We Needed the Supreme Court to Tell us This?

By Jeff Knox

(May 28, 2015) In a unanimous decision, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that when a person who owns firearms is convicted of a felony – which makes firearm possession illegal for them – they still retain the right to dispose of their firearms as they see fit, as long as they don’t do so in a way where they would have access or control over those firearms.

What is astounding about this decision is that it had to go all the way to the Supreme Court to be resolved.  Under what bizarre pretext could anyone suggest that a person’s property is no longer theirs, just because they were convicted of a crime, particularly when the crime had nothing whatsoever to do with the property in question? 

As long as the property is not used in a crime, and is not the ill-gotten gains of a criminal enterprise, what possible claim could any government entity have on it?  In certain circumstances I could see a judge ordering that personal property, including a gun collection, be sold to pay restitution to the person’s victims or to pay an associated fine, but not simply forfeited to the state just because the person is prohibited from physically possessing the property.

Continue reading We Needed the Supreme Court to Tell us This? →

DC Smackdown

By Jeff Knox

(May 19, 2015) Some people thought the Heller and McDonald decisions would solve, or at least seriously mitigate the problem of states and localities enacting or enforcing draconian restrictions on guns and gun owners, but so far the impact of those two Supreme Court rulings has been limited, and the Court has refused to hear any subsequent cases that would have helped the situation.  Though several jurisdictions have had to roll back their outright bans of firearms, particularly handguns, many have replaced their bans with so much red tape and bureaucratic BS that individual rights are still virtually non-existent.

Two of the biggest culprits are Chicago and Washington, D.C., the very cities where the Heller and McDonald cases were born.  Both cities, and in the case of Chicago, its bedroom communities as well, have fought tooth and nail to maintain the harshest restrictions possible as the courts have forced them, through one expensive lawsuit after another, to roll back the corners of their blanket bans and overreaching restrictions.  In the process, the cities have spent millions of taxpayer dollars to keep those taxpayers disarmed.

Last year, Federal District Court Judge Frederick Scullin ruled that DC’s ban on the carry of firearms outside the home was unsupportable in light of the Heller decision, so the DC government implemented new laws providing for licensed concealed carry, but making the process as expensive and onerous as possible, and including a number of outrageous restrictions, including one requirement that a person seeking a license to carry a gun must prove a special need to do so.  Just living in one of the most crime-ridden cities in the country, or one of the most dangerous neighborhoods within that city, was not considered sufficient under the DC law.  An applicant was required to produce specific threats aimed at them personally, and even then, Police Chief Cathy Lanier could deny the applicant for any reason, or no reason at all.  Judge Scullin has now struck down that requirement. 

Continue reading Judge Chips Away at DC Law →

That Can’t Happen

By Jeff Knox

(May 6, 2015) For a second time in as many months, we have seen something that we have been repeatedly told just can’t happen.  In the first instance, a man sitting in a car in Chicago saw another man shooting into a group of people.  As in most cases of life-and-death, when seconds count, the police were minutes away, so the witness took action.  He got out of his car, drew his legally carried, concealed handgun, and shot the attacker, ending the attack, preventing an untold number of deaths and injuries, and harming no one else in the process.

How many times have we been told that it is a fairy tale to think an armed citizen could stop a rampaging gunman?  How many times have we been told how much worse a shooting incident would be if “civilians started shooting?”  “They’ll shoot bystanders,” we’re told.  “They’ll be shot by police,” they say.  But once again, the good guy with a gun stopped the bad guy with a gun, and no additional carnage ensued.

Now we have the case in Garland, Texas, where a pair of home-grown jihadists decided to stage a massacre at an event where a couple of hundred people were looking at drawings considered insulting to Muslims.  The attackers, armed with powerful, death-spraying “assault weapons,” approached a perimeter guard, jumped from their car, and started shooting.  An unarmed security guard was struck in the leg, but a police officer drew his handgun and was able to shoot and kill both attackers, sending them on to whatever reward awaits them.

Continue reading Gun Owners Do the Impossible Every Day →

Say it ain’t so Tim!

A rose is still a rose, and gun control is still gun control.

By Jeff Knox

(April 15, 2015)  Country music headliner Tim McGraw has announced that he will be staging a concert in Hartford, Connecticut this July as a benefit for the group Sandy Hook Promise.  The concert is scheduled for July 17, and is billed as featuring McGraw, along with Billy Currington (who has now announced that he won’t be participating) and Chase Bryant, as well as some “surprise guests.”  Fans will no doubt be hoping the “surprise” will include McGraw’s wife, country music superstar Faith Hill.

All proceeds from the concert will go directly to benefit Sandy Hook Promise and their various programs.  In a statement McGraw said, “Sandy Hook Promise teaches that we can do something to protect our children from gun violence. I want to be a part of that promise – as a father and as a friend.” 

A personal connection appears to be the spark that brought McGraw to the organization.  One of McGraw’s band members, fiddle player Dean Brown, has friends in Newtown who lost a son in the Sandy Hook tragedy. 

So what’s the problem?  Why would it be controversial for a country music star to do a benefit concert to assist the activities of the grieving families of Sandy Hook?

Continue reading Quick Draw Tim McGraw →

Watch out for “Those Other People!”

By Jeff Knox

Gun control is all about fear of “those other people.”  Responsible, law-abiding voters who know gun owners − and even some gun owners themselves − have allowed the dismantling of liberty all based on fear of what “those other people” might do.  The conversation typically begins with a statement of support for gun rights and gun owners, followed with the inevitable “but.”  “But,” the speaker opines, “some ‘reasonable’ restrictions are needed because, while you and I are responsible, law-abiding citizens, there are ‘those others’ who need closer scrutiny and control.”

Throughout history fear of “those other people” has led free people to forge their own chains.  It’s a twist on the old parable of the frogs in the slowly warming pot of water, not noticing that they are being cooked until it’s too late.  But it turns out that the frogs in the pot are themselves adding fuel to the fire in the name of defense against “those other people.”

At various time in America’s historic drift toward gun control “those other people” have been Blacks, Irish, Italians, Eastern Europeans, Jews, Communists, racists, anarchists, Hispanics, illegal aliens, Muslims, radical Christians, military veterans, union organizers, gun nuts… Virtually any group imaginable has been pointed to as the threat that justifies the latest scheme to limit liberty. 

The early days of our Republic saw unrest leading to the Alien and Sedition Acts, but it was Black Freemen in the years leading up to and after the Civil War that became the original excuse for gun control laws.  In the infamous Dred Scott decision, Justice Taney, writing for the Court majority, declared that Scott, who was trying to sue for his freedom, did not have standing to file the suit because he was not a US Citizen.  Taney went on to explain that Blacks could not be citizens because citizenship would give them rights to travel, hold political meetings, and “to keep and carry arms wherever they went.”  And that would obviously be a terrible thing because there’s just no telling what “those people” might do with so much liberty.

The 13^th and 14^th Amendments to the Constitution changed the game by declaring that Blacks were indeed citizens entitled to all of the privileges and immunities of citizenship.  The route chosen around that obstacle was to enact general gun laws with a nod and a wink to upstanding White citizens.  The Supreme Court did its part with decisions like the Slaughterhouse cases and Cruickshank which gutted the 14^th amendment and stripped rights enumerated in the Constitution from all citizens and opening the door to Jim Crow.  Gun control laws were among the first Jim Crow laws and remain as one of the last vestiges of that racist system. 

Meanwhile in the North, “those other people” were “anarchists” − recent immigrants who were considered low class and often criminal.  The KKK, a major political force within the Democrat Party, widely promoted gun control as one of their leading and most successful initiatives.  Many states, both North and South, adopted the KKK’s Permit to Purchase scheme.  Permits were, and in some places still are, routinely denied to all but middle and upper class White folks.  Similar prejudice is often seen in issuance of concealed carry permits and enforcement of gun laws in general.  This was exemplified during the debate over Arizona’s concealed carry law when a high-ranking law enforcement official asked a pro-rights lobbyist what he was worried about.  “After all, you’re white and wear a tie.”  In other words, our lobbyist wasn’t one of “those other people.”

The issue of “those other people” shows no sign of going away.  The hottest “gun control” idea today is closing the “gun show loophole” by inserting government bureaucracy into private gun trades.  Subjecting millions to undue scrutiny for fear of a very few of “those other people.”

Another popular scheme is the idea of banning sales of guns to people on the “No Fly” and “Terrorist Watch” lists.  That sounds so reasonable until you consider that the process of who, how, and why names are added to the No-Fly and Terrorist Watch lists of “those other people” is a government secret.  It’s also well to keep in mind that conservatives, libertarians constitutionalists, proponents of smaller government, opponents of abortion, patriots, flag wavers, and all those millions of responsible, law-abiding, heavily armed “gun nuts” with their military looking guns and high-powered “sniper” (previously known as “hunting”) rifles are, to the politicians and bureaucrats who control the lists, “those other people.”

To paraphrase that great philosopher Pogo: “We have met those other people and they is us!”

Permission to reprint or post this article in its entirety for non-commercial purposes is hereby granted provided this credit is included.  Text is available at www.FirearmsCoalition.org.  To receive The Firearms Coalition’s bi-monthly newsletter, The Hard Corps Report, write to PO Box 3313, Manassas, VA  20108. 

©Copyright 2008 Neal Knox Associates

What is “Gun Violence?”

By Jeff Knox

(April 9, 2015) When you hear terms like “gun violence” and “gun deaths,” what do you think of?  For most people, the first thought is of thugs waving guns and shooting people during the commission of a violent crime.  But that’s not what’s being talked about in “studies” and “statistics” published in the media.  Sure they include this terminology when they report on those types of crimes, but most of the time, when the media talks about “gun violence” or “gun deaths,” they’re following a game-plan from gun control advocacy groups, and the data is based on much more than violent criminals.  The “gun violence” and “gun deaths” they’re talking about also includes armed citizens using guns to defend themselves and their families, police using guns to stop criminals, hunters unintentionally shooting themselves or others in the fields, and people who use guns when they choose to take their own lives.  Over 60% of all firearm-related deaths are suicides.

When you hear the term “gun violence” do you think of a mom shooting a violent intruder in her home?  Or a police officer shooting an armed criminal?  Even hunting accidents, are included as “gun violence,” and while all of these describe “gun deaths,” they are not the sort of gun deaths most people think of when the term is thrown out on the table.

Continue reading What They Call “Gun Violence” →