guns

We've written about Tea Party protesters needing to focus on local activism.   So here's a useful project for the Milwaukee Tea Party protesters.   Get Milwaukee Police Chief Ed Flynn fired.  After the Wisconsin Attorney General affirmed the 2nd Amendment, pointing out that it is "legal to openly carry a gun", Ed Flynn said I am above the law...

"My message to my troops is if you see anybody carrying a gun on the streets of Milwaukee, we’ll put them on the ground, take the gun away and then decide whether you have a right to carry it,” Flynn said.

Tea Party protesters - and many others besides - ought to insist upon a number of things immediately.

• Milwaukee citizens should demand that Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen uphold the law, immediately having Ed Flynn arrested and charged with intentional violation of the law.  Citizens should also insist that charges be filed against any police officer, chief or politician who violates the open carry rights that Van Hollen has recognized (and "following orders" is no excuse).  If Van Hollen will not do that, citizens should file a suit against him and/or Wisconsin.
• Milwaukee citizens should file a civil suit against Police Chief Ed Flynn (and perhaps the city, as well) for depriving them of a basic civil liberty (protected under both the Constitution and Wisconsin law.)
• Milwaukee police should openly and vocally refuse Police Chief Ed Flynn's orders - and perhaps file charges against him for ordering them to commit a crime.  They might also include Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett in that lawsuit, since he supports Flynn's decision to ignore State and Federal law.
• Protesters should find and rally behind a strong candidate to replace Democratic Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett.

Government would be better if politicians and beauracrats were a lot more worried that they might be prosecuted or sued.  Milwaukee protesters can accomplish that.

Barack Obama takes center stage in Denver tonight to accept the Democratic Party's presidential nomination. That makes today a great time to reflect on what Obama's campaign of hope and change hath wrought.

So here, for your viewing pleasure, is a compilation of Obama's greatest rhetorical hits from the past 19 months. I've limited this special package to 10 tracks and five minutes, but there surely are more that could have been included. Share your favorites in the comments.

The 10 tracks from this collection are:

1. Farewell To Arms -- Obama's plan to dismantle U.S. defenses
2. Loveable Rogues -- An open invitation for talks with global thugs
3. Bomb Iran -- Maybe, depending on what day you ask
4. Baby Be Gone -- No one wants to be "punished" with babies
5. Workin' 9 to 5 -- Tough questions are "above my pay grade"
6. The Gospel Of Barack -- The gay marriage Sermon on the Mount
7. Take The Race Bait -- Typical dollar bills ... and white people
8. Bitter -- The guns 'n Bibles crowd
9. Jeremiah Was An Albatross -- Tossed under the bus with Grandma
10. A Gaffe A Minute -- Fallen heroes in the 57 states of America.
 

Gun confiscation enthusiasts, led by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, argue that we would virtually eradicate violent crime if we rid our society of guns.

There is no modern, Western society more gun free than Great Britain. Legal guns are in the hands of the State: The police and the military. Private citizens are forbidden to own guns.

Has this ended violent crime in this society? NO.

In the past year there have been 20,000 serious crimes commited at knife point. In fact panic has set in British society and politicans are now thrashing about for solutions to the problem.

Here's an idea: Allow law abiding citizens to carry guns. That would reduce the number of crimes.

It will be interesting to watch so many people play musical chairs over the next few years, reversing positions and principles to match their new preferences.  For instance, today's NYTimes Editorial on the Supreme Court decision on guns is quite difficult to align with their position on the detention issue

Even if there were a constitutional right to possess guns for nonmilitary uses, constitutional rights are not absolute. The First Amendment guarantees free speech, but that does not mean that laws cannot prohibit some spoken words, like threats to commit imminent violent acts. 

The New York Times Editorial Board will be pleased to learn that the Second Amendment also guarantees the individual right to keep and bear guns, but that does not mean that laws cannot prohibit some uses of guns, like threats to commit imminent violent acts. 

But it gets worse.  In their criticism of the Supreme Court decision on gun rights, the New York Times cites Justice Scalia's recent opinion that public safety interests outweigh rights of habeus corpus...

In his dissent, Justice Stephen Breyer argued soundly that whatever right gun owners have to unimpeded gun use is outweighed by the District of Columbia’s “compelling” public-safety interests.  In this month’s case recognizing the habeas corpus rights of the detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, Justice Scalia wrote in dissent that the decision “will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed.” Those words apply with far more force to his opinion in this District of Columbia case.

...but just two weeks ago, the New York Times disagreed with Justice Scalia. 

Some lefties keep using that word, radical...

The Court's radical deconstructionists interpreted the [2nd Amendment] to mean that individuals must be allowed to own guns to shoot those they think might threaten their lives.

I do not think it means what they think it means.

The Supreme Court's ruling on Thursday that a District of Columbia ban on handgun ownership is unconstitutional appears to be solidly in step with public opinion. A clear majority of the U.S. public -- 73% -- believes the Second Amendment to the Constitution guarantees the rights of Americans to own guns. And almost 7 out of 10 Americans are opposed to a law that would make the possession of a handgun illegal, except by the police.

Fortunately, as Bill Beutler has pointed out in two excellents posts, just as the Left is gradually coming around on domestic drilling, they also appear to be accepting the individual right language of the 2nd amendment.

Those are victories.  Radical victories.

If it's true that today's District v. Heller ruling is the first time in U.S. history that the Supreme Court has has directly ruled on meaning of the Second Amendment, it also seems likely to be the last. The battle has carried on for decades in lower courts, but those cases too are likely to be cut short, if not cut off altogether.

But what about the cultural/moral argument? I noted in my previous Next Right post that the left has largely acquiesced to gun rights. They may do so grudgingly, but for all intents and purposes they've given up. Except... that's not what I found on some of the most influential leftroots blogs.

Instead, I found significant agreement with the ruling. Not just that, but matter-of-fact statements of support for an individual right that would have been unthinkable even five years ago.

Crossposted at Right Minds

Britain is an anti-gun liberal’s dream. It is illegal to own a handgun, with a penalty of five years in prison for unlawful possession. No more than 4% of homes in England contain guns. Those few who are gun owners are subject to draconian gun laws, including laws regarding “safe gun storage,” even though the gun would probably then be inaccessible at short notice. Not that that matters to the British gun authorities—self defense is not considered a legitimate reason to own a firearm. Even imitation guns are banned.

And the British system works—there are very few guns in Britain. The police still go unarmed. Even criminals have trouble finding guns. Gun crime in Britain is far less than in the United States. There is no serious opposition to Britain’s effective ban on all weapons—the pro-gun movement in England is practically nonexistent. British law is the embodiment of every gun control advocates dream.

I read a great many mystery and crime novels, from writers both in the United States and England. And there is a difference in the role guns play in the plots—in the American stories, guns are literally everywhere, and both the police and the villains are heavily armed. In the British books, guns are rarer—the police rarely carry, and even the villains don’t pack near as much heat as there American counterparts.

But the American books are fairly optimistic—the villain usually gets caught (or shot), and even the darkest American mysteries usually have a glimpse of restored order in the conclusion. The British books often lack that optimism—the police spend pages agonizing at their inability to stop crime; the villain often escapes justice; and there is a sense of escalating lawlessness and anarchy. In American crime literature, the system, though flawed, works; in British detective novels, it is utterly broken.

But can you really judge two justice systems by comparing mystery stories? Perhaps not every time, but in this case, such a comparison is right on. British gun control advocates have succeeded in making guns illegal—but they also ensured that the only gun owners are violent criminals. Violent crime has exploded.

According to a November 2002 Reason magazine article (note that these statistics are slightly outdated, but there is no reason to believe that British crime rates have dropped significantly), violent crime is out of control. Britain enacted its handgun ban in 1996, by 2001, crime rates had doubled. By 2002, your chances of being mugged in London were six times higher than in New York City. 53% of burglaries took place while the victims were at home, compared to a mere 13% in the United States. According to the 2003 International Crime Victims Survey, Britain suffered from a crime rate three times that of the United States. By 2002, a UN study stated that England and Wales had the Western world’s worst record of criminal offenses. And British crime rates are artificially low—after the fifth crime against an individual, the government stops counting, which means that an extra two million violent crimes go unrecorded each year.

How do criminals get around Britain’s gun laws? This may come as a shock to liberals, but government is not omniscient. Many guns get through, and every one falls into the hands of violent criminals. And those criminals who can’t get guns just use knives—knife crime is a major problem, accounts for much of Britain’s violent crime. And no, you can’t use a knife for protection in England—carrying knives longer than three inches is a crime.

Gun control has been a total disaster in Great Britain. It is truly mind-boggling that so many liberals want to try it here. No matter how efficient the police force (and our police forces are often underfunded) or functional the prison system (and our prison system is very, very poor), a defenseless citizenry will always remain vulnerable to crime. They have found that fact out in Great Britain—and if the gun control zealots ever get their way, we will find that out in America as well. Crime novels aren’t always a good indicator of a county’s success in fighting crime—but this time they are.

I went to a lot of sites to get infomation for this post, and you can find them here, here, here, and here.