As a recovering Leftist, I have an insight on how the Left thinks (which is usually not at all). Even then, there are times when I shake my head in “what the absolute fuck are you thinking” mode.
This is one of those times.
I present to you a new Leftist group called Unpull the Trigger out of Portland, Oregon. Although they haven’t reached the sheer dumbfuckery of Everytown for Gun Safety or, well, being Hunter Biden, they are quickly rising up the charts with a bullet, or more accurately, with an AR-15. See, Unpull the Trigger has the brilliant idea of buying every black man an AR-15 as a means to make Republicans back gun control.
And it was at this point my head started shaking like a Jello mold on the San Andreas Fault during an 8.9 on the Richter Scale.
Unpull the Trigger
What the Left thinks it means – a Progressive group trying to get Republicans to finally get on board with sensible gun control
What it really means – another idiotic Leftist group based on an erroneous assumption about the Right
So far, not much is known about Unpull the Trigger, mainly because people are too busy laughing at them to do any actual digging. But, from what I’ve been able to find, they are a non-profit anti-gun grift…I mean group, and run by fucking idiots. Their big-brained idea I referenced above is called, and I swear I’m not making this up, “Scare the Racists Straight.”
See what I mean by “what the absolute fuck are you thinking”?
As you might expect, all Leftist anti-gun groups lack one essential piece of information: knowing any actual gun owners who aren’t one of them. Oh, sure, you’ll find a Leftist gun owner who thinks there needs to be stricter laws on the books because fee-fees, but that’s not the same thing as Bubba McMAGAHat, who is a proud gun owner and wouldn’t be caught dead voting for anyone to the left of Pat Buchanan.
Okay, bad example. Let’s go with Ronald Reagan.
This lack of actual knowledge leads to blind spots that lead to dumb decisions like assuming Republicans would be against arming blacks or naming an organization Unpull the Trigger. Once you start digging a bit, the blind spots become so obvious Stevie Wonder can see them.
Although whites make up a significant percentage of gun owners in America, there are still a number of blacks who are according to the Pew Research Center. I’m sure the NRA would appreciate the expected increased membership, but it doesn’t work if your goal is to prevent people from having guns in the first place. But only a complete dipshit would want…oh, the President of Unpull the Trigger wants that.
I have to give them credit, though, for thinking outside the box. Of course, their initiative will wind up the same way the other gun control efforts have: failing worse than Michael Bay doing a “Heidi” remake.
But here’s where shit gets really weird. If we look at the stats (and I do because my social life makes Boo Radley look like a TikTok “star”), there is a significant number of young black men who are in gangs, with a majority of them being over 18. Granted, these numbers are over a decade old, so the percentages may be different, but it’s immaterial to the larger point I’m going to make here. Unpull the Trigger wants to give these gang members AR-15s, which will undoubtedly change the dynamic of gang culture, i.e. allowing people with zero problems offing another person to have access to a weapon Leftists say are only made for killing people.
But not every black man belongs to a gang, so we can’t use that broad brush. However, we can look at how giving every black man a gun might affect Leftist groups like…oh, I don’t know…Black Lives Matter. Surely an organization that wants to defund the police wouldn’t use guns in a violent matter, right?
David Dorn could not be reached for comment.
What about ANTIFA? Although primarily dominated by whites, there are blacks who are either members or sympathetic to the cause. And ANTIFA isn’t above violent methods to achieve their goals or to make a statement.
And Unpull the Trigger wants to arm these assholes.
Oh, but it gets better! Notice Unpull the Trigger wants to arm black men…but not black women. Isn’t that sexist? Are these Leftists assuming black women a) don’t want to be armed, or b) are incapable of using a gun properly? And what about black trans people (as opposed to Shawn King and Rachel Dolezal, who claim to be trans-black)? If gender is a spectrum or a social construct, why are black men the only ones who get the guns? That’s patriarchy, motherfuckers! Not to mention, it’s trans erasure! And, I’m sorry kids, but that means Unpull the Trigger has to be shamed and run out of the public square.
Hey, I didn’t write the rules, but I can’t abide by your obvious hatred, so off you go!
Now, remember when I said earlier this whole concept was based on an erroneous assumption about the Right? Well, hold onto your hats because we’re finally getting to the good part.
The Left assumes the Right is full of racist bigots because the Right tends to oppose Leftist measures to “fight” racism and bigotry. And by extension, Leftists believe gun owners are racists. So, Unpull the Trigger wants to make more black men gun owners and, thus…make them racists?
Remember, kids, I am a trained professional. Do not try to make sense of Leftist logic at home.
And this is where the Leftist blind spot kicks them in the dick. There are racists who are gun owners if only due to the law of averages, but the Venn Diagram of racists and gun owners really doesn’t have a lot of overlap because gun owners care more about their guns than they do about the color of who owns them. I’ve been to a couple of gun shows and have known many gun owners in my 53 years of life. I even have had a gun owner or two in my family. You know what I found in interacting with actual gun owners?
They’re regular people. Well-armed people, I grant you, but regular people. Sure, they have differences as people often do, but when it comes to gun ownership, the only colors that matter to them are those of the guns themselves. Granted, this is anecdotal evidence, but it’s a damn sight better than the pulling ideas out of their asses that Unpull the Trigger is using.
Ultimately, Unpull the Trigger will become a laughingstock like David Hogg, and much for the same reason: they know jack shit about guns and gun owners. Assuming anyone on the Right would freak out about blacks getting AR-15s is not the sign of an intellectual giant, no matter how much the press writes glowing puff pieces about them. At some point, they will fade into the background like all the other gun control groups and struggle to remain relevant.
The only hope for their salvation would be if it came out they were trolling the Left just to see how much support they would get from them. If not, I have a much better solution for Unpull the Trigger. If you really want to stop gun violence, don’t ban guns; ban Leftists from having guns.
Tag: gun control
Leftist Lexicon Word of the Week
Amid all the stories of transgender controversies, gun control debates that will lead to nothing, and general social media dumbfuckery, it’s been hard to find fresh or even fresh-adjacent topics to discuss. Believe me, I can talk about the aforementioned topics all day, but I don’t want to bore you. That’s what my joke writer is for.
But hope springs eternal if you just look around long enough, and buddy did I ever strike pay dirt! During a recent House hearing, the current Director of the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms Steven Dettelbach had a bit of trouble answering a firearms question: what is an assault weapon. Of course, he had trouble because he’s not a biologist…
But this got me thinking about the ATF as a government entity. Do we need it? What does it do? Can it be renamed the Bureau of a Good Time on a Holiday Weekend? These and other questions are going to be answered…somewhere else, but I’ll give it a shot.
Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms
What the Left thinks it means – a government agency designed to regulate the items in the agency’s name
What it really means – a really bad idea made worse through incompetence
The ATF’s website describes its mission as:
ATF’s responsibilities include the investigation and prevention of federal offenses involving the unlawful use, manufacture, and possession of firearms and explosives; acts of arson and bombings; and illegal trafficking of alcohol and tobacco products. The ATF also regulates, via licensing, the sale, possession, and transportation of firearms, ammunition, and explosives in interstate commerce.
Judging from the number of people who shoot off fireworks in my neighborhood around the 4th of July, it’s clear the ATF is doing a bang-up job, if you’ll pardon the pun. And if you don’t, fuck you!
Anyway, the Reader’s Digest Condensed Version of the ATF’s job is three-fold: investigate offenses, prevent potential offenses, and regulate a bunch of shit involving, well, alcohol, tobacco, and firearms. As of the most recent data I could find (Fiscal Year 2020 for the people playing along at home), the ATF had over 5000 employees across multiple areas, with an annual budget of $1.4 billion. That’s a shit-ton of money spent per employee! So, how effective are they?
That depends on who you ask. Many on the Left see room for improvement, especially in the area of gun violence prevention. Others aren’t so optimistic, citing ineffectiveness and a lack of respect as reasons they aren’t highly regarded and respected in their roles.
Maybe it’s me, but I think the real reason they’re not heralded for their work is how the agency fucked up in Waco, Texas, with the Branch Davidians. For those of you who don’t remember (and, for that, I envy you), the Branch Davidians were a Christian cult whose leader, David Koresh, was accused of some serious shit ranging from stockpiling illegal weapons to child abuse to statutory rape. And 51 days later, all chaos broke loose. Although the details are still sketchier than a mixed drink handed to a hot girl in a sleazy nightclub owned by Hunter Biden, the general consensus was the ATF and the FBI shared blame for things going pear-shaped.
Granted, we shouldn’t base our opinions of a government agency on one fuck-up, even if it’s the mother of all fuck-ups. That’s why I have more examples! And, as you might expect, anti-gun groups keep hammering the ATF to do its job.
Which, according to these groups, is to do what they say.
Which means a) the ATF shouldn’t listen to groups who need people to die to remain politically relevant, b) the ATF must really be fucked up, and c) the ATF needs to be abolished, like, yesterday.
Let’s be frank (especially if your name is Frank), the ATF can’t regulate its way out of a plain brown bag holding a bottle of cheap hooch, let alone the breadth of issues the agency is supposed to address. And for $1.4 billion, we should expect a level of competency even an amoeba could meet.
And let the ATF limbos under it without even having to bend over.
Of course, the Left doesn’t see this as a problem so long as the ATF continues to push for more gun regulations. And with the Biden Administration pushing for more as part of a “gun safety” push, it’s a safe guess the Left doesn’t want the ATF going anywhere for a while.
In the meantime, though, it’s hard to justify why we even have an ATF if they don’t know what they’re doing. I’m sure there are some good folks there (law of averages and such), but that doesn’t make them immune to the legitimate criticism of how the ATF sucks at its job.
What’s more, they are part of two rampant problems the Left doesn’t want to address: redundancy, and redundancy. Not to mention redundancy. So much of what the ATF does is also being done by other federal agencies or can be folded into existing roles without a loss of effectiveness. After all, when you’re effectiveness is a wash, you can’t really lose effectiveness by transferring duties to another team.
Granted, I am biased here because I’m definitely on the “smaller government is better government” bandwagon, so obviously I want to get rid of as much government as possible without damaging the country. Having said that, I think the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms has overstayed its welcome and should be heading to the Great Bureaucratic Shitstorm in the Sky. For the money we spend, we should be getting results other than “well, we fucked up again.”
In their defense, though, “Well, we fucked up again” is the unofficial slogan of the Puddin’ Head Joe Administration.
Leftist Lexicon Word of the Week
And now the moment you’ve all been waiting for! No, not my announcement I’m giving up blogging. This is an even better announcement!
This week’s Lexicon has next to nothing to do with trans people! And in fact the only reference will be in the lead-up to this week’s topic!
In the aftermath of a Nashville school shooting that left 6 people dead and a trans person accused of pulling the trigger (see, I told you!), the Left went into full “push for gun control even though criminals don’t obey laws” mode. As pro-gun control groups swarmed the Capitol, three Democrat politicians joined in the festivities, using a bullhorn and approaching the front of the Tennessee House chamber to chant. Which got 2 of them expelled.
And also made these three politicians, Justin Jones, Justin Pearson, and Gloria Johnson, into a Leftist superhero team they’ve deemed the Tennessee Three. Which makes them perfect for mocking!
the Tennessee Three
What the Left thinks it means – three strong and brave people who are standing up to the NRA
What it really means – three politicians milking dumb policies for short term success and long term irrelevance
The Left love to circulate a meme that mocks the Right’s responses to mass shootings in America with the idea being the cycle is never-ending because no one does anything meaningful to stop it. If only we had stronger gun laws, like red flag laws and assault weapon bans, we could break the cycle and protect our communities!
Because tough gun control laws totally work so well in Chicago, Washington, and other Leftist udopeias…I mean utopias.
The gun control movement’s approach never changes, which makes it frightfully easy to lather, rinse, and repeat with every mass shooting (which is another weird term that has no clear definition, like pornography or Shia Labouf’s acting chops). Although gun control gets a little more traction because of this, most of the time their efforts fall flat. The Left attributes this to the power of the eeeeevilllll gun lobby, but I have a different hypothesis as to why gun control keeps failing to catch fire, if you’ll pardon the pun.
Gun control works less often than Kamala Harris.
Of course, Leftists point to states with the strictest gun laws having lower rates for gun-related deaths. (Their sources? Pro gun control groups like Everytown for Gun Safety and the Giffords Law Center.) And if you look at the states as a whole, you’d tend to agree.
Then, you wouldn’t know the dirty little secret behind the state approach: it hides how deadly many Democrat-run cities are. By broadening the focus to the state level, it obscures what really drives those numbers, which makes it easier for the Left to lie about them and blame Republicans for their allies’ ineptitude.
Now, what does this have to do with gun control? For one, it shows how dishonest the Left has to be when it comes to gun violence to try to make a point. The Left runs on the need to curtail gun violence, but they can’t even fix the shit they break. So, instead of, you know, fixing things, they blame Republicans for their lack of action to solve the problems they create.
And these assholes mock Republicans for times when the Right doesn’t accept personal responsibility?
Which brings us back to the stars of this melodrama, the Tennessee Three. While the Left elevates these three, it’s important to note they broke Tennessee House rules. That, and the fact those mean ol Republicans believe actions have consequences, lead to the current false narrative these three were victims.
No word yet from the 6 actual victims of the shooting on how they feel about the Tennessee Three.
The Left consider the Tennessee GOP’s “fuck around and find out” response to the Tennessee Three to be politically and racially motivated, considering two of the three happen to be black. As far as the political part, I have two words: fucking duh! Of course it’s political! Gun control and protests are political in nature, so any reactions that come from them are also going to be political.
Of course, the Left frames it as bad because three of their foot soldiers got caught. Much like the reason they tried to avoid bringing up the gender identity of the shooter (sorry, I lied earlier), the Left has to hide those little details that add context to advance the ideas they want. The gun control argument is all about deceit. Oh, and utter dumbfuckery. But if we didn’t have deceit and dumbfuckery here, I wouldn’t have a weekly column topic, so there’s that.
Meanwhile we still have a gun control problem, not a gun problem. Given the sheer number of guns Americans have, if guns were really the problem the Left say they were, they would be a bigger factor in the number of deaths per year. As it turns out, they’re not. In 2020, there were 45,222 people killed in gun-related incidents, with most of them being suicides. In that same year, this number didn’t even crack the top 10 of leading causes of death Granted this was a COVID year, so they might have squeaked in at number 10 otherwise, but the point is still the same. Guns aren’t the problem.
Even if you think strengthening gun laws is the answer, consider the fact there are already tens of thousands of gun laws already on the books at every level. Throw in the “Gun Free Zones” and you might as well open up a shooting gallery…oh wait, that’s Chicago on an average weekend!
And here’s a fun item to consider. When you look at the recent mass shootings, the majority of them were committed by…people who beat the current system. You know, the one you assclowns set up in the first place. What’s your next move? Create more hoops that mass shooters will zip through like they’re in Cirque du Soleil?
Which brings us to another problem with the gun control movement: the sheer number of laws makes it impossible to enforce them. More laws means more laws that won’t get enforced and zero gets accomplished. Well, except for more people dying, that is.
Maybe it’s me (and I wouldn’t be surprised if it is), but it seems the Tennessee Three are part of the problem. They make loud statements, get on TV thanks to Leftists, get glowing (albeit demonstratively bullshit) newspaper articles written about them, and rake in the adoration. In other words, the political circle jerk that always happens after a mass shooting (that don’t occur within Democrat-run cities, that is).
And with the accusations of racism, since the two black members were expelled while the white woman wasn’t (by 1 vote, by the way), the Tennessee Three have hit a Leftist goldmine. All by being assholes on the job. If that’s all it took, I would be a CEO!
And all on the bodies of 6 people sacrificed at the altar of gun control failure.
Of course, no one on the Left is going to say it because they have a vested interest in keeping gun violence front and center (as long as it can be blamed on Republicans). They have to keep the wheels greased, right? And then they can come out and show how much they CARE, dammit!
But if they really cared, the Tennessee Three would reject gun control as being a failure. Then again, that would require a level of self-awareness not even the smartest Leftist could muster.
By the way, Cindy Sheehan is on line one. Something about how the Left uses their own until they stop being the flavor of the month.
Leftist Lexicon Word of the Week
Over the July 4th weekend, there was another mass shooting, this one in Highland Park, Illinois. The shooter (who will remain nameless because he’s a piece of shit) opened fire on a parade, killing seven and injuring several more. Although many people on both sides of the aisle expressed sympathy and some used it to advance the need for stricter gun control, some Leftists asked an unexpected question.
Where was Kyle Rittenhouse?
An odd flex, to be sure, but one not without a purpose.
Kyle Rittenhouse
What the Left thinks it means – a murderer who is the poster child for mass shooters everywhere
What it really means – a young man who beat long odds against Leftist disinformation
To gain the necessary context for the current discussion, we have to go waaaaaaaaaaay back to…2020. During the mostly peaceful rioting…I mean protesting in Kenosha, Wisconsin, Kyle Rittenhouse went to offer help. Armed with a medical kit and an AR-15, he waded into the middle of a devolving situation and attempted to prevent a flaming dumpster fire from causing property damage, both literally and figuratively.
After that, the rioters…I mean protesters started chasing him, some with the intent of using his head for a pinata. When it became evident the people chasing him weren’t going to ask if he wanted smores, but instead wanted to do him bodily harm, Rittenhouse shot and killed 2 people and injured a third in self defense. The subsequent trial acquitted him of any wrong-doing and Rittenhouse left the courtroom a free man.
Of course, that’s not how the Left tells the tale.
From the outset, Leftists attempted to paint Rittenhouse as a trigger-happy kid looking to get in the middle of the protest and start trouble. They went so far as to say not only was he guilty of murder, but he did so by crossing state lines with a gun he obtained illegally and with the sole intent of killing blacks. No amount of evidence, testimony, and a little thing the kids call common sense could sway them. To Leftists, Rittenhouse was worse than Adolf Hitler, Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, and Nickelback put together!
Naturally, when Rittenhouse was acquitted because a) the evidence, testimony, and common sense were on his side, and b) the prosecution lawyers were 20th degree black belts in dumbassery, Leftists couldn’t take it. After all the time and energy they spent to make him look guilty as hell, he walked. I’ve seen little league parents take losses better than Leftists.
If that were the end of the story, we wouldn’t still be talking about Rittenhouse and this would be one of my shortest Leftist Lexicon entries in history. But the Left has this core flaw: they hold a grudge. If you beat them in spite of their best efforts, they will never let you live it down, and everything they say and do to oppose you is justified in their minds. Just ask Clarence Thomas about his experiences being a Leftist target for close to 40 years.
With Rittenhouse, the Left have a ready-made whipping boy (as opposed to a Ready-Whip made boy) to bring up whenever there’s a shooting, no matter how tangential and strenuous the connection is. Given enough time, Leftists might connect Rittenhouse to another shooting because they both wear pants.
Note to Leftists: that was a joke, not a suggestion.
Since they’re already conditioned to believe the worst in Rittenhouse, Leftists have no problem extending their caricature to any situation they can use to perpetuate the myth. And each time the myth gets repeated, the truth gets further out of reach for everyone except those who have this stubborn belief the facts might actually matter when it means the difference between character affirmation and character assassination.
The thing that really pisses me off about the Left’s treatment of Rittenhouse is how dehumanizing they are towards him. Whether you agree with his decision to shoot three people, there is still a young man behind the rhetoric coming from both sides, a young man who made a difficult decision and has to deal with the consequences of his actions even if the legal consequences are a moot point. I don’t know him personally, so you can take my observations with a Great Salt Lake of salt, but the vibe I get from him isn’t one of a heartless killing machine full of rage and hatred. What I see is someone who has been through Hell and lived to tell the tale. No matter what, his actions have a psychological toll only worsened by misinformed judgmental assholes whose knowledge of the facts is scarcer than baby formula right now. Besides, I have the market for judgmental assholes cornered.
I know it’s dirt simple for Leftists to get hate clicks by taking as-subtle-as-King-Kong-in-a-neon-jumpsuit jabs at Kyle Rittenhouse, but it serves no substantive purpose. At best, you are only perpetuating the echo chamber. At worst, you are setting a young man up to fail so you can point and say “See? We were right all along!” when he inevitably fails. The difference is Rittenhouse isn’t a guy like George Zimmerman who was a fuck-up of a person before he got famous or infamous as the case may be. He’s a young man who tried to do the right thing in the midst of people actively doing the wrong thing. Of course, if he turns out to be Zimmerman 2.0 later in life, I will happily retract my statement because I’m not afraid to admit when I’m wrong. That’s more than you’ll get from any Leftist.
For now, though, linking him to every mass shooting is low-hanging fruit and intellectually lazy thinking, even in jest. Of course, if you’re serious, do us a favor and get some scissors with the rounded ends so you don’t hurt somebody, ‘kay?
Leftist Lexicon Word of the Week
If you heard some shouting coming from the vicinity of Washington, DC, lately, you might be surprised to learn it wasn’t Leftists this microsecond. With the help of 14 Republican Senators, a new gun control bill called the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act will be brought before the Senate for debate and what proponents hope will be passage. That number swelled to 15 when it was brought to a vote, ensuring the bill’s passage and sending it to the House of Representatives for a vote. As you might expect from a government body who can’t balance its/our own checkbook, it’s a mixed bag of good ideas (more funding for mental health in communities) and letting-Eric-Swalwell-write-anti-spying-legislation-level bad ideas.
One of the items in the bill is an idea that Leftists have been promoting for a couple of years now called “red flag laws.” Where does this idea fall on the good-to-Swalwell scale? Let’s find out!
red flag laws
What the Left thinks it means – laws designed to prevent potential shooters from committing mass shootings before they happen
What it really means – the latest in a long line of gun control measures destined to fail
Without going too far into the weeds with terminology, here are the basics behind red flag laws. If a gun owner takes actions that suggest he or she will harm himself/herself or others, family members and/or law enforcement can ask a judge to intervene and prohibit the gun owner from accessing his/her guns. This is meant to be a temporary measure so the gun owner can get the help he/she needs to deal with the issues that raised the red flags in the first place. Surely this is a good idea, right?
Take a drive over to the road to Hell and let me know what you find.
Aside from the obvious “Minority Report” vibe, there are more than a few things wrong with red flag laws. The biggest issue is the fact just about anything can be seen as a trigger (see what I did there?) to raise red flags. If you suddenly do a lot of searching on the Interwebs for guns, that can be a red flag. If you suddenly do a lot of searching on the Interwebs for yoga, that can’t be a red flag, but it may certainly put your Man Card in jeopardy. That applies to you, too, ladies.
If anything can be a red flag, than everything can be, which creates an environment where a gun owner who has not committed a crime is automatically assumed to be the next mass shooter with zero hard evidence. Maybe the gun owner was trying to do comparison shopping for his or her next purchase and decided to look up gun reviews online. Or maybe he/she had a question about legal modifications for a gun or rifle he/she already owned. To the Left, these are red flags that can cause the legal ball a-rollin’.
And that’s where things get really messy, legally. The concerned family member or law enforcement officer goes to a judge to issue a temporary injunction on the basis of public safety. Oh, I forgot to mention this tiny detail: the gun owner doesn’t even need to be at the hearing for the injunction to be approved.
Hey, wait a minute. Isn’t there something about the accused being able to face his accusers in some document that’s fairly important to Americans? Well, there is the Sixth Amendment that deals with criminal trials requiring a swift trial before a jury of one’s peers, so that doesn’t necessarily apply here. However, there are several good arguments to be made with the Seventh and Eighth Amendments that would apply. The Seventh secures the right to a jury trial “In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars…” (which would cover pretty much all firearms, especially with inflation these days, amirite) and the Eight states, “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.” Although the Sixth Amendment argument is more emotionally compelling, the stronger case is made with the Seventh and Eight Amendments in my opinion.
You can quit laughing now.
Still, the fact a gun owner can have his/her guns taken by a judge, even temporarily, without an opportunity to offer a defense isn’t a good look. It’s made worse by the idea there are some judges on various benches who would rubber-stamp any possible red flag as legitimate. Subscribe to the wrong political ideology, express your freedoms in a way someone else doesn’t like, take your Starbucks without whipped cream and sprinkles, order the wrong color wine with your meal, the possibilities are endless. And they’re also very stupid and easy to abuse. All it takes is one pissed-off ex who carries a grudge and a pro-gun control judge to get your property taken from you without recourse, all without you committing a criminal or civil infraction.
All in the name of public safety. Preemptive public safety, that is.
Or at least that’s what fans of red flag laws will tell you. How are they doing in practice? Welllllll…that’s a bit of a hard one to answer. Currently there are 19 states with red flag laws in place, as well as the District of Columbia. As of this writing, the jury is still out on whether red flag laws are effective in dealing with potential mass shootings, which makes it hard to make the argument they work. After all, in order to confirm the effectiveness of said laws, the shooter would almost have to admit he or she was dissuaded from shooting people because of the red flag laws. And last time I checked, I don’t think that’s happened yet, if ever. However, red flag laws have had a definite impact on…suicide attempts, which represent a significant portion of annual gun deaths. Although this is a good thing, it’s not evidence of the laws’ effectiveness against mass shootings.
By the way, Illinois has red flag laws in place, but they still have several shootings every weekend. Why, it’s almost as if…people who are bound and determined to ignore the law will…ignore the law! In some cases, a desire to skirt the law makes lawbreakers creative. Right now there are any number of ways to avoid red flag laws altogether, including buying black market guns or hiding existing guns well in advance so they wouldn’t be confiscated. No matter how different red flag laws are from previous gun laws, they will invariably end in failure and fatalities.
Which is precisely what they’re intended to do.
Government isn’t in the problem-solving business because a) they don’t know how, and b) solving problems leads to less power and money going to politicians. Politicians need there to be mass shootings to justify power grabs disguised as long-overdue gun safety measures. But with each law that gets passed, we get further away from actual safety and personal freedom.
And red flag laws are waaaaaaaaay off in Leftist field, which is just down the road from Totalitarianville on the bad side of town.
All is not lost, however. Oklahoma actually has an anti-red flag law on the books, which is a step in the right direction. Any law that forces law-abiding citizens to compromise basic Constitutional rights on the promise of safety without a guarantee of it needs to be counteracted within the system of government. Even so, we cannot rely on the courts for favorable rulings, especially when you consider there will be a sitting Supreme Court Justice who couldn’t define what a woman is in spite of being one. If you hear of a politician pushing for red flag laws where you live, speak up and challenge the idea.
And if you’re in a state where any of the 15 Republican Senators who voted to pass the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, give them hell for not standing up for Constitutional rights.
And you can tell them I sent you.
Leftist Lexicon Word of the Week
After every mass shooting (except for the ones that occur nearly every weekend in Leftist utopia Chicago), Leftists bring up the need for “common sense gun control.” Of course, they never come out and say what that would look like, but, dammit, they care!
With the most recent shooting in Uvalde, Texas, though, Leftists changed tactics. Instead of calling for gun control, they’re now calling for gun safety. On the surface, that’s a move in the right direction since it seems to be an area of common ground between gun owners and gun control advocates.
If you’re expecting a “but” here, you should. There’s more to this concept than the Left wants us to know.
gun safety
What the Left thinks it means – a movement to curb gun violence as much as possible
What it really means – repackaged gun control
Advertisers love to play with phrasing to get consumers to believe a certain product is better than another or to gin up new interest in an existing product. That’s why you see “new and improved” in ads and on packaging. The idea is to get you to think a certain way that will either reinforce your current buying habits or get you to consider changing them.
The same principle is at work here. By switching from a pointed phrase (“gun control”) to one that seems more neutral (“gun safety”), the Left is hoping you will consider changing your opinion on gun control. After all, who wouldn’t be in favor of gun safety? Maybe Alec Baldwin, but he’s an outlier.
The thing is gun safety means different things to different people. Most gun owners already practice gun safety, such as not pointing guns at others and keeping guns and ammunition secured and stored in separate places. These are actions people can do themselves without having Big Brother giving us direction on how to do it. And considering the federal government has utter morons running departments, if not full branches, maybe we don’t need their help.
To Leftists, gun safety has nothing to do with what individuals can do, but rather what the government can do because they believe government is the source of all good (except if that government is run by those evil Republicans who take money from the National Rife Association to prevent meaningful and sensible gun laws from being passed). That’s why all of their solutions to the gun problem revolve around passing more laws, banning more guns, and demanding more from gun owners than they expect from the criminals who commit gun violence. But there is one common thread throughout these efforts.
Leftists don’t know shit about guns.
That fact alone should render their opinions on gun safety as irrelevant as Joe Biden’s teleprompter. Yet, with their emotional appeals whenever a shooting happens, no one stops to think whether we’ve tried some of these suggestions before. News Flash: we have. And it hasn’t stopped mass shootings at all. What it has done, however, is make the vast majority of mass shooters legal gun owners. That’s right. Most of the mass shooters (outside of Chicago, of course) have passed the background checks the Left have demanded. What’s next? More background checks to make up for the background checks we were told would stop mass shootings and didn’t? More hoops for law-abiding citizens to jump through that criminals will ignore?
The truth is the Left needs there to be more mass shootings to justify their power grabs in this case and to protect themselves from the inevitable backlash once enough gun owners get tired of being treated like potential criminals for merely wanting to own firearms. Now, if you’ve been paying attention (and I know you have), this runs counter to what the Left is saying they want now, gun safety. Banning certain guns doesn’t make them or us safer. The same with background checks, limits to ammunition purchases, or the number of bullets a gun or rifle can shoot before needing to be reloaded. In fact, nothing they’ve proposed have anything to do with safety, but everything to do with controlling people.
Just as it was intended.
There is one thing the Left can do to show their commitment to gun safety, that being offering gun safety training. Of course, they’ll have some competition from…the NRA. Yep, that same NRA that is super-duper evil and wants to kill schoolchildren so Bubba can have an AR-15 (according to the Left). Why haven’t gun safety advocates on the Left come up with something similar?
Because it’s all about getting rid of guns altogether. Oh, sure, Leftists won’t come out and say it unless they’re in friendly company, but that’s been their goal for a while now. No matter how they rebrand their approach, the endgame is always get rid of guns.
So, what do we do? Call out the newly-minted gun safety crowd and ask them what they’re going to do about actual gun safety and not the laundry list of Leftist demands that always come out after a shooting. And don’t let them get by with bullshit answers, either. Press them like they want to press gun owners to comply. Then, when they fail (and they will), point it out and tell everyone who will listen about their real agenda.
But if you want to really push for gun safety, Leftists, I have a piece of advise. Don’t arm yourselves. Leave it to the police to protect you. You know, the police you want to revamp/defund and have called racists with badges?
Have your next of kin let me know how that works out for you.
What is an AR-15?
Most people would say an Assault Rifle, after all that’s what the AR means. And they would be wrong. AR stands for ArmaLite Rifle, the original manufacturer of the weapon.
The AR-15 has been copied by multiple manufactures over the decades since its introduction in 1956. And are commonly called an AR-15 even though they are truly an AR-15 style rifle.
The term Assault Rifle is debatable. Since “assault” is an action and thus any rifle can be used in an assault and be called an assault rifle in my book. Hell you can have an assault screwdriver if you use one in an assault.
But this is how the US Military defines an Assault Rifle:
- It must be capable of selective fire. (that means Semi-Automatic, Fully Automatic, and Burst)
- It must have an intermediate-power cartridge: more power than a pistol but less than a standard rifle or battle rifle, examples of intermediate cartridges are the 7.92×33mm Kurz, the 7.62×39mm and 5.56×45mm NATO.
- Its ammunition must be supplied from a detachable box magazine.
- It must have an effective range of at least 300 meters (330 yards).
The Colt AR-15, the most common AR-15 rifle in civilian hands, is semi-automatic-only. It is not capable of selective fire and therefore NOT an assault rifle by definition.
Semi-automatic weapons are the most common form of firearms today in both handguns and rifles and they have been around for a century. Semi-automatic means you don’t have to cock the weapon every time you fire a round. The next round loads automatically for easy firing.
The Browning BAR MK 3 is the same as any AR-15. Except it doesn’t look like a scary military weapon. Which is really why some people seem to hate the AR-15 style rifle.
Firearm enthusiasts like the AR-15 mainly due to the weapons versatility and dependability. A tried and true design that takes a lot of punishment.
So it’s not really the weapon that is the problem. We have had semi-automatic rifles and pistols for more than 100 years at this point. Although we have had mass shootings documented as far back as the 1920’s. A time period of high crime, gangsters, and fully automatic weapons. I’m guessing that mass shootings go back to the beginning of firearms.
Yes the weapon makes it easier to kill innocent people. But it shouldn’t be punished, nor should law abiding people. The weapon is necessary for a free people to remain free against an oppressive government. When a government becomes contrary to the Will of the People. Guns are the first victims.
Another Gun Grab Attempt
Here we are again. Another debate on the 2nd Amendment and gun ownership.
I have stated this many times before and I will state it again and again. The 2nd Amendment was written to ensure that We the People could take up arms and defend ourselves against the 2 greatest evils in the world. Our fellowman and the government.
The 2nd Amendment wasn’t to ensure one could go hunting. The Founding Fathers just got back from fighting a war against their government. The weapons owned by the citizens were at least the same if not better than the weapons issued to soldiers.
Time and time again our government has enacted laws on all levels; local, state, and Federal that violate the Constitution of the United States when it comes to the 2nd Amendment.
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
This right has been infringed on time after time. And more infringements will not stop any form of mass shootings. Criminals by definition break laws. Infringements only help criminals and take away the rights of law abiding people who want to protect themselves and their families from harm.
Some may ask if I think a citizen of the United States should be able to own a fully automatic machine gun, or a combat jet fighter, a cannon, a battleship, or even an intercontinental ballistic missile. The answer is yes. We the People, should be able to have exactly what the government has for weapons. If you can afford it. Have it.
In a previous post I broke down the 2nd Amendment for those ignorant of history and language. I’m not going to say it again here, but I will link it so you can read it again.
If we take a look at mass shootings. We will find several things to be true. In most cases they all take place in “gun free zones”. Were only a posted sign keeps out weapons. No one who is going to kill innocent people is ever going to obey that signage.
Also in almost every case, the shooter turns out to be some kind of radical Leftist nutjob. A shooter is never a Bible-believing Christian or Republican.
And oddly the number of mass shootings tends to increase whenever the Democratic Party is in the White House or has control of Congress. Almost a conspiracy to try to create emotions in the public to infringe more on the 2nd Amendment.
The recent mass shooting in Texas is a horrible tragedy and loss of life that could have been prevented. Not by enacting more infringement laws against gun owners. But by taking an active roll in protecting our children and our fellow citizens. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the survivors and their families.
Schools need to be gun active zones. Teachers and other staff need to be armed and trained to effectively use a firearm in the case of a shooter entering school grounds.
Police and other protective agencies need to be properly trained to deal with a mass shooter as well. In the Texas case, the police did NOTHING for 40 to 45 minutes. Instead of going in and removing the threat.
These two minor changes could have saved the lives that were lost. Only the gunman would have been killed. Again, any death is a tragic loss of life but it would have saved many more.
Recently there was a mass shooting in West Virginia too. A gunman opened fire at a birthday party. In this case, a woman had a firearm with her and was trained to use it. And she did. She shot and killed the gunman saving countless lives in the process.
This is the very thing that we need to do. We cannot wait for the police to decide to act 40-45 minutes. This happened at Sandy Hook as well. And children lost their lives.
We need to end gun free zones. Enact Constitutional Carry in all States, since the Constitution already allows it. Find teachers and other staff in schools who would like to receive training in arms. And then arm them.
Then when a deranged madman comes on the school grounds to harm children and others. They are met with deadly force. Children are safe and learn that guns are an important life saving tool in the right hands.
Leftist Lexicon Word of the Week
Last week the Biden Administration finally took action on an issue that consumed our nation’s attention. And I, for one, want to give the President credit due him for taking a bold stand against…ghost guns.
Confused? You should be. This was a new one for me, considering the only ghost guns I knew of came from the Ghostbusters and they were fictional characters. However, the Left wants us to believe ghost guns are a real threat to society, which obviously means it is…to Leftists.
ghost guns
What the Left thinks it means – a dangerous variant on the already escalating gun problem in America
What it really means – the inevitable result of gun control laws
To put an actual concept to the term, ghost guns are firearm kits or weapons that can be purchased online without a background check. What makes them so concerning to Leftists is the fact they are untraceable and lack a serial number, so they can’t be traced back to an individual. Although the Left wants to frame this as a public safety issue, there’s a more obvious explanation of why Leftists are freaking out about ghost guns.
Ghost guns avoid Leftist gun control laws and the licensing fees connected to them.
Whenever you come across a Leftist issue like this that doesn’t seem to make much sense to introduce at a particular time (so, basically, any Leftist issue), most likely it’s being brought up because of money, power, or both, since these are the motivating factors behind anything the Left does. Altruism doesn’t enter into the picture unless it’s spending other people’s money to accomplish it. They’re in it for purely prurient reasons.
Case in point: gun control laws.
Have you noticed the number of gun-related deaths in cities and areas with strict gun control laws? Why, it’s almost as though…criminals don’t follow laws or something! But instead of packing it in and realizing they are walking definitions of insanity, Leftists double down (or would it be double-barrel down) on more gun laws, knowing they don’t work as well as they want us to believe. But they do work in generating income and creating a power dynamic that allows the government to dictate to peons…I mean citizens. In some places, a cat can haz cheezburger before even law-abiding citizens can get a gun permit, and it’s even worse in “may issue” states where you can be denied a permit even if you jump through the legal hoops to get one simply because the government says so.
But remember, kids, Republicans are the ones who want to dictate to us how to live our lives because Leftists say so.
It is said necessity is the mother of invention, but being able to piss off Leftists is a pretty good motivator, too. Instead of knuckling under to Leftist demands, people have been figuring out ways to make working firearms and making money off it and keeping the Leftists out of the process altogether. It’s the American Dream as written by the NRA!
By making it more difficult to own firearms, making moves to make it harder and more expensive to get ammunition (which, by the way, is also a DIY project), and doing next to nothing about the proliferation of violent crime, Leftists laid the groundwork for ghost guns to be a thing. Nothing like a self-own to make a Leftist idea go up in flames like the Hindenburg.
Which brings us to another reason the Left introduced the ghost guns issue right now: the Biden Administration has been the political equivalent of a flaming bag of dog shit put on America’s front porch while Kamala Harris rings the doorbell. Between the never-ending Hunter Biden scandals and the numerous bouts of political, economic, and foreign policy incompetence, Joe Biden needed a win. Unfortunately for him, this ain’t it. Most people don’t know even know what a ghost gun is, but the President decided to make it the focal point of a Rose Garden event. It’s like letting Hannah Gadsby headline a comedy show, or the opening of a Blockbuster Video for that matter: those who know are already going to go, but most people won’t and there’s not enough interest to attract them.
I know this is going to be a risky prediction to make, but dammit I really think this one’s going to pan out. Any laws or regulations concerning ghost guns is going to fail. I’m no Nostradamus, but given the track record of gun control laws and their failure to address gun violence in any meaningful way, I’m confident this will end the same way and for the same reason: Leftists don’t think far enough ahead to see the fatal flaws of their ideas. Which makes it better for us because a) it lays the groundwork for those ideas to be challenged and eventually defeated, b) it gives us ongoing topics for blog posts, and c) it provides endless opportunities for humor!
Unlike Hannah Gadsby.
Recent Mass Murders
In the wake of 2 mass murders the Left is again talking about gun control. And the Left does want to take guns away from the people, all the people, so only the military and the police will be armed. That is the ultimate goal of the Left. The State cannot impose it’s will with a well armed population.
There are already a multitude of laws both federally and locally that are under the guise of safety. Where did they fail in these two resent cases? Instead of investigating that failure, the Left just wants to place more restrictions on ownership of weapons which is a clear and present violation of the US Constitution and therefore any such law is automatically unconstitutional and invalid.
Many of the useful idiots, as Stalin called them, don’t understand the plain language of our Constitution. The 2nd Amendment states:
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
Many get tripped up by the word Militia. Thinking that means the armed forces, the standing military of the United States. This is wrong thinking. The word was chosen and capitalized for a reason by the Founding Fathers. Here, Militia, means every able bodied citizen capable of defending the Constitution.
An armed citizenry is necessary to keep a nation free of tyranny from forces that would take away its freedoms. Even if those forces originate from inside the nation or outside of the nation.
That is why the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. And that means impeded, circumvented, restricted in any way shape or form.
The Left likes to state that the Founding Fathers didn’t mean for this amendment to be used for civilian ownership of military weapons. But that too is also a wicked lie. The Founding Fathers didn’t come back from a hunting trip. They came back from attacking the largest and most powerful nation and military on the face of the earth at the time. Using weapons of war that were owned by the individuals firing them.
The 2nd Amendment wasn’t written to allow American’s to go hunting on the weekend. It was written for Americans to keep their Republic from a tyrannical government that would take it away from them. Even if it was elected into place by foolish Americans.
There is an odd thing that happens in cases of violence. If one commits murder and assault with a knife. The attacker is punished. If one commits murder and assault with a blunt instrument, a baseball bat for example. The attacker is punished. If one commits murder and assault with a vehicle. The attacker is punished.
But if one commits murder and assault with a firearm. Then the firearm is punished. Others that own firearms are punished and tracked like sex offenders. And maybe the attacker gets punished to if they didn’t have a bad childhood that is stated to be the cause of the violence they committed.
The loss of life recently in these cowardly attacks is heartbreaking. I weep for the loss of life. I lift up prayers to Almighty God to comfort the families in their time of grief. And I will say again the Left’s gun control is not the answer.