It has been suggested that Barack Obama is the greatest firearm salesman in history, and with good reason.  Gun sales have boomed under Obama’s watch.  Gun companies have reported record sales, and, contrary to the claims of the anti-rights crowd, surveys indicate that the growth isn’t just due to existing gun owners building bigger collections, but to many new, first-time gun buyers.

Of course Obama doesn’t deserve all of the credit; he had lots of help from fellow politicians, gun control organizations, and the media.  They place the “blame” for record gun sales on rights groups whipping gun buyers into a feeding frenzy of panic buying by making exaggerated claims of impending gun bans and restrictions. And, while there’s no doubt that pro-gun groups do sound the alarm at the slightest provocation, you’d think the anti-rights folks would figure out that it’s their provocation that instigates the alarms and the resultant buying – and voting – response.  As prominent rights leader, Alan Gottlieb, recently pointed out, if the real objective of the anti-rights crowd was to reduce the number of guns on the street, they have not only failed miserably, they are the root cause of their own failure.  Tens of thousands of Americans have bought guns – especially threatened “assault-style” guns – due to threats created by gun control proponents.

Continue reading Guns: A Bright Spot in the Economy →

On November 14, 2012, Kenneth Gonzales, who was then the US Attorney for New Mexico, was nominated by Barack Obama to fill a vacancy in the Federal District Court in that state.  The Senate failed to act on the nomination that year, but Obama renominated Gonzales in January of 2013 and he was confirmed by the Senate the following June.  A month later, in early August, 2013, Gonzales resigned from his position as US Attorney and assumed his seat on the federal bench.  His close friend and former subordinate, Damon Martinez, was appointed to replace Gonzales, but is currently awaiting confirmation by the Senate.  In the interim, Gonzales’ second in command, Steven Yarbrough, has been moved up to temporarily fill the position.  Gonzales holds court in Las Cruces, New Mexico alongside Judge Robert Brack.

All of this information takes on ominous significance when you consider the fact that as US Attorney for New Mexico, Gonzales and his staff have been accused of a pattern of intentionally withholding evidence and information which might have hurt their cases and helped defendants.  Those accusations come in the form of a Motion to Dismiss with Prejudice the four remaining charges in the Reese case.

We have been covering the Reese family for a couple of years.  Rick Reese and his family ran a gun shop next to their home in rural New Mexico, and were arrested back in August of 2011 on a raft of charges.  Rick and Terri Reese, and their sons Ryin and Remington, were thrown in jail and denied bail.  Virtually everything they owned of any value was seized, and forfeiture proceedings were started.  After six months, bail was finally granted for Terri (for medical reasons), but Rick and the boys remained incarcerated for over a year.  In the trial, Remington was acquitted of all charges and released, while the other three were convicted of making false statements in connection with the acquisition of firearms – one count each for Rick and Terri and two counts for Ryin.  They were acquitted of all of the other charges.

Four months after the trial, 18 months after being arrested, Rick and Ryin were still in jail awaiting sentencing when it was discovered that prosecutors had withheld information about a witness – a local sheriff’s deputy whose testimony directly conflicted with Terri Reese’s.  Turns out he was the subject of a ten-year federal corruption investigation.  The judge ruled that he “might have shaded his testimony to curry favor with federal prosecutors.”  The judge set aside the Reese convictions and ordered a new trial, stating that “there is no doubt the prosecution, intentionally or negligently suppressed the evidence.” 

Continue reading Courting Corruption →

As the new year dawns, just over a year after the atrocity at Sandy Hook, it’s time to look at what’s been done since that horror to add to the protection and defense of our children. 

First, it’s important to recognize the fact that mass murder attacks on school children are extremely uncommon, and the odds of your or my children, grandchildren, nieces, or nephews being directly involved are incredible small – probably in the neighborhood of 1 in 100 million in any given year – so you’re more likely to win the PowerBall and MegaMillions lotteries – simultaneously – than to have a child involved in an attack like Sandy Hook or Columbine.  Of course that’s no comfort when tragedy does strike, and it’s the possibility – regardless of how unlikely – which demands that steps be taken to reduce the odds even further.

It’s clear that institutional lethargy, myopia, and political correctness have schools and their administrators virtually incapable of change.  In the wake of the worst school massacre in decades, the response of school administrators around the country was to double-down on the same emergency response strategy that failed at Sandy Hook; the Hide and Hope strategy.  Teachers are instructed to close their classroom doors, gather children in a corner, and hold them there until the “lockdown” ends.  Unfortunately, that’s where the planning ends.  There is rarely any planning for what exactly to do if the “bad guy” actually enters the room and starts hurting people. 

Continue reading Defending Children →

 A Christmas Day story from the AP gives a pretty clear outline of some of the threats liberty will face in the coming year.  The piece includes extensive quotes from leading hoplophobes and anti-rights organizations, and provides an edifying look into their strategy for the coming year.  The antis boast about the tens of millions of dollars and thousands of paid staff and volunteers they are lining up to push their agenda in the run-up to the 2014 elections.  We can only hope that they are successful at forcing another vote or two in Congress and the 15 or so states that they are targeting with their effort, because nothing turns out GunVoters better, and distinguishes political friends and foes more clearly than a noisy anti-rights campaign and politicians taking record votes on gun control bills.

The article also inadvertently points up one of the major flaws in the anti-rights agenda: their solutions don’t solve their flagship problems.

Everyone knows that the prime motivator for the resurgence of the gun control movement was the atrocity committed at Sandy Hook Elementary School last December, with various other senseless violent assaults being thrown in for good measure.  But none of the antis’ primary objectives would have the slightest impact on those attacks, nor on any to come.

Keep in mind that the Sandy Hook attack occurred in Connecticut, a state which was rated fifth in the nation for “good” laws by the Brady Campaign.  Only California, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and New York have stricter laws.  The state also boasts one of the lowest crime rates in the nation.  That’s to be expected from a state with among the highest per capita income, and the benefits that go along with that: some of the best schools, health care providers, mental health services, and high ratio of law enforcement officers to the citizenry.  Still, with all of that going for it, one aberrant 20-year old found a way to access weapons and commit one of the most evil acts of mayhem in modern history.  It is also worth noting that, considering the target of his violence was a handful of unarmed women and dozens of helpless little children, just about any weapon – bludgeon, blade, or incendiary – would have sufficed. 

Continue reading Bloomberg’s Coming →

Rights advocates around the country need to be on the lookout for an insidious new tactic being launched by Mike Bloomberg and his mercenary minions.  Their latest line of attack is mental health.  This actually isn’t so much a new approach as a refocusing and turbo charging of an older plan.

The strategy is to use the wide acceptance of the idea that the mentally ill should not have access to firearms, as a front for prohibiting a broad array of “normal” people from possessing guns or ammunition.  As with most things, the devil is in the details.  What is mental illness? Who is mentally ill?  How mentally ill must one be to warrant revocation of a fundamental human right?  Who makes that determination?  Who is “normal,” and how “normal” do they have to be to own guns? 

Recently, one of Bloomberg’s pet politicians, Ralph Northam, whom Bloomberg spent over a million dollars to get elected as Lt. Governor of Virginia, spelled out the plan during a “gun violence” symposium.  The event turned out to be a gun control meeting discussing a strategy of trickery and deception to get firearm restrictions passed through legislatures by hiding it in bills dealing with mental health.   My friend Philip Van Cleave, the President of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, was at the meeting and reported that Northam was very candid about the plan and the sneak attack strategies for bypassing committees and public comment, and preventing rights groups from being able to mount opposition until it’s too late.  He particularly lauded the Connecticut and New York models where both states used “emergency” legislation to pass draconian bills with no hearings, no committee votes, and no public input.  He also discussed strategies to gain support from rights leaders by quietly negotiating deals to keep a bill “clean” and leave out overt anti-rights provisions, while concealing the provisions that seriously threaten rights.

Continue reading Gun Controllers Plan Sneak Attacks →

Typhoid Mike Bloomberg Strikes Again

New York City’s controversial billionaire mayor was slapped down again in races in Colorado and Virginia on Tuesday.  Unfortunately, Unfortunately, in Virginia, the slap was only symbolic as Bloomberg’s chosen gubernatorial and Attorney General candidates actually won their elections.  The fact that the races were so close and some Democrats are blaming the razor-thin margin of victory on Bloomberg’s “help.”  Democrat Terry McAuliffe, whom Bloomberg supported to the tune of about $2 million, eked out a win over Republican Ken Cuccinelli.  This in spite of the fact that all of the polls had the former Clinton fundraiser ahead by double digits just a couple of weeks ago, before Bloomberg started flooding the airwaves with anti-gun, pro-McAuliffe TV ad’s.  At least one Democrat leader has suggested that Bloomberg and his ads helped to drag McAuliffe down and almost cost him the election.

Bloomberg also spent a million dollars on advertisements targeting Republican Mark Obenshain in his race for Virginia Attorney General.  At this point it looks like, Obenshain has lost that race by a total of 32 votes out of over 2 million cast.  While both Virginia races go in the Win column for Bloomberg, the speculation among Democrat campaign pros that Bloomberg and his money cost votes rather than buying votes is significant.

On the other side of the country, Bloomberg didn’t come anywhere close to winning.  For the third time this year he suffered a crushing defeat in the state of Colorado.  Only a month ago two of his minions were defeated in the first ever recall of State Senators in Colorado’s history, then, on November 5, Bloomberg was heavily invested in an effort to pass an education initiative.  Coloradans saw the initiative as a massive tax increase and rejected it overwhelmingly in spite of – or possibly to some degree because of – Bloomberg spending a million dollars in support.

Continue reading Follow the Money →

Gun Control Hurts People           

We often hear gun control advocates say something like, “If it saves just one life, isn’t it worth it?”  Well of course it is – if it doesn’t cost many more in the process.  The reality is that gun control costs lives, while guns save lives.  That’s why cops carry them.

Let’s do a little reality check:

1. Crime – including violent crime, and “gun crime” – is not going up, it has been going down pretty consistently across the country for at least 20 years.

2. Mass Murders and Rampage Killings are not happening with more frequency, nor are such events resulting in more deaths.  The number of such events and the average deaths resulting from them has remained relatively level for decades.

3. There has been no rise in firearm accidents or unintentional injuries – among adults or children.  Firearm-related accidents, deaths, and injuries have been steadily declining for decades thanks to increased safety awareness initiatives from the firearms and hunting communities.

4. All of these reductions in “gun crime,” reductions in firearm accidents, and statistical stability in mass murder events have been achieved while the number of firearms in public hands has more than doubled, and the number of individuals with firearms has gone up dramatically.  Also during this time, firearm quality, reliability, durability, and capacity have been going up, as have the number of people able to lawfully carry firearms for self-defense.

Continue reading Gun Control Laws Reality Check →