arms tended to be in rural areas (where Polish peasants picked up many), whereas most Jews lived in cities or towns. (Ibid.)

During the chaotic early weeks on the Eastern Front, the Nazis successfully deterred most Jews from attempting to scavenge arms. As in every nation conquered by the Third Reich, being caught with a firearm meant instant death for oneself and one’s family, and perhaps even for others, in reprisal. This was especially so for Jews. Disarmed, the Jews and Roma were soon destroyed.

Victims of a mass shooting perpetrated by organized government are just as dead as victims of a mass shooting perpetrated by a lone nut. Adopt the broadest definition of “mass shooting” that you want (e.g., three victims wounded, one killed). Add up all the mass shooting deaths from lunatics, organized crime, jihadist cells and ordinary criminals. The global, historical total of mass shooting deaths will be gruesome, and it will also be small compared to the total of mass shooting deaths perpetrated by criminal governments — including Fascists, Communists and non-ideological tyrants.

University of Hawaii political science professor R.J. Rummel compiled demographic data regarding genocide. He estimated the total number of victims of mass murders by governments from 1901 to 1990 to be 169,198,000. (Rudolph J. Rummel, Death by Government [Piscataway, N.J.: Transaction Pub., 2d ed. 2000].) This figure does not include deaths from wars; it includes only deliberate mass murder of civilian populations.

Because Rummel was only studying situations in which governments were engaged in major efforts to exterminate a large number of people, his 169 million victims figure does not include smaller-scale mass murders, including mass shootings. For example, if government agents shoot up a political rally, or attack an opposition newspaper, killing dozens of people, those deaths would not be included in Rummel’s figures.

There are lots of means to perpetrate mass murder: with poison gas, with bombs, by running people over with trucks, working them to death in slave labor camps, or even by hacking them with machetes, as in Rwanda. However, mass shootings have been among the most common methods of mass murder around the world for more than a century. Even when victims are killed by other means, such as deliberate starvation or gas chambers, a government monopoly of arms is essential for governments being able to prevent the victims from resisting.

The illegitimate “governments” that perpetrate mass shootings or other forms of mass murder have worked assiduously to ensure that their intended victims are disarmed. This was true in Turkish Armenia in World War I; in Darfur, Sudan; in Indonesia’s ethnic cleansing of East Timor; in Bosnia; in Kenya and Uganda; in Ethiopia against the Anuak; and in many other places.

Gun prohibition advocates insist that armed self-defense could not possibly make a difference when governments perpetrate mass shootings or other forms of mass murder. But this is true only for strawman scenarios. Of course the Jews in Nazi Germany could not have overthrown Hitler by themselves. Nor could the Jewish or Roma peasants in eastern Poland have single-handedly driven the Wehrmachtback to Germany. But at the least, armed resisters can fight back and kill some of the perpetrators. If every one of the 1 million Jews and Roma who were murdered by the Einsatzgruppen had possessed a good rifle, then it would not have been so simple for a million people to be slaughtered by a few thousand. Plenty of Einsatzgruppenwould have been shot and that would at least have slowed down the pace of murders, providing more time for some potential victims to escape, and making it harder for Hitler’s regime to recruit replacements.

Notwithstanding the assertions of anti-gun lobbyists that victim resistance is futile, the governments that perpetrate mass murders do fear armed citizens. That is why rigorous disarmament of the victims almost always precedes the killings.

Besides denying the universal human right that is recognized by the U.S. Second Amendment, the perpetrators also deny the universal human right recognized by the First Amendment: the exchange of information. It was not until early 1942 that Eastern European Jews began to realize that when Nazis moved people out of a city or town, the purpose was not deportation for slave labor, but rather extermination. The news of the Nazis’ actual intentions was first spread by a Jan. 1, 1942, manifesto written by Abba Kovner, a young poet in Vilnius, Lithuania. Kovner’s words were smuggled from ghetto to ghetto:

“Let us not go to slaughter like sheep! Jewish youth, do not trust the deceivers. . . . Hitler has invented a system for the destruction of all the Jews on Europe….It is true that we are weak and we have nobody to help us. But our only dignified answer to the enemy must be resistance! Brothers, it is better to die like free fighters than to live by the murderer’s grace. Resist until your last breath!”

(Ainsztein, p. 499.)

Continued below...

Mass shootings in gun-free nations...continued
 

Continued from article above:

“It can’t happen here,” some people say about the United States. But during the 1930s, there were lots of American supporters of Fascism and Communism. Today, there are far too many people on the political far left and far right who are openly hostile to civil liberty and to the Constitution. They palpably yearn to be ruled by a strongman. On nearly every college campus, many professors indoctrinate students in Marxist thinking, which in practical application is little different from Hitlerite thinking. As detailed by the Canary Mission, Jew-hating student “leaders” are common on American college campuses; like their brownshirt ancestors of the 1920s in Germany, they use violence and intimidation to suppress speech in favor of Jewish resistance to exterminationists, which today include organizations such as Hezbollah and Hamas.

Germany in 1900 was one of the most tolerant places in the world for Jews; in any country, things can change a lot in a few decades.

Contrary to the claims of the gun prohibition lobbies, sensible policies to minimize mass shootings are not simply a matter of confiscating guns from law-abiding citizens. The better approach was adopted by the United States as World War II loomed in Europe. First, laws should attempt to prevent firearms acquisition by individuals who have proven they are particularly likely to use firearms offensively. The first broad federal law to do so was the Federal Firearms Act of 1938, which, among other things, prohibited firearms sales to felons. This was later strengthened by the Gun Control Act of 1968. Today, the National Instant Criminal Background Check System works towards the same objective.

Second a policy for reducing the death toll of mass shootings also means ensuring that lawful defenders have the means to resist. This means abolishing laws that forbid licensed, trained adults to carry defensive handguns in certain locations, such as churches. It means not depriving good citizens of effective arms of resistance — such as Stephen Willeford’sAR-15 rifle that instantly ended the killing spree in Sutherland Springs, Tex., on Nov. 5.

Most of all, it means ensuring that our nation can never be turned into a “gun-free zone,” in which a rogue government could perpetrate mass shootings without resistance. Thus, after Congress passed the Federal Firearms Act of 1938, it passed the Property Requisition of Act of 1941. This was the first of several federal statutes to outlaw federal gun registration and gun confiscation. The act was informed by what had already taken place in Europe, where Hitler and Stalin used registration lists to confiscate guns, create gun-free zones, and then perpetrate mass shootings. Registration, confiscation, extermination.

Humane and sensible firearms policy aims to deter illegitimate, offensive uses of firearms, and to foster legitimate, defensive uses. Unreasonable and unfair policy disarms everyone except the government and its favored elites. Not every nation that adopts the latter policy ends up with genocide. Yet the historical record is clear that mass disarmament of citizens can be the gateway to millions of deaths by mass shooting.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.311d2143d9c8

Thanks for that. Given the paper, almost a "man bites dog" thing.

I was going to suggest someone should airdrop that article on the Tim McGraw/Faith Hill estate but it's OBE since they have their Bahamas island in Goat Cay now.
:rolleyes:

Why are liberal/socialist/communists so afraid of citizens bearing arms?
 

Why are liberal/socialist/communists so afraid of citizens bearing arms?

Because they know, that one man, one rifle and three bullets can change the course of history. And until they can confiscate every gun they are not safe.

MOLON LABE

Retired military commanders urge Congress to address 'gun violence crisis'
 

Retired military commanders urge Congress to address 'gun violence crisis'

Traitorous scum.

Some familiar names - many Obama or Klinton supporters among them.

Advisory Committee
The Giffords Veterans Coalition is led by an Advisory Committee - Members of the Giffords Veterans Coalition include:

Captain Mark Kelly, USN (Ret.), Co-Founder, Americans for Responsible Solutions
Admiral Thad Allen, USCG (Ret.)
General Peter W. Chiarelli, USA (Ret.)
General Wesley Clark, USA (Ret.)
General Michael V. Hayden, USAF (Ret.)
General James T. Hill, USA (Ret.)
Admiral James M. Loy, USCG (Ret.)
General Stanley A. McChrystal, USA (Ret.)
Admiral Eric T. Olson, USN (Ret.)
General David Petraeus, USA (Ret.)
Lt. General Claudia J. Kennedy, USA (Ret.)
Lt. General Norman R. Seip, USAF (Ret.)
Lt. General William “Kip” E. Ward, USA (Ret.)
Rear Admiral James Arden “Jamie” Barnett Jr., USN (Ret.)
Major General Vance Coleman, USA (Ret.)
Brigadier General Stephen A. Cheney, USMC (Ret.)
Brigadier General Evelyn “Pat” Foote, USA (Ret.)
Captain Gail Kulisch, USCG (Ret.)
Commander Carlos Del Toro, USN (Ret.)
Dave Korus, USAF (Ret.)
Jonathan Sanford, USA (Ret.)
Terron Sims II, USA (Ret.)
Shawn J. VanDiver, USN (Ret.)

A list of the left-wing, progressive, socialist idiots........... good to know. (But we already knew.)

If you want your rights taken, vote democrat/socialist.

If you wish to live Free, vote right of center.

A who's who of liberal, sell out GO / FOs

Fix NICs snuck into National Reciprocity.....be aware!
 

https://m.facebook.com/RepThomasMass...43059172384905


Contact your Reps! This could be VERY bad!

Actually not that bad. Did you read it?

Veterans with mental issues should not have guns.

Seniors that cannot take care of them selves and have been adjuncticated as such, should not have guns.

And expanding the national background check is fine with me as I'm not a criminal.

What I'm not good with is allowing just any agency to add names to a national database or take rights away.

Agree... And apparently both after the fact and without disclosure to those impacted.

Yes I read it and researched it. My greatest concern is the lack of due process. Another factor is how it will be determined. Even if specified, I have little trust in enormous bureaucracies getting that right. It has to have even more oversight, notification of pending action, and a reasonable time and way to repeal.

I agree some people shouldent own guns. Setting the precident to remove constitutional rights this way does not help.

Sounds like almost as much fun as the "no fly" list.

TR

Due process? Deplorables aren't worthy of due process.

That tinfoil hat make noise while you're sleeping? :munchin

Below is a much shorter version of an earlier post - calls on bureaucrats to do their jobs and keep criminals and the mentally ill from possessing firearms is a good thing - rather than blanket bans on law abiding folks from possessing firearms.

Watch the video at link.

Some people should not have guns.

NOVEMBER 8, 2017
NSSF ON CNN HEADLINE NEWS: FIXNICS | GUN BACKGROUND CHECKS

Since 2013, NSSF has led the successful nationwide FixNICS initiative effort to improve the reporting of all criminal and adjudicated mental health records by the states to NICS. To date, 16 states have adopted NSSF-led FixNICS changes. Since the campaign was launched through the end of 2016, the number of disqualifying mental health records submitted to NICS increased by 170 percent to nearly 4.5 million, from about 1.7 million in December 2012.

https://www.nssf.org/nssf-cnn-headli...t+Relations%29

I agree with TR's parallel to the no-fly list. HR 4477 actually does nothing except let Congress tell its lessers that they are doing something (cue the hand-wringing crowds). Oh, yeah, it also threatens to dock the bonus pay of politically-appointed agency hacks if they fail to meet the reporting gates. Whoopee.

There is no requirement to put this on all the agencies when the criteria that determine a prohibited person IAW 922 are based on a court decision. Only those entities that can actually render a legal determination (civil courts, military courts-martial) should be on the hook for this, and that's already in the law. And under existing law the AG already has the authority to gather the information from any agency it needs it from.

The danger is erroneous and/or duplicate reporting by agencies that have no business collecting & submitting records in the first place.

It is a badly written law, and is eyewash.

For reader's convenience below is link to Senator Cornyn's web page describing the proposed legislation and text of proposed legislation for Fix NICS Act of 2017.

There is no bump stock language in the proposed Senate version - there is in the House version.

Links directly to the differing House and Senate versions of the proposed legislation are also produced below. Hope this helps.

CORNYN'S take:
https://www.cornyn.senate.gov/node/4478

https://www.cornyn.senate.gov/sites/...ill%20Text.pdf

SENATE VERSION:
https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-...bill/2135/text

HOUSE VERSION:
https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-...bill/4477/text

Perhaps, fix NICS with properly reporting prohibited persons (felons and those adjudicated mentally ill) and tie the passage of that proposed fix to simultaneously passing national reciprocity for law abiding folks.

ETA: introduce specific and expedited relief provisions into the proposed fix language for those wrongly placed on the "no buy" list to address that legitimate concern.

A response to the "Generals" from a representative of NSSF (firearms industry trade association) that touches on some good points.

DECEMBER 12, 2017
RETIRED BRASS OFF TARGET TRUMPETING FOR GUN RESTRICTIONS

By Mark Oliva

Sixteen of our nation’s senior military officers recently penned a letter to Congress under the banner of the Giffords Veteran Coalition. They chose to lend their military authority and prestige to assist an ongoing political effort to further restrict their fellow law-abiding American citizens’ Constitutional right to keep and bear arms because they mistakenly believe they know how to reduce criminal misuse of firearms.

Generals and admirals, this is something that I just can’t salute.

The retired military leaders, who of course deserve accolades for leading forces in combat and humanitarian operations, cited the recent tragedy in Sutherland Springs, Texas, to call for more gun control laws. Unfortunately, they never mentioned that our nation’s military itself had the tools to prevent this tragedy from ever happening but failed tragically in that mission.

The Sutherland murderer had been convicted of domestic violence in a court-martial and involuntarily committed to a mental health facility before being booted from the Air Force with a bad conduct discharge. At least two of these instances would have been enough to bar the murderer from buying a firearm. But the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) was not informed of these facts because the Department of Defense never submitted the required disqualifying records. Because of DoD’s failure to follow its own regulations and our nation’s laws, this murderer was able to buy guns not just once, but four separate times. Each time he passed the background check.

Under the NICS Improvement Amendments Act of 2007, the military services were required to submit these records. The flag-level officers didn’t mention the DoD’s own instruction ordering compliance with the law. Nor was there mention of the Inspector General’s reports criticizing the military’s failure in its obligation to submit names of prohibited persons to the NICS database.

The generals and admirals tell Congress their command experience is foundational to their moral authority to call for restrictions on law-abiding American gun owners. They didn’t tell Congress, though, that during the height of the fighting, while Army General Petraeus commanded Coalition forces, Iraqi families could keep a fully-automatic AK-47 and 30-round magazine in their homes. U.S. forces didn’t want these families left defenseless against the terrorists who preyed on them.

This was the practice during my tour in Fallujah in 2006-2007. It was just one of several combat tours to Iraq and Afghanistan during my 25-year Marine Corps career. I trusted my life to their battlefield decision making. Yet, their letter wrongly blames the firearms, accessories and laws recognizing the fundamental right of Americans to keep and bear arms for the criminal activities of individuals.

There is a cognitive dissonance that these generals and admirals would seek restrictions on law-abiding Americans, who are only looking to make the best choice to protect themselves and their families. They never saw the same need in a nation under martial law with no Second Amendment rights. They advocate banning modern sporting rifles, the most popular rifle sold today. Nearly half of those who own these are former active and former military and law enforcement. They buy them primarily for target shooting, which follows a long history in the United States of service members in civilian life purchasing firearms similar to the rifle they used in uniform for lawful purposes like target shooting and hunting. Their opposition to this, and other measures, doesn’t pass muster.

Instead of endorsing new laws that criminals would not obey, the generals and admirals should devote their energy and commit their prestige to helping ensure that the laws already on the books are enforced. That includes keeping firearms out of the hands of prohibited persons by ensuring that disqualifying records are submitted to the system designed to help protect their fellow citizens. Sixteen retired generals and admirals do not speak for the overwhelming veteran population who know and treasure their Second Amendment rights.

ETA: link https://www.nssf.org/retired-brass-o...-restrictions/

About the Author
Mark Oliva is Manager, Public Affairs for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the trade association for the firearms and ammunition and industries. He is a retired Marine Master Gunnery Sergeant with 25 years of service, including tours in Iraq, Afghanistan, Haiti, Albania and Zaire.

Sad day in Kalifornia
 

No more Internet ammo sales to the People's Republik of Kalifornia as of tomorrow.

Was at Walmart earlier this evening and the manager of the store told me that they will not be selling any ammunition in any store in California after they close tonight.

All of this ammunition restriction is going to do is create a thriving black market here.

Can't wait to retire and leave this place. :(

LOL. Good one.

Well said Team Sergeant
 

Team Sergeant,

I agree with every word written in your position statement. I highly recommend that all who care about our country read two books that I just finished: Stop Teaching Our Kids to Kill by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman and The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog by Dr. Bruce Perry. These books were written as easy-to-read textbooks, citing research and anecdotal information to support the claim that our future is in jeopardy. The books include suggestions on what we can do to address the problems.

We (as a society) have created this problem and we (with the skills) must fix it. As a sheepdog, I want to be part of the solution. The first step is to list who is doing what already. Creating the list begins now. I seek the names of organizations and their leaders who are addressing removal of media violence, elimination of gun-free zones and/or prevention of childhood trauma.

Bright Girl

Just because a line has been drawn poorly in the past, does not mean that no line should be drawn.

Sure there are many vets with mental issues who are perfectly safe to own firearms. But there are many who are not. At least 20 per day, according to the statistics.


So because one person slipped through the system, your solution is to not improve the database and continue to allow prohibited persons to slip through? I'm not following the logic here....

.

...are we letting these "mentally impaired" people vote?


Why?

Not many on here have anything good to say about Lt. Col. Dave Grossman. In my opinion he writes for one reason only, the money.

Yes, they are called "Democrats". :D

So you think this is a zero-sum game, we can "either" fix the current system "or" make our rules better?

I disagree. We can BOTH fix the current system, and then, as a society of laws, we can make the current system better if (as a society) we agree that other classes of people should not be eligible to own a weapon.

Or are you saying that you are OK with a person with poorly controlled paranoid schizophrenia buying firearms?

I think we all can agree (please tell me if I'm wrong) that a person whose "mental health issues" means mild PTSD or well-controlled depression can own weapons. Just like I think we all can agree that the guy who thinks police officers are evil aliens coming to abduct him should NOT have them. I agree, drawing the line between those two may sometimes be difficult, but that is not a reason to give up and not draw the line at all.

Why are we only concerned about our 2d amendment rights?

Shouldn’t concerns about mental health be applied to the entire Bill of Rights? There is more to the Bill of Rights than just the 2d amendment; abridging someone’s constitutional liberties should not be done in a vacuum. If we are willing to take away freedoms specifically addressed in the bill of rights, why are we still letting crazy people vote? Why are dangerous crazy people given any liberties at all? Crazy people should be subject to a different set of laws than the rest of us. There are some people that have clearly lost their minds, yet they have the unabridged freedom to stir up the masses.

I agree that there are many controversial people out there with mental health problems that don't talk crazy and they may not ALL pose a threat, but there are a lot that can't be trusted to speak in public without causing trouble and we can’t afford to let the really crazy ones slip through the crack. If that means that there are innocent crazy people being deprived of some rights so that the rest of us can be safe from the dangerous crazy people, so be it.

The 15th, 19th, and 26th amendments remove prohibitions on voting rights based on race, color, sex, and age; there is nothing that says we can't keep crazy people from voting.

This sounds oddly familiar..............