Coming Soon from the Biden Administration?

Robert Francis "Beto" O'Rourke - "Hell, yes, we're going to take your AR-15, your AK-47."

Quote of the Day - Victor Davis Hanson Edition

From his recent piece Year Zero at NRO, but do read the whole thing:

Gun sales are at record levels. I supposed the revolutionaries never investigated the original idea of a police force and the concept of the government’s legal monopoly on violence? It was not just to protect the law-abiding from the criminal, but to protect the criminal from the outraged vigilante.

Only police can stop blood feuds such as the ones we see in Chicago or like the medieval ones of Iceland’s Njáls saga, or the postbellum slaughtering of the Hatfields and McCoys. We are already seeing a counterrevolution — as the Left goes ballistic that anyone would appear on his lawn pointing a semiautomatic rifle to protect mere “brick and mortar.”

Without a functioning police force, do we really believe that the stockbroker is going to walk home in the evening in New York City without a firearm, or that the suburbanite in Minneapolis in an expansive home will not have a semiautomatic rifle, or that the couple who drives to Los Angeles with the kids to visit Disneyland will not have a 9mm automatic in their car console? The Left has energized the Second Amendment in a way the NRA never could, and for the next decade, there will be more guns in pockets, cars, and homes than at any time in history.

Truth

Quote of the Day - Charles W. Cooke Edition

From his National Review op-ed This is Why We Need Guns:

During the coronavirus lockdown, there was a public debate over whether gun stores should be deemed “essential.” During this outbreak of rioting, such an inquiry seems quaint. Now, as ever, there is no greater prophylactic against a criminal on the rampage than a loaded firearm in the hands of a free man.

Read the whole thing.

Quote of the Day - Larry Correia (Again)

This is not a short one.  I'm quoting the whole damned thing:

A friend of mine posted about seeing this: "Where are all you gun owners now that the federal government and police are attacking citizens in the streets?? Now that the National Guard is out oppressing citizens? I thought this was the moment you're waiting for? So why aren't you out there fighting them with your guns? You're nothing but a bunch of fucking cowards!"
My response was the GIF of Nelson Muntz going HA HA. :-D
But I've seen this sentiment a lot too over the last few days, so please if you are so incredibly fucking dumb that you are actually wondering why America's gun culture aren't commuting into the democrat cities you have banned us from in order to get into gun fights with the National Guard on your behalf, allow me to elaborate.
Hypothetical Liberal "Ally" Who Lives in the Suburbs Which Aren't On Fire - "Hey, gun owners! Here is some civil unrest! Why won't you come and help us?"
Snort. Fuck off.  :-D
"Pussies! Why not?"
Well, every single gun nut in America has spent their entire adult life being continually mocked, insulted, and belittled by the left. You've done nothing but paint us as the bad guys.
In Hollywood, we're always evil, stupid, violent, malicious, redneck, racist, murderers. That's so ingrained in the liberal religion that when "ally" Harvey Weinstein was trying to get out of being a sleazy rapist, his repentance consisted of promising to make more movies about how the NRA is bad.
In the news, everything is always our fault. If there is a mass murder, we can always count on the vultures to swoop in and blame America's gun culture. They flog it for weeks on end, 24/7 coverage, hoping for gun control. And if the identity of the shooter doesn't fit the narrative, it drops off the news in mere hours.
And then at the local, state, and federal level, legally speaking, the left fucks us at every opportunity. You ban everything you can get away with. You ban things that literally make no sense. You ban shit just out of spite.
When we fight back against gun control laws, you declare we are stupid because only the police should have guns (hey, aren't those the guys you are protesting right now?)
"Stupid racist rednecks! We live in a civilized society! Don't you realize the police will protect us?" until when your democrat cities are on fire, and you call 911 and the operator tells you sorry, the police can't come to your house right now, please try not to get murdered... How is that strict gun control working out for you?
Then you did everything in your power to chase gun owners out of your sainted liberal strongholds. You passed laws. You banned everything we like. Forced all the shooting ranges to close. Forced most of the gun stores to close. And just generally let us know that our kind is not welcome there.
But now you've started some shit, YOU want US to go into democrat cities, with democrat mayors, and democrat police chiefs enforcing democrat policies which cause strife among democrats, in order to get into gun fights on your behalf?
How fucking gullible do you think we are? :-D Like holy shit. Damn dude!
Because we all know that literally 30 seconds after a gun nut blows away a government employee on your behalf, then all the national media coverage of the riots will instantly cease (sorta like the Corona Virus coverage did) and it'll be back to the news breathlessly reporting about right wing extremist gun nuts, and all you useless fucks would go back to whining for more dumb ass gun control.
You've already thrown the black community under the bus, cheering as their neighborhoods get burned and yours are safe. Seriously, white liberals are the shittiest "allies" in history, and your moral foundation has the consistency of Play-Doh. Your moral compass is a wind sock.
Just a little while ago, gun nuts had a massive peaceful protest in Virginia. Tens of thousands of people turned out to protest gun control proposals from a democrat with a penchant for wearing black face (he still considers himself an "ally" though!) They didn't break any windows. They didn't kill any puppies. They didn't burn any horses. They didn't flip any police cars or murder any security guards. They were downright boring. They were polite, and even cleaned up their litter.
Except then you called them domestic terrorists, and were super sad that they didn't get massacred by the government (said government you are now mad at for killing people, because again, you fuckers ain't exactly consistent)
Liberal "allies" are quick to call gun nuts the bad guys, but we're not trying to disarm people. We want everybody to be able to defend themselves. It's a common thing to see some meme on the internet, showing a black family shooting or posing with their guns, with some caption like "bet this offends the NRA", which is liberal projection, because in reality in my social circles everybody is like, "fuck yeah, good for them". And the harshest complaints I've seen have been about trigger finger discipline or lack of eye protection.
My side isn't the one that wants the state to have a monopoly on force. We know the 2nd is for everybody, regardless of skin color or where you live. You fuckers are the ones who keep declaring we can't fight the government with AR-15s because they have tanks and nukes, but then you bumbling fuckheads try it by throwing rocks?
So not only no, but hell no.

 
Can I get an "AMEN!"?

From the comments to the FB thread:

As I Have Said Repeatedly...

"Gun Control" as proposed means "Gun Elimination" - that is, reducing the number of guns in private hands to a number indistinguishable from zero.

The BBC proves my point in a 2017 piece recently reprinted on Pocket:  How Japan has Almost Eradicated Gun Crime. Excerpt:

If you want to buy a gun in Japan you need patience and determination. You have to attend an all-day class, take a written exam and pass a shooting-range test with a mark of at least 95 percent.

There are also mental health and drugs tests. Your criminal record is checked and police look for links to extremist groups. Then they check your relatives too - and even your work colleagues. And as well as having the power to deny gun licences, police also have sweeping powers to search and seize weapons.

That's not all. Handguns are banned outright. Only shotguns and air rifles are allowed.

The law restricts the number of gun shops. In most of Japan's 40 or so prefectures there can be no more than three, and you can only buy fresh cartridges by returning the spent cartridges you bought on your last visit.

Police must be notified where the gun and the ammunition are stored - and they must be stored separately under lock and key. Police will also inspect guns once a year. And after three years your licence runs out, at which point you have to attend the course and pass the tests again.

This helps explain why mass shootings in Japan are extremely rare. When mass killings occur, the killer most often wields a knife.

And that's better, because reasons.  And it also glosses over the arson massacres.  The September 2001 Myojo 56 Building fire that killed 44, the October 2008 Osaka movie theater fire that killed 16, and (understandably since this piece was first published in 2017) the July 2019 Kyoto Animation attack that killed 36 and injured 33.  No, the Japanese don't have many mass killings, but it's not because they don't have guns.

The result is a very low level of gun ownership - 0.6 guns per 100 people in 2007, according to the Small Arms Survey, compared to 6.2 in England and Wales and 88.8 in the US.

"The moment you have guns in society, you will have gun violence but I think it's about the quantity," says Overton. "If you have very few guns in society, you will almost inevitably have low levels of violence."

Not necessarily so.  The UK has very few guns in society, and has been the most violent nation in Western Europe.  They're trying to ban knives there now.

Henrietta Moore of the Institute for Global Prosperity at University College London applauds the Japanese for not viewing gun ownership as "a civil liberty", and rejecting the idea of firearms as "something you use to defend your property against others."

Somehow, I don't think that reasoning would fly in major U.S. cities at the moment.

But for Japanese gangsters the tight gun control laws are a problem. Yakuza gun crime has sharply declined in the last 15 years, but those who continue to carry firearms have to find ingenious ways of smuggling them into the country.

"The criminals pack the guns inside of a tuna so it looks like a frozen tuna," says retired police officer Tahei Ogawa. "But we have discovered cases where they have actually hidden a gun inside."

So, the ownership rate is somewhat higher than 0.6/100 then?  RTWT, but the next time someone says "nobody's trying to take your guns," tell them to fuck off.

Wait Until Carmen Discovers What "Gun Control" Actually Is

Parking Lot Koreans

During the Rodney King riots, Koreatown in Los Angeles was a target of the rioters. The police, like they have in Minneapolis, abandoned the city. The shop owners in the area, their friends and families, defended their businesses, some from the roofs of their buildings - AKA “Roof Koreans.” Since then, anyone who defends against rioters has been termed a “Roof Korean” in the gun community.

Here are some that defended a Minneapolis tobacco store recently. Watch the video, but I want to show you a screen shot you won’t see on ABCNNBCBS or any other major news outlet:

The two self-confessed “rednecks” are being interviewed. The two “gentlemen of color” off to the right there also defending the store, were not. Note they all are carrying the evil AR-15 rifle, but they aren’t shooting anyone.

The Second Amendment is for everybody.

The Practical Result of "Gun Control"

Just over 17 years ago I wrote a two-part post, Is the Government Responsible for Your Protection?  In it, I discussed a couple of cases that proved that there is no "Duty to protect" on the part of the government -- municipal, county, state or federal.  The second example was of Linda Riss, a New York City resident who was stalked by a jilted lover.  She tried to get police protection, but could not.  Until an attacker hired by her ex threw lye in her face, scarring and blinding her.  THEN she got round-the-clock protection.  She sued the NYPD - and lost. 

The dissenting judge in the case wrote this:

Linda has turned to the courts of this State for redress, asking that the city be held liable in damages for its negligent failure to protect her from harm. With compelling logic, she can point out that, if a stranger, who had absolutely no obligation to aid her, had offered her assistance, and thereafter Burton Pugach was able to injure her as a result of the negligence of the volunteer, the courts would certainly require him to pay damages. (Restatement, 2d, Torts, § 323.) Why then should the city, whose duties are imposed by law and include the prevention of crime (New York City Charter, § 435) and, consequently, extend far beyond that of the Good Samaritan, not be responsible? If a private detective acts carelessly, no one would deny that a jury could find such conduct unacceptable. Why then is the city not required to live up to at least the same minimal standards of professional competence which would be demanded of a private detective?

Linda's reasoning seems so eminently sensible that surely it must come as a shock to her and to every citizen to hear the city argue and to learn that this court decides that the city has no duty to provide police protection to any given individual. What makes the city's position particularly difficult to understand is that, in conformity to the dictates of the law, Linda did not carry any weapon for self-defense (former Penal Law, § 1897). Thus, by a rather bitter irony she was required to rely for protection on the City of New York which now denies all responsibility to her." (My emphasis)

As I wrote at that time, this is the practical result of "gun control." Denial of the means to defend yourself, while not providing any other layer of real protection.

This situation has raised its head again in many places, but New York in particular.  Read the New York Post piece Worse than War:  My Night Besieged by Looters and Thugs in New York.  Excerpt:

Every minute brought some new shock and a fresh surge of adrenaline: more and more of those roving gangs, some sticking around for minutes. Squad cars racing down in convoy, sirens blaring. The smashing of windows (a hair salon on the block, I learned in the morning, had been smashed in). The screeching of tires. The shouting of men: “Stop, you motherf–ker!”
Why won’t the men in blue stay in front of our house?
At two in the morning, it couldn’t be denied that one particular roving gang was roving no more; its members were obviously staking out our building. Now cackling, now going ominously silent. Should I race upstairs and bring a kitchen knife? How would this scenario play out? Would they just smash our lobby and leave? What could stop them if they wanted to take the elevators up to our homes?

Not a damned thing.  It's a meme, but it's a fact:

See also Joe Huffman's Quote of the Day.

More Quora Content

I posted a link to this story of a 70 year old man defending his wife from an attacker who broke through the front door of their home.  He retrieved a firearm and shot the attacker several times.  I received a comment on the piece, to which I responded.  Here's the thread so far:

Peter Collins: When are you going to post all of the stories of people shooting their kids, or their wives or husbands, or themselves.

You are 9 times more likely to be killed with a gun you own than to kill an intruder or mugger or other criminal.

So, this man killed an intruder - that means nine other gun owners were killed by their own guns.

The odds are against you, 9 to 1. Only a fool bets that longshot with his life.

KB: I don’t have to. ABCNNBCBS and all the other major news outlets already take care of that. What they DON’T typically report are successful defensive gun uses, leading to the illusion that they seldom happen. Even the CDC recently admitted, however, that they happen far more often than most people think.

That news was also not carried by the media beyond a very brief mention.

Now as to your 9:1 ratio assertion, do you have a citation for that, or do you “just know it’s true”? Because the last time I heard something like that, it was 43:1 from a thoroughly discredited “study” performed by a Dr. Arthur Kellerman many years ago.

PC: The media don’t cover so-called ‘defensive gun uses’ very much because they are relatively rare events. The only study, and it is on-going, of this, using actual evidence and verifying the events, finds that guns are used about 2000 times per year in the US to prevent, stop, or mitigate a violent crime. The group doing the study is not a gun-control group, and their definition of ‘defensive gun use’ is broader than I think is justified, but they follow a data-based approach and they are willing to do the hard work to find an accurate figure. If guns were used regularly to prevent or stop crimes, it would be all over the news - when it does happen, the “good guy with a gun” scenario gets huge coverage.

The figure you question came from the Miller study, a peer-reviewed and unassailable study published in one of the trauma journals.

The Kellerman study, far from being “thoroughly discredited,” is a model of excellent methodology combined with careful use of data. I am aware of no serious critique of the study from any qualified source. The conclusions from that study, though, do not really bear on the question at hand. Kellerman was studying intentional homicide only, and that doesn’t provide an answer to the question of whether gun ownership generally confers more or less safety than risk. If the results of a perfectly good study are applied to aquestion that the study did not ask, it is not likely to provide valid or valuable information.

KB: “The only study, and it is on-going, of this , using actual evidence and verifying the events, finds that guns are used about 2000 times per year in the US to prevent, stop, or mitigate a violent crime.” Which study is this? I noticed you didn’t provide a citation.

How about this one? Priorities for Research to Reduce the Threat of Firearm-Related Violence commissioned by the Centers for Disease Control that states:

“Defensive uses of guns by crime victims is a common occurrence, [my emphasis - ed.] although the exact number remains disputed (Cook and Ludwig, 1996; Kleck, 2001a). Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million per year (Kleck, 2001a), in the context of about 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008 (BJS, 2010). On the other hand, some scholars point to radically lower estimate of only 108,000 annual defensive uses based on the National Crime Victimization Survey [my emphasis - ed.] (Cook et al., 1997). The variation in these numbers remains a controversy in the field. The estimate of 3 million defensive uses per year is based on an extrapolation from a small number of responses taken from more than 19 national surveys. The former estimate of 108,000 is difficult to interpret because respondents were not asked specifically about defensive gun use. [Again, my emphasis.]

“A different issue is whether defensive uses of guns, however numerous or rare they may be, are effective in preventing injury to the gunwielding crime victim. Studies that directly assessed the effect of actual defensive uses of guns (i.e., incidents in which a gun was ‘used’ by the crime victim in the sense of attacking or threatening an offender) have found consistently lower injury rates among gun-using crime victims compared with victims who used other self-protective strategies.” [Emphasis, well, you know.]

The LOWEST estimate of defensive gun use from a credible source that I’ve EVER seen was from the National Crime Victimization Survey at 80,000 DGU’s per year, 28,000 fewer than noted in the excerpt above. That’s still over 32 times your estimate. That’s on average 219 per day. What is a defensive gun use? Any time a person defends himself or someone else by so much as THREATENING to use a firearm to stop an attack. No shots need be fired, and in the overwhelming majority of these cases, none are. No blood, no news story. But tell the people who defended themselves that they didn’t need a gun. Go ahead, I’ll wait. But The Other Side™ seems to believe that if the defender did not shoot, or more accurately, kill the offender, then it doesn’t count.

Also, I noticed that you still haven’t cited your source for the 9:1 ratio from your first comment. Got a link to that “unassailable” Miller study? I think you misunderstand what “peer reviewed” actually means.

Oh, and Kellerman? He revised his own estimate down to 2.7 times more likely. Basically debunking himself.

PC: Your “study” is a piece of paid-for propaganda that relies on nothing that anyone could conceivably call evidence.

And your slur on Kellerman? No, he revised the application of his conclusion to a different set of circumstances.

If you actually read the study, rather than the claims made by gun fundy websites, you would know that.

And when you claim the number to be between 80,000 and 3 million, you lose all credibility. If you cannot even narrow it down within 2 orders of magnitude, your numbers are clearly phony.

KB: I really enjoy these discussions. So a piece produced by the National Academies of Science is “a piece of paid-for propaganda” because you say so. Interesting. But your uncited, “peer-reviewed” “Miller study” isn’t, because reasons. Kellerman’s 43:1 conclusion is gospel, but when he revised it to 2.1:1 it’s because he used a different set of circumstances - DUE TO THE FACT THAT HIS ORIGINAL CIRCUMSTANCES WERE LAUGHABLE. He’s already been proven unreliable. Why should I trust his revised numbers?

You object to the fact that the estimates between 80,000 and 3 million defensive gun uses means they’re not credible, but ignore the fact that the absolute low end, from United States Bureau of Justice surveys that DO NOT ASK EXPLICITLY ABOUT DEFENSIVE GUN USE still represent almost 220 defensive gun uses a DAY. You simply dismiss these as superfluous.

If you’d actually read the literature — all of it, not just the stuff you agree with — you would conclude that defensive gun usage is real, it’s effective, and it’s far more common than the general public is led to believe.

And that’s why I post these stories. The New York Times certainly won’t.

At this point I expect one or more of three things in descending order of likelihood:

1) He'll respond with more mouth-frothing
2) He'll report me for violating the "Be nice, be respectful" Quora policy
3) He'll go away

4) He'll delete his thread.

That didn't take long:

Kellerman revised the conclusion when the model for the study was revised - that’s akin to revising the number when you revise from mph to kph. If the ratio remained identical under different parameters, that would be questionable. Sorry you don’t understand how statistics work.

Your claim that the “absolute low end” is 70,000 ignores so many studies that show much, much lower numbers. I specifically cited the on-going GVA study which showed around 2000 verifiable cases per year. That’s lower than you claim is the “absolute low end.” Now, what did you say about only reading studies that support your position?

Here’s a challenge - you provide evidence of 110 defensive gun uses, in the USA, on any day in the last 10 years. That’s half what you claim is the ”low end,” so it shouldn’t be hard at all for you to prove. Not a survey, not some poll - actual evidence. I’ll accept if you provide the date, the time, the place, and the name of the victim or the person who used the gun.

So, how about it? Can you prove half your claimed l ”low end,” for any day in the last 10 years?

Oh, we’re still playing? OK. What was Kellerman’s initial model, and what were the objections to it? What was the revised model? I’m quite aware of how statistics work. I’m an engineer by trade.
The “absolute low end” is 80,000 by a survey that doesn’t specifically ask about defensive gun usage. You keep skipping right over that. Don’t you trust your government?

Your “GVA study” again is without a link to the source. If it’s the one I’m thinking of, the “verifiable cases” were media reports of defensive gun uses. Which kind of makes my point - the media doesn’t report on DGUs unless someone is shot or killed. And — if they’re covered at all — most of these reports end up on page B7 of the local fishwrap, not on the national nightly news.

Can I cite 110 defensive gun uses in a day? How am I to do this if the media doesn’t report them? If the people who stopped a crime in progress without firing a shot didn’t report it to the police? For example, the woman at the highway rest stop who confronted a man holding a coil of rope and convinced him that she was not going to be his next victim by showing him her pistol? Tell her she didn’t need it, and she was far more likely to have it used on her than to use it to protect her life. Tell that to the people standing outside a store in Minneapolis armed with rifles protecting it from rioters. It wasn’t looted or burned. Is that one DGU or twelve?

How many defensive gun uses is so low that it makes it OK to disarm the victims? Tell that 70 year old man that it would have been better to have let the attacker beat his wife to death rather than use a gun to defend her, or he could have tried to stop the man and there would be two old people dead or in the hospital. Tell him that the presence of that gun in his house made it 43 times more likely that he or his wife would be killed — not shot to death with his own weapon, but killed by any means — which is what Kellerman’s initial model did.

It’s been fun playing with you, but I think we’re done now.

It's still going. And going.

I Had No Idea Canadians Were This Well Armed

The list of now-banned "assault-style weapons" has been released. I don't have time to go through the whole list, but in part it includes actual missile launchers:

(z.11) Missile Launcher 9K111 Fagot;
(z.111) Missile Launcher 9K310 Igla-1;
(z.112) Missile Launcher 9K32 Strela-2;
(z.113) Missile Launcher 9K34 Strela-3;
(z.114) Missile Launcher 9K38 Igla;
(z.115) Missile Launcher BGM-71 TOW;
(z.116) Missile Launcher Eryx;
(z.117) Missile Launcher FGM-148 Javelin;
(z.118) Missile Launcher FIM-43 Redeye;
(z.119) Missile Launcher FIM-92 Stinger;
(z.12) Missile Launcher HN-5;
(z.121) Missile Launcher Ingwe;
(z.122) Missile Launcher M47 Dragon;
(z.123) Missile Launcher MILAN;
(z.124) Missile Launcher Saegheh;
(z.125) Missile Launcher Starstreak;
(z.126) Missile Launcher Toophan;
(z.127) Missile Launcher Type 79;

Hell, I’d like one of those Dragons, or a TOW. Maybe a Stinger. Where’s the NRA on this?!?

This is my Shocked Face

So a Canadian whack-job goes on a 12-hour shooting and arson spree, killing at least 23 people before suicide-by-cop.  No mention of what weapon(s) the killer used, but Prime Minister Trudeau came out immediately stating that Canada was going to implement an "assault weapon" ban.

Twelve hours.  Offhand, I'd say the Canadian government has done a bang-up job of disarming its citizens.

I Don't Think the American People will Willingly Surrender Their Firearms

Over 342 MILLION background checks since 1999.  Not all new gun sales go through the FBI.  Some states do it internally.  Not all background checks involve the sale of a firearm.  Some may represent the sale of more than one firearm.  Not all firearm sales are of new firearms.

But I think The Narrative™ that there are only about 300 million firearms in private hands is well and truly busted, since as a nation we've been buying guns for 230+ years, not just the last 20.

And look at March, 2020.  Largest number of background checks in a month, EVER. Closest previous record was December, 2015.  What precipitated that again?  We've had more background checks in the first three months of 2020 than in the entire YEAR for 1999 through 2005.

And all the guns that have been purchased?  I don't think the people who bought them did it with the intention that they'd give them up if asked nicely.

Well THIS Certainly Violates The Narrative™

Schools are safer than they were in the 90s, and school shootings are not more common than they used to be, researchers say

From the linked piece:

Mass school shootings are incredibly rare events. In research publishing later this year, (James Alan) Fox (Lipman Family Professor of Criminology, Law, and Public Policy at Northeastern) and doctoral student Emma Fridel found that on average, mass murders occur between 20 and 30 times per year, and about one of those incidents on average takes place at a school.
—
Their research also finds that shooting incidents involving students have been declining since the 1990s.
—
Four times the number of children were killed in schools in the early 1990s than today, Fox said.
“There is not an epidemic of school shootings,” he said

Not according to the bleating gun control crowd. The actual numbers are pretty bad, but they always have to inflate them because apparently reality isn’t bad enough. It’s like hate crimes. There’s more demand than there is supply.

Apparently Being Able to Defend Oneself...

...is "incredibly dangerous" to the gun ban er, control, um safety movement:

Gun-Control Exec Says Attempts to Sell Guns to Minorities, Women ‘Incredibly Dangerous’

Unintended Consequences

A recurring theme at Quora in the gun discussion is “what makes America different from the rest of the world when it comes to gun control?”

Well, this for instance:

Virginia gun sales dramatically increase in 2019: ‘I didn’t think I would ever be buying one’
 
Pullquote:

66-year-old Ida Wright decided today was the day she was going to buy her first hand gun. The grandmother of eight says growing crime, and now fears of gun restrictions by lawmakers, convinced her that it was time to make the purchase.

“I didn’t think I would ever be buying a gun, but things are changing so drastically,” Wright says. “If we don’t protect ourselves, who else is going to protect us?”

Wright isn’t alone.

Not by a long shot. (Pun intended.) RTWT.

Now I don’t know where Ms. Wright lives, and it’s entirely possible that crime there IS growing, but nationwide it’s been dropping for a couple of decades and is now at levels not seen since the 1960’s.

But that’s not the Media Narrative™. They’ve been trying to frighten people into supporting “gun control” but instead are promoting gun ownership. Gun sales have repeatedly set records for the last ten years. The media tries to convince us that fewer and fewer people are purchasing more and more guns, but the facts don’t support that.

Petition for Redress of Grievances

So, after a week of “news” about the gun-rights protest held in Virginia yesterday, predicting a repeat of Charlottesville (or worse), the declaration of a State of Emergency by Gov. Blackf… Ralph Northam, etc, the media hasn’t been more disappointed in a lack of violence since the premiere of
The Joker.

The Narrative™ has been well and truly busted.

Not that that will change anything.

On Quora I have seen a myriad of (and answered a few) questions about gun control, the power of the NRA, why Americans won’t surrender their guns like civilized Europeans, etc. I have seen answers accusing gun owners of being nothing but angry, racist, sexist, bigoted aging fat white men with small penises, mentally ill, brainwashed, homicidal, and pretty much every slander you can think of. (For the record, I’m an aging fat white man with a standard-issue penis, thank you.) What did the Richmond protest show us? Well, if you watch ABCNNBCBS, not much. If you went on the web to the sites of multiple groups who attended, this:

Bigots:

Angry people:

And this was not a small protest. THOUSANDS of people showed up. And they didn’t all get MLK day off from work.

It wasn’t the National Rifle Association behind this - it was the grassroots Virginia Citizens Defense League. How do you know it was grassroots? Most signs were hand-lettered, not printed up and handed out to protesters bussed in by third-parties.

No, this was people petitioning their government for redress of grievances, and out of all the attendees, I think this man said it best:

And first runner-up for the “Well Said” Award:

Why is the “gun lobby” so powerful? Because EVERY SINGLE STATE has people like these, and we will not be disarmed.

Oh, and unlike after Leftist protests, our people clean up after themselves:

Gun advocates pick up trash, protest peacefully: ‘We want to show an example’

'A birthday present for Ralph Northam': Protesters clean garbage off streets following Virginia gun rally

Why Doesn't "Gun Control" Work?

Perhaps because it ISN’T ENFORCED.

Police have arrested this felon four times in the last four months.

A loaded gun, a ballistic vest, multiple magazines and 18 rounds of loose ammunition.

That’s what police say they discovered inside a vehicle parked in an alley in the 1000 block of Beech Street in St. Paul last Saturday night.

The man in the driver’s seat has been arrested four times since September. Each time officers found firearms, say court records, which detail just three of the arrests.

Steven Michael Lincoln, 25, a convicted felon from Ham Lake, isn’t allowed to carry guns.

Hasn’t stopped him. Neither has the “Felon in Possession” laws, obviously. He should be spending five years in Club Fed, but I guess actually enforcing the laws on the books would overload the Justice System or something.

I’m reminded, once again, of an Ayn Rand quote:

The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.

And then selectively enforces them.

Edited to add further evidence:

NJ gave Texas church gunman plea deal that wiped out gun felony

Opponents of the Second Amendment Don't Like the First, Either

Progressive Governments’ Economic War on the NRA Fails in Court

Not long ago, progressive state and local officials nationwide were vowing to take down the hated National Rifle Association by targeting its pocketbook. When city authorities in Los Angeles and San Francisco gave that idea a try, they were following the lead of Governor Andrew Cuomo, who had unleashed New York financial regulators to go after the gun-rights organization’s access to insurance and banking services.

Now all three are facing a reckoning in court, based not on the Second Amendment but on the First. Without needing to even consider the issue of gun rights, federal courts are recognizing that boycotts enforced by government power can menace free speech and free association.

The amusing part is that the public officials themselves are helping to provide the basis for these rulings by tweeting and speechifying about how much damage they intend to do the NRA.

 "Gun Control" isn't about guns, it's about control, and that pesky Bill of Rights and the rest of the Constitution stand in our rightful rulers way!

Gun Control Requires Astroturf

March For Our Lives Raised Nearly All Funding from Secret Six-Figure Donations

The gun-control group responsible for a 2018 march on Washington, D.C., raised the vast majority of its funds from undisclosed donations over six figures, a recently released tax document shows.

The March For Our Lives Action Fund, a 501(c)(4) "social welfare" organization launched in the aftermath of the deadly 2018 shootings at Florida's Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, is bankrolled almost entirely by large donations in excess of $100,000. The group reported $17,879,150 in contributions and grants over the course of 2018, its first year of operations. Ninety-five percent of those contributions came from 36 donations between $100,000 and $3,504,717—a grand total of $16,922,331.

As Tam once wrote,

Poor Lefties; they've been playing on astroturf so long that they don't know grassroots even when fed a mouthful of divot.

 Edited to add:  See also Everytown's Finances at Shall Not Be Questioned.

Analysis: TRUE

2019 Was a Bad Year for the "Only Cops Should Have Guns" Narrative

Pullquote 1:

On December 29, an armed gunman entered the West Freeway Church of Christ in Texas and shot two members of the congregation. Within six seconds, a third member of the congregation drew a weapon and shot the gunman dead.

The events were captured on live-streamed video, with the dramatic events — in the minds of many observers — highlighting the benefits of privately owned firearms as a defense against armed criminals. Moreover, the gunman, who had a criminal history, obtained his gun illegally, and demonstrated one of the central pitfalls of the gun-control narrative: namely, that those with criminal intent are not easily restrained by laws controlling access to firearms.

Pullquote 2:

To many people who aren't left-leaning journalists, it is hardly "terrifying" that some other private citizens of unknown expertise were armed in the congregation. After all, these people never fired a shot once they saw the shooter had been incapacitated. None of them provided any reason to suspect they pose any risk to anyone else.

On the other hand, 2019 has provided plenty of reminders of what sort of "expertise" and heroism government-provided security forces offer.

And, finally, as seen on Facebook: