Bloomie’s Pro-Gun Ad

Bloomberg video Proves Need for Equalizer

By Jeff Knox

(August 6, 2014) Imagine you’re a single mother, 5’2”, 125 lbs.  You and your young son are alone in your home one afternoon when your abusive ex-husband shows up at your door – 6’, 180 lbs – demanding that you give him the child.  You have a restraining order against him, but he has chosen to ignore that and is violently pounding on your front door as he yells at you to open the door and turn over your son.

This is the scene played out in a new propaganda commercial from Mike Bloomberg’s anti-rights company, Everytown for Gun Safety.  In the short ad we see the woman frantically telling a 911 operator what’s happening and begging for police assistance, but as usual in life-and-death situations, seconds count, and the police are still minutes away.  Rather than running with her son out the back door to a neighbor’s, or sending the boy to his room to keep him from witnessing an ugly confrontation, the panicking mother pleads with the 911 dispatcher as her frightened son sits quietly on the couch.  Suddenly the man kicks open the front door and enters the room, grabbing the child and declaring his intention to take him.  The mother cries and ineffectually pulls at the man’s arm, helpless against his greater size and strength.

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Doc Stops Rampage

Up to 40 Not Killed in Shooting Rampage

Crazed Lunatic Stopped Cold by Doctor Who Violated Policy

By Jeff Knox

(July 30, 2014) America’s latest murderous rampage is remarkable for what did not happen.  A single innocent died a needless death.  That’s tragic.  But fortunately, there was only one innocent killed.  A suicidal madman hellbent on leaving this earth taking a load of innocents with him was thwarted not by a sign, paperwork, bureaucratic hoops, or police, but by a citizen first-responder who had prepared for the worst contingency. 

On July 24, Dr. Lee Silverman, a psychiatrist, was meeting with a psychiatric caseworker and a patient she had brought to the psychiatric crisis center at Mercy Fitzgerald Hospital in a suburb of Philadelphia.  The meeting became heated and vocal to the point that a staff member peeked in to see what was going on.  What the staff member saw, was the patient pointing a gun at Dr. Silverman.  The associate quietly closed the door, to avoid setting off the violent patient, and immediately called 911.  But long before police arrived, the criminal opened fire, shooting Theresa Hunt, the caseworker, in the face and then turning the gun on Dr. Silverman.  The psychiatrist dropped behind his desk and returned fire with his own legally carried sidearm, hitting the murderer with three shots and sustaining a minor head wound.  The attacker stumbled out into the hallway where he was pinned down by another doctor and caseworker.

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Two-Faced Hoplophobe

New Faces of Gun Control Just a Mask for Bloomberg

(July 24, 2014) Robin Kelly, freshman Representative for the Illinois 2nd Congressional District (southeast Chicago suburbs) recently released a manifesto on gun control.  As has become the standard for any politician’s statements regarding gun control, Kelly prefaces her calls for restrictions on guns and gun owners with a declaration of support for the Second Amendment and an assertion that her “modest proposals” are not about limiting people’s rights, but rather about taking “commonsense” steps to reduce the “epidemic” of gun violence in our country.  Kelly claims her report is breaking new ground as “the first collaboration of its kind between Members of Congress, gun safety advocates, and the public health and academic communities,” and is “an anthology of analyses of the gun violence crisis by federal, state, and local stakeholders and gun reform advocates.”

A look at the contributors to the report immediately puts the lie to Kelly’s claims.  There are no gun safety advocates represented in the collaboration, only gun control advocates.  As a matter of fact, all are well-known and long-time, vocal advocates of all manner of gun control, including Dan Gross from the Brady Campaign and Peter Ambler from Americans for Responsible Solutions – the group founded by Gabby Giffords’ husband to advocate for gun control.  Kelly’s representatives from the healthcare and academic communities include Dr. David Hemenway, whose results-driven “research” was a prime factor in Congress restricting research funds to the CDC, and two representatives from the Bloomberg-funded Johns Hopkins, Bloomberg School of Public Health.  All of these people have been collaborating for years, if not decades, on different approaches and excuses to make firearms and ammunition more expensive and complicated to own.

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Out Christie

Where’s Chris Christie Now?

Mother facing 10 years for having a licensed gun.

New Jersey’s gun laws – the same types of laws Mike Bloomberg and his ilk want to see adopted nationwide – are outrageous and unjust.  They destroy the lives of innocent people while doing nothing to reduce crime.  Case in point: Shaneen Allen, single mother of two, healthcare worker trying hard to provide for her family in Philadelphia. She was working two jobs, often pulling late shifts and odd hours.  She had been robbed twice in the past year, and a family member encouraged her to get a gun for protection.  She went through a firearms training class, passed a background check, and was issued a license to carry a firearm by the Pennsylvania State Police.  About a week after acquiring a firearm, Shaneen was pulled over for a minor traffic violation.  As she had been instructed in her licensing class, she immediately informed the officer that she had a license and a handgun with her.  Unfortunately for Shaneen, she was on the New Jersey side of the river at the time, and her Pennsylvania license is not recognized in New Jersey.  Shaneen spent over a month in a New Jersey county jail and is now facing up to ten years in prison, with a mandatory minimum sentence of at least three years, along with a felony conviction on her record.  If she is convicted or pleads guilty, the judge will have little choice regarding her sentence, he will be required by law to sentence her to at least three years or more.

 A legal defense fund has been set up to assist Shaneen Allen in her struggle for survival.  Information about it can be found on the Shaneen Allen Legal Defense Fund page on Facebook.

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Keyboard Critics

Solving the Open Carry Protest Problem

The announcement by Target Corporation that, while they are going to continue their practice of respecting local firearm laws, they “respectfully request” that customers not bring firearms into their stores, has brought to a head a long-brewing conflict within the firearm rights community.  That issue is the use of open carry of firearms as a form of political protest.

Some folks just oppose open carry in any context.  Their reasons may be tactical, i.e. being an obvious target, or they may dislike potentially making others uncomfortable.  Some oppose it only in the context of political protest.  Some are okay with open carry of handguns, but adamantly oppose open carry of long guns under any circumstances. 

Even those who see open carry, whether long guns or handguns, as a valid form of protest are divided.  Some think the only appropriate place for “political open carry” is in organized marches and rallies on public property intended to raise awareness of the issue.  Others insist that marches and rallies just scare people and that routine open carry, including long guns, should just be part of life to get people used to seeing it and accustomed to the idea that a gun doesn’t make a person a threat.  Yet another camp defends the right of property owners to bar people who are visibly carrying.  And, naturally most of us are particularly disturbed when we see apparent safety violations being committed by protesters carrying long guns.

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It’s A Right!

Bloomberg Off Target

Last week I reported on Mike Bloomberg and his Demanding Moms’ propaganda campaign to convince Target to ban guns from their stores.  This week, Target’s acting CEO released a statement saying that guns were not conducive to the family atmosphere the company strives for in their stores, and that, while they were going to continue to be ruled by local laws on the subject, they were respectfully requesting that customers not bring guns into their stores.

Bloomberg and his PR subsidiary, Moms Demand Action, are spinning the statement as a victory for their anti-rights cause, but like previous “victories,” the Target statement has more to do with getting out of the middle of a battle between Bloomberg’s Astroturf groups and millions of gun owners than it has to do with safety or a family environment.   Target is the fourth national chain the Bloomies have targeted for “allowing” people who are legally carrying firearms to spend money in their establishments, and they are the fourth company to sidestep the issue by politely asking gun owners not to carry in their facilities.

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Straw Purchase? Don’t Lie

Supreme Court Tightens Definition of Straw Purchase

The US Supreme Court released their decision this week in the case of Abramski v. US, which involved a former police officer, Abramski, who purchased a gun for an uncle in another state.  Neither Abramski nor his uncle was prohibited from purchasing or possessing firearms.  In fact, since the uncle lives in a different state, Abramski subsequently transferred the gun to his uncle through a licensed firearms dealer in that state, and the uncle completed all of the necessary paperwork and background check before taking possession.  The only reason for Abramski making the original purchase was that he could get the gun at a better price due to his police service.  The purchase drew attention while Abramski was being investigated in an unrelated matter.  It is likely that the investigators initially raised the issue as a way of generating leverage to motivate Abramski to cooperate in their primary investigation.  Whatever the reasons, no charges were filed in that original case, but Abramski’s purchase of a gun for his uncle was prosecuted.  The District Court and Appeals Court split on whether Abramski’s purchase violated federal law, and the Supreme Court settled the matter with their 5-4 decision.

The Court split down their standard “liberal” vs. “conservative” line with Justice Kennedy once again playing the role of swing vote.

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Obama’s Biggest Frustration? Reality.

(June 12, 2014) Obama’s talk of gun control is a political diversion.  When the President of the United States is asked about his proudest achievements and his greatest frustrations in office, and his response is to decry the lack of action to restrict the enumerated constitutional rights of Americans, that’s a diversion.  Obama could have talked about the slow creeping economic “recovery.”  He could have talked about the nation’s astronomical, and growing, debt.  He could have mentioned the failure to develop anything close to a balanced budget.  He could have talked about the loss of life in Iraq and Afghanistan – and the crumbling of progress toward freedom for the people in those countries, particularly women – the mistakes leading to and following the attack in Benghazi, the brouhaha over federal law enforcement selling guns to Mexican traffickers in total disregard of the consequences of that action, the total failure of his vision for “clean” energy, the growing instability of the dollar in the world market, or hundreds of other pressing, serious, and crushing problems, but he didn’t.  Instead he talked about “gun violence” and Congress’ “failure” to enact restrictions on Americans’ fundamental, constitutional right to keep and bear arms. 

Deaths of children in schools, and demented individuals going on murderous rampages are absolutely terrible problems that need to be seriously addressed, but all evidence shows that none of the proposals Obama complained about could have or would have had the slightest impact on those tragedies.

Obama himself unintentionally admitted both the futility of his “modest” gun control proposals, and the real objective of those proposals as steps toward a bigger goal, when he praised the draconian response of Australia to a mass murder.  They almost completely banned the private possession of firearms, and instituted harsh restrictions on the few guns left in civilian hands.  That nation had been slowly creeping down a path of “reasonable” restrictions for decades, but when one violent lunatic committed an unspeakable atrocity, the “modest” and “reasonable” measures were shown to be merely the launch pad for sweeping bans, confiscations, and criminalization.

But that argument is the distraction.

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Still They Continue to Blame the Guns

It’s the Murderer Stupid!

Last Friday, as people began celebrating their extended Memorial Day weekend, one demented little narcissist took a knife and slaughtered 3 innocent people in the opening act of a really bad play he called his “Day of Retribution.”  He went on to kill three others and severely injure several more before finally taking his own worthless life.

Before I go on, let me make something really clear: I believe that all media, myself included, have a responsibility to avoid glorifying wanton criminals, minimizing reporting about the murderer.  The efficacy of this approach has been proven in studies concerning the reporting of suicides.*  I personally take that a step further by actively denigrating, shaming, and belittling the pathetic deviants for their evil actions.  As a policy, I never repeat the name of one of these loathsome rodents, nor do I publish their pictures or their idiotic rantings, because doing so feeds the beast.  It gives them what they wanted – fame and recognition – and it helps to motivate the next iteration of a murdering scumbag that we know is waiting in the wings looking for the trigger to change his life and make him “famous.”  If all media would adopt a similar attitude toward these low-life no-accounts, I believe we would not see such aberrations occurring as often as we currently do.

In the most recent case, there are strong indications that the murderer was emulating a movie about another murderer, and there is some indication that his whole idea for a “Day of Retribution” – and the resulting “fame” – might have been triggered by news coverage of the Sandy Hook atrocity.  Unfortunately, I see a high probability of this murderer’s story being turned into a feature film to help fuel demented sickos for years to come. 

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New Exploitation of Gun Free Zones

Not So Stupid Criminals

By Jeff Knox

(May 22, 2014) We all love those “Stupid Criminal” stories, like the guy pretending to cash a check before pulling a gun and robbing the bank – leaving the check and his Driver’s License on the counter, or the guys who broke into the gun store by breaking a hole in the roof only to find all of the guns locked in safes, the windows barred, the alarm going off, and no ladder to get back up through the hole…  But, while low IQ is a common trait of criminals, even slow learners can still learn.

Back in 1987, when Florida passed their highly publicized law liberalizing concealed carry of firearms, criminals figured out that it was safer to target tourists – who were less likely to be legally armed.  This became so prevalent that many rental car companies removed identifying stickers and license plate frames from their cars as a precautionary measure. 

Now enterprising criminals have begun targeting vehicles with decals and bumper stickers advertising an enthusiasm for firearms.  That alone isn’t really new; gun owners have for years recognized that an NRA sticker or a decal from their favorite gun company on their vehicle is a double-edged sword.  On the one hand, it announces that the vehicle’s owner probably owns guns and that someone looking to steal guns might target them.  On the other hand, it announces that the owner probably owns guns and that anyone trying to steal from them runs an elevated risk of being shot.  What is new is the fact that criminals are now targeting gun-labeled vehicles specifically when they’re in the parking lots of guns-prohibited places.

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Ammunition for the grassroots gun rights movement