Tag: gun control

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The Lying News Media, Part III UPDATE!

There are reports that CNN caught a storm of outrage (unsurprisingly) and has been shown the error of its ways by some licensed dealers. It is reported that CNN will air a retraction tomorrow (May 19) between 5 and 7 PM (I assume EST, though I don’t know for sure.) I’m trying to get verification from those involved now.

Apparently the story is that Sheriff Jenne suckered CNN during a live feed, they didn’t know any better and took it on its face. Pardon the hell out of me if I’m skeptical, but it’s possible. Most people can’t tell an AK from a AR.

You can bet I’ll have videotape ready for this, though.

I’ll update further when I have more.

Are We Going to Debate, or Aren’t We?

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I started this blog because of a fairly heated exchange between a blogger I read regularly – Rob over at Gutrumbles and someone he reads, The Road Not Taken, over guns and the right to bear arms. Jack, being an Irishman living in England, has a very different take on it than Rob, (and for that matter, me) but Rob’s debating skills on this topic are, shall we say, vitriolic.

So I invited Jack to debate the topic, and he suggested I sign up at Blogger and we’d do it on-line. That was the last prompt I needed, so I set up The Smallest Minority. However, Jack had a little different idea, and he set up The Commentary and invited me to be a contributor there instead. OK, I’ve done that, and I’ll keep this blog too. Anyway, I opened the debate by responding to the post that set Rob off. I don’t know if The Commentary is going to go anywhere, and I’m not the administrator of that blog, and I put some time into the post, so I thought I’d repost it here as well. As of yet Jack has not responded. From here on down is my response to Jack’s opening salvo:

The opening thread in question is here (so long as Blogspot’s links are working) or you can just go to The Road Not Taken and scroll down to the heading The Right to Bear Arms.

I won’t quote that section whole because it digresses from the right to arms, discussing whether or not Dubya is a doofus and Rob’s bonnet, but I will take several of the statements and discuss them. Jack can then respond, refute, or clarify his positions and ask me whatever he wants.

Jack opens the debate with this statement:

“In the United States, a big deal is made of the right of US citizens to own and bear arms. It’s laid down in the Second Amendment to their constitution, right under freedom of speech and religion.”

Yes, it is a big deal – at least to some of us. That much is obvious from the amount of media coverage it gets and the number of people blogging about it over here.

“Or is it? The Second Amendment states (and I quote): ‘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.’ ”

That is correct, weirdly placed commas and all.

“Now, I do not believe that this gives US citizens a blanket right to own and carry weapons. Specific reference is made to a “well regulated Militia” and, to me, that does not imply that anyone who feels like owning an AK-47 should be allowed to do so. However, I do believe that it means that if a group of people form a militia, if they behave responsibly, if they liaise with the proper authorities and, as long as there are no fears that the militia will be used for any other purpose than to defend the freedom of the State, then those people should be allowed to keep and bear Arms.

“On the other hand, if some kid walks into a gun store off the street with a handful of crumpled bills, I don’t think he should be allowed to buy a gun.

“That’s my first point – that the Second Amendment does not give any fool off the street the right to keep and bear arms.”

First point taken. And that is the position that people espousing gun control have been using for the last thirty to fifty years. But first let me correct a misassumption. Neither the Second Amendment nor any of the other members of the Bill of Rights “gives” anybody anything. Read carefully the First Amendment:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

The Fourth Amendment:

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

Note that the First Amendment doesn’t say: “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech hereby established…”, nor does the Bill of Rights say “This Constitution hereby grants the following rights…” This point is made explicitly by the Ninth Amendment:

“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

The enumeration of certain rights, not the granting of them.

This was universally understood at the time of ratification. In fact, ratification was held up until the Bill of Rights was agreed upon and added to the Constitution as a hedge against future infringement of our pre-existing rights. This was stated plainly:

“The whole of the Bill (of Rights) is a declaration of the right of the people at large or considered as individuals…. It establishes some rights of the individual as unalienable and which consequently, no majority has a right to deprive them of.“ –Albert Gallatin of the New York Historical Society, October 7, 1789. (My emphasis.)

So the right in question in the Second Amendment is “the right to keep and bear arms” – a right fully recognized prior to the Bill of Rights, and designated as inalienable by the Second Amendment. So why the preamble, and is it irrelevant? As many argue, does the naming of the militia make the right to keep and bear arms a right of “the people at large”? If so, as many have said it was the best kept secret of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as no known writings by any of the Founders even suggests this possibility, while numerous citations exist to support the individual rights interpretation. What the gun control people avoid is what the Second Amendment was actually there for: as a final protection for “the People” against government.

It’s not about hunting, or target shooting, or even self-defense against common criminals – it’s there to ensure that the People have the means to oppose tyranny. Hunting, target shooting, and self-defense are givens if the people retain the right to arms against government. Samuel Adams said it best:

“And that the said Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press, or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms; or to raise standing armies, unless necessary for the defense of the United States, or of some one or more of them; or to prevent the people from petitioning, in a peaceable and orderly manner, the federal legislature, for a redress of grievances; or to subject the people to unreasonable searches and seizures of their persons, papers or possessions.” (My emphasis)

That pretty much covers it.

Now to Jack’s second point:

“I drive a car. In order to drive that car, I had to pass a theory test, in which you are quizzed about the rules of the road, and a practical test, in which you demonstrate that you can implement the theory you have learnt and that you can drive safely and competently. If I drive dangerously, if I speed, if I drive while drunk, I’m liable to have my licence taken away from me.

“I think it should be the same with guns. Unlike most Europeans, I’ve used a gun. They strike me as incredibly dangerous things. Their sole purpose is to injure or cause death. I’m a kind of jocular guy and I often joke and mess around with stuff, but when I’m around weapons, I stop messing around, because it’s just too dangerous. I pride myself on having passed my weapons handling test first time, and I really, really don’t like being around people who aren’t competent or careful with weapons.

“Therefore, I can’t even comprehend why you would want to give a gun to anyone without ensuring that they are competent to handle and use it and without registering the fact that they keep it. As I understand it, and feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, there are places in the United States where you can walk into a gun shop, show your driving licence to prove your age and walk out with a gun and ammunition. No competence test, no registration, no enquiry as to why you want to own something whose primary purpose is killing people.

“To me, that is just plain dumb.”

These too are arguments – good arguments – used by gun control promoters. Let’s discuss them in reverse order. I as an individual can walk into a gun shop, pick out a gun, show my driver’s license or other acceptable form of photo ID, fill out a form, undergo a background check, and if I pass it lay down my money and walk out the door with a firearm I have no idea how to operate. This is a given. As to whether or not a registration has occurred, there are differing opinions. I did fill out a government form, and I did undergo a background check performed by a government entity. As to whether that information ended up on a list somewhere, we’ll have to pass on that question for the time being. However, if you accept that the Second Amendment protects a RIGHT to arms, then doing what I just described was me exercising a constitutionally protected individual RIGHT. Driving a car (an admittedly lethal instrument) isn’t a right.

I’m not comfortable around people who are incompetent with weapons either, but I’ve yet to see a way to prevent those yahoos from having arms without also risking my own disarmament. However, as with other protected individual rights, we’re allowed to strip people of them if they prove themselves unworthy. If Bob Mouthbreather does something felonious, his right to arms (along with his right to liberty and possibly even his right to life) can be stripped from him – but only AFTER the fact, and only after due process of law. His right to arms cannot be denied to him for something he might do, only something he’s actually done and been convicted of in a court of law. (Now, however, there is an exception for people under restraining orders and for misdemeanor domestic violence. There’s that slippery slope again.) If people had to prove competency and get a (government issued) license, then the government could make getting that license more and more difficult until it didn’t give out any licences at all. And if all guns were registered and all gun owners licensed, then the government could come and collect them all. Or at least collect them from the people honest enough to register.

England’s done that already with fully automatic wepons, with semi-automatic rifles and shotguns, and with all handguns. In the name of public safety. And it hasn’t made England any safer by any measure. Like the old saw goes, only the criminals (and the government) have guns there now. Which brings us to Jack’s third point:

“A lot of people make the argument that people should have guns for self-defence, because criminals have them. In American, the Second Amendment doesn’t mention self-defence. It only mentions a militia, so, in my opinion, you can’t say that the Second Amendment gives citizens the right to carry weapons in order to defend themselves against criminals.

“So, remove the Second Amendment from the argument and it comes down to a straight question – if criminals use guns to commit crime, should law-abiding citizens be allowed to carry guns to defend themselves?

“I don’t think so. I think that if criminals have guns, you need to tackle that problem head-on, not exacerbate it by allowing everyone to carry guns to defend themselves.”

Again, the Bill of Rights doesn’t “give” citizens anything – it protects our rights against government infringement. The question of carrying weapons in order to defend oneself is an interesting one, as the earliest court cases involving the right to arms discussed this very topic. The conclusion of the majority of those cases was that laws prohibiting concealed carry were constitutionally OK, but laws prohibiting OPEN carry were not. Self defense was one of those non-enumerated rights, and the Second Amendment protected the means of self-defense. On this question Jack and I have a major disagreement. Jack continues his point, saying:

“Here in the UK, there’s been some debate and tabloid headlines about the police shooting and killing people who’ve turned out to have been brandishing replica guns. People say that the police should be more careful, et cetera, et cetera. I say fuck ’em. If you’re stupid enough to go waving something that looks exactly like a gun at the police and you don’t put it down when you’re told to, then you deserve to be removed from the gene pool.”

What Jack has done here is separate out the police – people who should be allowed to remove other people from the gene pool – from the general public, who should not. I have a real problem with that. The police cannot be everywhere all the time. If they are, you are living in a de facto police state – something no one wants. If someone attempts to rob, rape, or assault me, I cannot depend on the police to be there to protect me, so I have two options: submit, or resist. England has apparently chosen to advise its subjects to submit. It has passed law after law making resistance legally dangerous. It has, in fact, made the job of the lawbreaker substantially less risky since the passage of the Prevention of Crime Act of 1953 made it illegal to carry any kind of weapon with which to defend yourself, and it’s only gotten worse since. This law did what Jack wanted – it disarmed the average citizen, but left the criminals armed.

So a question, Jack: Why should the police be the sole arbiters of whom is a suitable candidate to remove from the gene pool?

Jack concludes his piece thus:

I(n) conclusion, I’d just like to say that I’m not against gun ownership in principle. I thought it was really, really bad that the backlash after the Dunblane massacre led to a ban on sporting target pistols. British Olympic shooting competitors now have to go abroad to practise because their weapons are illegal in this country. That is just dumb.”

I thought it was really, really bad too, but I was not at all surprised. It was licensing and registration that made it possible. It was laws preventing the use of firearms for self-defense, and ever more stringent licensing and storage and documentation and recreational use requirements that reduced the number of law abiding gun owners in England and Wales to the point that they had no effective voice in Parliament that allowed the ban to be passed. England provides the template for “proper gun control legislation” that the supporters of such want to implement here. The Second Amendment prevent this.

Those old rich white guys knew what they were doing, didn’t they?

The Lying “News” Media Part II

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 (Edited for better readability.)

This is a transcript of a slickly produced NRA “news report” covering CNN’s, shall we say, deliberate misrepresentation of fact.

The piece opens with the NRA’s talking head who fails to introduce herself. Transcript begins:

NRA: “Welcome back to NRA Live. You’ve heard all about media bias. Well, what we’re about to show you is clearly media manipulation of the truth.

“On CNN Thursday night, Miami bureau cheif John Zarella did a story on the controversy brewing over the renewal of the assault weapons ban.”

The picture then switches to the CNN story. At the bottom of the screen the story title bar reads in large letters:

Assault Weapons Ban

and beneath that in smaller text:

LAW BANS 19 TYPES OF SEMI-AUTOMATIC WEAPONS.

Remember that. SEMI-automatic weapons. Narration continues while we see some men on what is clearly a firing range.

NRA: “On a live shot of the Broward County Sheriff’s office firearms training range, he and Sheriff Ken Jenne did a demonstration first with a semiautomatic firearm that is on the banned list and it had 30 rounds in the magazine. And here’s what they showed:”

During the introduction, someone, presumably an officer, is seen handling an AK-47 type weapon. When the demonstration begins, two men are standing on the range, seen from behind, with a human silhouette shown down range past them. The CNN report is now heard in a voice-over by Sheriff Jenne.

Jenne: “First the Deputy is going to demonstrate a AK-47, uh, the Chinese version which is the pre-ban version”

Zarella: “It’s currently banned…”

Jenne: (talking over Zarella) “It’s currently banned, absolutely.”

Zarella: “OK. OK, well let the detective show us.”

The Deputy shoulders the AK-47 and aims it downrange. The 30-round magazine is clearly visible. He begins shooting. After the first or second round, the image shifts to a stack of cinderblocks set up like a small wall, showing clearly the impacts of the rounds. The deputy fires FOUR (4) rounds, doing obvious damage to the blocks. The fire is two rounds fairly quickly, followed two rounds, fired more carefully. All four rounds are fired in about 3 seconds. Flying dust and one cinderblock is holed.

Zarella: “That’s into a cinderblock.”

Jenne: “That’s into a cinderblock.”

Zarella: “And now into a bullet-proof vest.”

Jenne: “And this is a vest similar to the ones that, uh, our deputies have worn. It’s a used one but one that’s similar.”

The image switches to a torso mannequin wearing a bullet resistant vest. Here’s the first misrepresentation. There’s no such thing as a “bullet-proof” vest. They are designed with certain “threat levels” for different useages. The threat levels are established by the National Institute of Justice The vests commonly worn by police officers are Threat Level II (capable of stopping up to a .357 Magnum handgun round) or Threat Level IIIA (capable of stopping up to a .44 Magnum handgun round). Neither of these vests is capable of stopping ANY centerfire rifle round, whether it’s fired from an “assault weapon” or a deer rifle. There are Threat Levels III and IV that are designed to stop a .308 (7.62NATO) rifle bullet and an armor piercing .308 respectively, but no cop on the beat would wear one because they have heavy steel or ceramic plates in them. Level IIIA and lower vests are at least a little flexible, lighter, and can be worn under a duty blouse. Level III and IV vests are the type you saw embedded reporters wearing during the war in Iraq. Remember the funky looking semicircular chest shields there to protect their faces from bullet spatter? But you’re not supposed to know that. You’re supposed to think a “bullet-proof vest” will stop ANY bullet. Right?

And remember this: Even a Level IV vest won’t stop more than one round in the same spot. The second one will probably get through.

The deputy fires THREE (3) carefully aimed rounds to the center of the mannequin’s chest.

Zarella: “Now that bullet’s clearly fired right through there…”

Jenne: “Right through, and there’s panelling on the front and on the back.”

The NRA’s talking head reappears.

NRA: “Then, CNN showed Deputy Chris Worth (sp?) shooting the very same cinderblocks with a semiautomatic that had not been banned.”

The scene switches back to the CNN story, with Jenne trading weapons with Deputy Worth.

NRA: “Only this time, as the Sheriff pointed out, there were only ten rounds in the magazine.”

Zarella: “Now this weapon, now, is legal under the current law.”

Jenne: “A -absolutely. This is an AK-47 also, but it’s a civilian model. It has some differences, and right now this only has a clip of ten, uh, in the magazine er, magazin..uh ten round in the magazine. So this is is a big difference than the thirty rounds in the previous magazine.”

Really? Why? The deputy in the previous demonstration fired SEVEN ROUNDS, not 30. Is there something the NRA didn’t show us? The really interesting thing here, is that when the deputy shoulders the rifle, it doesn’t have a TEN ROUND magazine in it, it’s got a THIRTY ROUND magazine in it! That’s right, boys and girls! Thirty round magazines FIT IN POST BAN WEAPONS – and they’re NOT ILLEGAL! I’ve got several for my POST-BAN AR-15.

At any rate, the deputy shoulders the weapon and aims downrange. Remember now, the first gun was an AK-47 which chambers the 7.62×39 Russian cartridge, and the second gun is ALSO an AK-47 which chambers exactly the same round. The deputy begins firing. He fires SIX (6) shots. On the third shot the image switches to that same stack of cinderblocks. AND THERE ISN’T A SINGLE HIT. What, are the sights off? No dust flying, no concrete shattering, nada. The image switches back to the NRA talking head:

NRA: “Surprised? Not one shot went into the cinderblocks. No smoke, no dust, no bullet holes. Well, you’re probably asking the very same questions we are: How could that happen? Was the deputy firing blanks? Or was he just a bad shot? Either way, CNN’s John Zarella should have told the viewers, because we both know both guns were semi-automatics. And even though one had thirty rounds and the other one had ten, that makes no difference in the way they perform.”

Especially when you fire FOUR rounds out of the rifle with 30 and SIX rounds out of the one holding ten.

NRA: “A semi-auto is a semi-auto is a semi-auto. And they all fire the very same cartridge, and have the same firing power.”

Not exactly. An AK-47 is not an AR-15 is not an M1A. They don’t fire the same cartridge and have the same power, but that’s beside the point for this demonstration.

NRA: “Right? Well not according to CNN and the Sheriff. The whole message, in fact, behind their story was to drive home the point to viewers, whether by misfiring or staging it, that somehow the semi-automatics on the banned list have more firepower than those that are not banned.”

Seems pretty obvious to me. But then I’m a gun nut and know better already.

NRA: “Just listen to this conversation that CNN had with the Sheriff.”

The image switches back to the stack of cinderblocks.

Zarella: “So what makes the big difference here is the amount of, of firepower then.”

Jenne: “Absolutely. When, when deputies and people are on the street, or people are subjected to drive-by shootings, uh, these weapons are not that particularly, uh, accurate to begin with. When the more rounds you have, the more firepower you have…”

He’s interrupted by the NRA talking head. And remember – in the demonstration of the LEGAL AK-47, it had a 30 round magazine in it!

NRA: “But, as if that was not enough to mislead the public with absolute fabrication, CNN shows another demonstration on another show later that night. And although Sheriff Jenne claims his deputy is shooting with a semi-automatic firearm, that is banned, that’s not the case at all. The deputy is actually using a fully automatic firearm. Take a listen.”

The image switches back to the deputy on the firing range. The banner at the bottom of the screen now reads:

GUN BATTLE
BAN ON 19 ASSAULT WEAPONS
EXPIRES IN SEPTEMBER 2004

Jenne: “So you can see the destructive force. It’s got a thirty, uh, rounds in it’s magazine, uh, and it will be firing it now.”

(Hey, I just transcribe this stuff. It’s what I heard.)

Zarella: “OK.”

The deputy shoulders the weapon and aims it downrange. He fires three rounds at the stack of cinderblocks (apparently there was more than one take done, as this stack is shorter, and untouched.) He fires three more rounds. Dust & broken cinderblock, just as you’d expect.

Zarella: “Now that was semi-automatic…” (He’s a bit garbled as Jenne speaks) “Now your (garbled) switch’er to automatic…”

The deputy is seen manipulating the weapon as they speak, and as Jenne speaks,

Jenne: “This is automatic…”

The deputy begins firing FULLY AUTO, and the cinderblocks are, of course, busted all to hell.

Zarella: “Wow. That obliterated those blocks.”

Jenne: “Those blocks are gone.”

Zarella: “Absolutely obliterated them.”

Jenne: “And, and you can tell the difference.”

Zarella: “Clearly, Anderson (?), a-an example of the firepower that these weapons possess, and why, at least here in Broward County, the Broward Sheriff’s office and Sheriff Ken Jenne want to see that ban remain in place.”

Except the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban didn’t affect fully automatic weapons – those are regulated under the 1934 National Firearms Act. Remember the blurb?

The NRA talking head reappears.

NRA: “Again, what CNN and the Sheriff don’t tell you is that no guns on the banned list are fully automatic. Those guns were severely restricted in 1934. So why did they do this? Why did they concoct a story that the Sheriff should have known was not true? Well, I tried to call Sheriff Jenne to talk with him about the demonstration. He wasn’t available. But I did get to speak with the director of media relations.”

The image shifts to the talking head sitting at a microphone. A phone ring tone is heard. Someone picks up.

Cheryl Stopnick (how appropriate): “Media relations. Cheryl Stopnick.”

NRA: “Yeah, this is Jenny Cimone (spelling is as close as I can figure, as they never put her name up) calling from Washington, D.C.”

Stopnick: “And who are you with?”

NRA: “I’m with a company called the Mercury Group. Out of Washington.”

Stopnick: “Uh-huh, and what is your group?”

NRA: “And we provide investigative services to the NRA.”

Stopnick: “Uh-huh.”

NRA: “And we wanted to talk to him about the demonstration he did on CNN yesterday.”

Stopnick: “Uh-huh. Well, I’ll take your number and pass your message along.”

NRA: “OK. Um, when do you think you could get back to us?”

Stopnick: “I don’t know.”

NRA: “Let me ask you this: I know that, um, there was a deputy involved, in, in..Chris Worth?”

Stopnick: “Uh-huh?”

NRA: “Is he available to talk?”

Stopnick: “No.”

NRA: “He’s not.”

Stopnick: “No.”

NRA: “OK. Alright, well we’ll just wait to hear from him.”

Stopnick: “Thank you.”

NRA: “Thanks.” (End of conversation.) “Well as you can imagine, we still haven’t heard back from Sheriff Jenne or from CNN’s John Zarella who we also called.”

And then she goes into the NRA speil.

What you’re seeing here is the Violence Policy Center’s tactics in action:

“Assault weapons-just like armor-piercing bullets, machine guns, and plastic firearms – are a new topic. The weapons’ menacing looks, coupled with the public’s confusion over fully automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons – anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun – can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons. In addition, few people can envision a practical use for these weapons.”

Show the rubes a machine gun and tell ’em it’s an evil banned “assault weapon” and they’ll believe you. Don’t tell them that the only thing that makes an “assault weapon” according to the law is the name of the weapon, or whether or not it has a flash-hider or a bayonet lug, and they’ll think the law did something good.

SHOW THEM THAT THE “GOOD” GUNS CAN’T HURT A CINDERBLOCK AND THEY’LL BUY ANYTHING.

I am OUTRAGED.

(Updated. I’m reliably informed that the NRA talking head is Ginny Simone (last name pronounced Sim-o-nee))

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Somebody generally beats me to it

And quite often does a better job of it. That’s one of the reasons it took me so long to start my own blog. Jealous green-eyed rage. Regardless, I appreciate quality work when I see it, and I’d be remiss not to point it out to whomever might stumble in here. Isntapundit (no, not Glenn. The other guy) has a post up that perfectly illustrates the gun control movement in the personage of Andrew McKelvey, chief honcho of Americans for Gun Safety. Although the comparison to a deadly parasite was a bit graphic for dinnertime. Go read it. I’ll wait.