Entries Tagged 'Gun Ownership' ↓

I complain often that bureaucrats have purposefully made complying with gun regulations so onerous because they want to discourage individuals from defending themselves at all. Sheep are easier to control than wolves and bureaucracies are all about control.

The recent ruling that I cannot take my gun into a “non-secure” area of the airport is unfortunate. I am now a criminal in waiting, according to the bureaucrats.

U.S. District Court Judge Marvin Shoob refused to grant a preliminary injunction that would have stopped the city from enforcing the airport gun ban. Shoob ruled against gun-rights group GeorgiaCarry.org and state Rep. Timothy Bearden (R-Villa Rica).

Bearden sponsored House Bill 89, which became law on July 1 and permits people with firearms licenses to carry guns in state parks, restaurants that serve alcohol and on mass transit.

But Shoob said allowing concealed weapons into non-secure areas of the world’s busiest airport will make the airport less safe and require it to substantially revise its security procedures.

I live 70 miles from the Atlanta airport. I carry a gun at all times, and I am licensed to carry the gun by state bureaucrats. I am a pistol expert, according to the U.S. Army. Yet bureaucrats do not want me to carry my gun if I pass through the airport. Apparently, I am supposed to find somewhere off the airport property to store my weapon if I need to pick up a passenger or drop one off. This is impractical, unrealistic and burdensome. It degrades my respect for the law, and makes me wonder what in the hell happened to common sense. When the law abiding are treated as if they are the enemy they eventually become the enemy.

I will continue to operate “under the radar” if possible. I am not going to stop carrying a gun with me at all times. I’d rather take my chances and fight any resulting charges in court. If some bureaucrat wants to remove a productive citizen from the tax rolls because of a stupid rule so be it. When the system becomes obtuse enough that it creates too many political prisoners it will collapse under the weight of its own unthinking idiocy.

What we do in the name of “public safety” is increasingly creating an atmosphere of distrust and resentment of the privilege of authority. It’s an us against them mentality fostered by egocentric and arrogant bureaucrats who think they own everything and know better than everyone. It’s dangerous, counterproductive and ultimately destructive to the fabric that holds our society together.

When will we finally be safe enough? When we are all chained together and naked as we shuffle through the airport with our heads down waiting to be tasered if we dare to question the authority of the men and women in their polyester suits with their shiny badges and their rule books thick and weighty? Go to hell you damn bureaucratic overlords of the kingdom of banal mediocrity. I don’t need you and I reject your demands that I become your myrimidon.

Georgia resident Andisheh Nouraee writes about what it is like to exercise his freedom to carry a weapon for self-defense in the great metropolitan melting pot of the South - Atlanta. The article is worth reading and the pictures are inspiring - in particular because Nouraee is of Middle Eastern extraction.

If you intend to rob me, stab me or punch me in the neck because you think I looked at you funny, I recommend you glance at my waist before lifting the pull tab on that can of whoop-ass.

I may be carrying a handgun.

Nearly everyone in our state can legally keep guns in their home. I am one of the few, the proud, the Georgia Firearms Licensed – one of a reported 300,000 Georgians permitted to carry a gun in public.

I am also one of Georgia’s 300,000 gun carry license holders. I don’t really worry too much when I don’t have my gun with me (which is rare). I do find it extremely useful when I bike, run or travel by automobile. It’s reassuring to be packing heat when I’m practicing for a triathlon on the rural roads around where I live and a pack of wild dogs decides they need to chase me and nip at my heels - I haven’t yet had to fire a shot but it certainly reassures me to know that if I feel teeth sinking into my calf I don’t have to try and hop off and beat the mutt into submission while his pack mates chomp down on other extremities or worse yet, my throat. If you’ve never experienced the pack mentality, I suggest you watch some video of a pack of dogs attacking a human being. Not pretty.

Humans in packs are even worse than dogs. Enough said about that.

People have many reasons for self-defensive weapons carry. Most people only need to be mugged once to realize that police provide an illusion of safety but not much else - they generally won’t be there to stop whatever bad thing happens to you while it’s happening.

I got my gun license a year and a half ago after I was relieved of my wallet at gunpoint at my front door by a man who threatened to come back for me if I cancelled my ATM and credit cards.

Since he was clearly comfortable dropping by the house unannounced, police told me to take the threat seriously by carrying a gun myself.

I’ve had handguns for target shooting since I was a kid, but never carried one for self-defense. After the robbery, I applied for a permit so I could carry a gun without breaking the law. And even before the license arrived, I started to carry my gun from my driveway to my front door, which is legal; I was scared the guy would keep his promise and come back for me.

Amazing! Police told Mr. Nouraee to get a gun! That’s wonderful. Let’s move on to the meat of the story.

Nearly everyone I spend time with regularly has a visceral and fearful reaction to guns. Having so many gun-dreading friends and acquaintances has taught me to keep guns where no one will ever see them. Carrying a gun in public seemed like peeing in the sink of a public restroom. Not illegal, but definitely a first-degree jerk move.

I was also afraid of the reaction of strangers. I would hate to be the subject of this 911 call: “Hello, police, I’m at the Publix on North Decatur Road and there’s a swarthy bald man here with a gun. He’s headed for the Lean Cuisine.”

So, although I had a permit, I was less than thrilled that the General Assembly passed H.B. 89 in April. The new law would give licensed firearms permit holders the right to legally carry guns into places that used to be off-limits: city and state parks, public transportation, and restaurants that serve alcohol.

We Americans are allowing ourselves to be conditioned to just this mindset. Guns are bad, MMMKAY? If a dude has a gun and he isn’t in uniform he must be planning something nefarious, MMMKAY?

The truth about guns is that they are merely an extension of the mindset of the person who has control of the trigger. I have never understood why we cannot focus on changing the mindset and instead insist that the gun itself is the problem. But our bureaucrat class feels threatened anytime control is taken away from their clerks and myrmidons. Which is how we arrive at these sort of stupid press conferences.

Mayor Shirley Franklin and airport General Manager Ben DeCosta held a press conference at Hartsfield-Jackson to publicize their intention to keep the airport a gun-free zone. They were joined by the media and a half-dozen members of the gun rights group GeorgiaCarry.org, there to protest the city’s position.

Bearden and his gun never showed up at the airport, though. But later that day, he did file a lawsuit against the city for banning guns from the airport. A hearing is scheduled next month.

The city argues the airport and its parking lots are municipal buildings, and therefore not subject to the law’s public transit provision. In their speeches, both Franklin and DeCosta emphasized the 9/11 attacks as reason to keep guns out of the airport. The city’s found a powerful ally in U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., who’s demanding that the Transportation Security Administration ban guns from all parts of major airports.

“I keep hearing the phrase ‘in this post-9/11 society’ and I’m so sick of that,” said Mark McCullough, a GeorgiaCarry.org member who was at the press conference. “What 9/11 showed me was that the government has no ability to protect me. I don’t want to be walking around the parking lot here with [my cell phone] being the only device protecting me.”

While I was at the airport, GeorgiaCarry.org treasurer Michael Menkus invited me to a party. To celebrate their newly granted right to carry guns in restaurants that serve alcohol, members of the group planned to meet at Christos, a Greek-style pizzeria in Marietta, to eat dinner with handguns strapped to their waists.

I hope you’ll take the few minutes out of your life to read the rest of the story. I hope this because I hope to one day live in a place where guns are not the problem. I hope to live in a society that values rational discussion enough to realize that it is what lives in your mind that is important. A society that values individualism and self-determination will inevitably also value the life of the individual and allow individuals to defend themselves from aggressors. Societies that ban guns just end up with lots of stabbings. They also tend to end up with lots of people who cannot think for themselves in life threatening situations.

As far as I’m concerned, a private employer can make any rules it wants to. I will follow the ones that make sense, and maybe even follow the ones that don’t make sense if I want the job. And I’ll violate the ones that represent a threat to my own well being. I’m not likely to follow any rules or laws that limit my ability to defend myself to my satisfaction. I guess it is a good thing I don’t work for Disney.

”Disney’s the safest place on Earth. It’s awesome,” said Fiore, of St. Cloud. “But late at night in the parking lot, and driving the 35 miles to and from home, I don’t always feel safe armed with just a cellphone.”

But theme-park guests might not feel safe knowing that some of the 62,000 Disney employees have weapons in their cars, said company spokeswoman Zoraya Suarez. She said that having armed people on the property violates the company’s zero-tolerance policy concerning workplace violence. Disney has its own security force as well as 50 Orange County Sheriff’s Office employees.

It’s great that Disney has its own security force, but they can take that zero tolerance policy and shove it as far as I am concerned. I’ll use violence to protect myself when and where I deem appropriate. I don’t have any interest in the idea that I should be punished for the indiscretions of others, and I will ignore laws that may endanger my own well being. So should you.

Many people who come across this blog entry may think to themselves that I am paranoid. I prefer to think of myself as prepared. I may one day need a first aid kit. I may one day need a survival blanket. I may one day need a fire extinguisher. And one day, I may need a gun. I keep all of them handy. So should you. That is not paranoia. It’s prudent. Ask anyone who has ever had to defend his or her own life in an emergency.

I value my job, but I value my life more. I may grudgingly pee in a cup for you, but I’m not giving up my survival toolkit. And you shouldn’t ask me to. It is insulting that you think so little of my rationality, my decision making ability and my aim. How can an employee be trusted to operate a ride with hundreds of people on it - their lives are in that employee’s hands. Yet give that same employee a gun and suddenly everyone is in a panic, running around screaming about zero tolerance. This is foolishness.

I read a fascinating article this morning that directly correlates gun control in an area with the crime rate. The two are statistically inverse. In other words, the more gun control a place has the more crime it has.

For many years, the Brady Campaign released an annual “report card,” grading each state on its level of “sensible” gun laws. States with higher grades (e.g. “A”) were obviously more “sensible,” according to Brady; states rated “F” were apparently considered “non-sensible.”[3]

The first interesting detail in the 2001 version of this report card is that Washington, D.C. is missing. This is also true for Brady’s 2002-2004 reports.[4] This is a curious omission because the Brady Campaign is on record as supporting the D.C. ban on functioning firearms––Helmke said “we [Brady Campaign] disagree with the Supreme Court’s ruling”[5]––and it seems reasonable that their report card would be an excellent opportunity to highlight D.C.’s success, since surely a total firearms ban rates an “A.”

Also in 2001, the North Carolina State Center for Health Statistics, as part of their Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), asked respondents from all over the country the following question: “Are any firearms now kept in or around your home? Include those kept in a garage, outdoor storage area, car, truck, or other motor vehicle.”[6]

Results from this survey were collated with Brady’s 2001 grades. After sorting by gun ownership levels, states were divided roughly into quartiles: under 30% gun ownership rates (12 states); 30-40% (14 states); 40-50% (15 states); and over 50% ownership rates (10 states). There is a clear correlation between low levels of gun ownership and higher Brady grades: Only the first quartile of states, incidentally with the lowest levels of gun ownership (average 16.5%), were rated well by Brady, averaging a grade of B+. Quartiles 2-4 had average grades of D+, D+, and D-, respectively. This indicates that Brady’s definition of “sensible” gun laws equates with laws which restrict or prohibit gun ownership.

Unfortunately for Brady, there is another correlation which demands attention. Each year, the Federal Bureau of Investigation releases their annual Uniform Crime Report, reporting on major violent and property crimes committed around the country. Included in their crime tabulations is a Table 4, which compares the current year’s crime rates to the previous year’s. This enables the FBI to report on updated data for the previous year’s, reflecting corrections and late entries from participating law enforcement agencies from across the country. As a result, Table 4 in the 2002 Uniform Crime Report has more accurate crime data for the year 2001.[7]

Brady’s favored group––with the B+ average grade––had a average violent crime rate of 610.0 in 2001.
Violent crime levels dropped sharply in quartiles 2-4: 424.5, 410.7, and 319.6, respectively.[8]

I don’t need all these statistics to know that having access to guns is my right as an American, but it does help justify my continued fight for more responsible gun ownership and less panic inspired restrictions on law abiding members of society.

Frankly, when guns become illegal I’ll become an outlaw. In the meantime, I’ll continue trying to raise awareness about facts instead of fiction. Fact: responsible gun owners are a threat to no one but criminals. Fiction: the more you control access to guns, the less crime there is. The exact opposite is true.

Go read Nemerov.

Now that the Supreme Court has ruled on the 2nd Amendment, we should expect to see a flurry of gun rights activism all over the country. We should also expect to see desperate struggles for bureaucrats to retain their power of intimidation over the law abiding segment of the population. Bear in mind, once again, that it is this officious attitude that has resulted in a higher per capita incarceration rate than any other developed country.

Two things to keep in mind during these coming struggles - 1) The struggles will NOT affect criminals. What is being decided is whether law and order respecting citizens will be able to enjoy the right guaranteed by the Constitution. Criminals already ignore municipal, state and federal gun restrictions on a routine basis. 2) Despite the shrill harping you’ll hear from your bureaucrats nationwide, no one will be less safe if guns are permitted to LAW ABIDING citizens in places like Chicago, San Francisco and Atlanta’s Hartsfield Jackson International Airport. Those places will in fact, become safer. The more armed law abiding types you have roaming around, the safer you are. That is a safe rule of thumb to follow. This is a culture war of authoritarians against individualists.

Having said that, I would encourage you to take a moment to read how Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin and her posse are clearly stating that they are above the law.

If someone could get 50 concealed carry permit holders together, organize a legal defense for them, and have them show up at the airport with their weapons I would participate. I’d love to see the city of Atlanta try and win that battle in the Georgia court system - it is clearly unlawful for the city to try and declare any “gun free zones” that contradict state law. I am more interested in re-asserting my second amendment rights and expanding the scope of where I can carry without being harrased by petty bureaucrats than anything. I wouldn’t cry if Shirley Franklin lost sleep over not being able to tell me what to do either. I already drive to the airport with my gun fairly frequently - I’m not a threat to anyone non-violent on the premises. Someone needs to stand up before we’re all constantly bowing. If gun owners who have already been vetted by the state to carry showed up en masse and peacefully dared the police to arrest them, it would force the city to abide by the law. Maybe georgiacarry.org can get an organized protest together.

Update: Georgia Carry has filed a lawsuit against the City of Atlanta.

An attorney for Georgia Carry showed up at a press conference by Franklin and DeCosta to hand them a copy of the suit. DeCosta took it, while Franklin walked away.

Franklin and DeCosta had called the press conference to say they will stick with their no-guns policy for parts of the airport outside federal jurisdiction, which include parking lots and main lobby and ticketing areas. Franklin said she will lobby Congress to authorize gun bans in any public facilities that get federal funds.

I’d love it if someone could clarify for me who put Ben DeCosta in charge of all the airports in Georgia? I thought he was just Shirley Franklin’s personal lapdog and socialist associate.

And the first lawsuit against an American fiefdom that restricts its peons from defending themselves using the same instruments civil servants are allowed has been filed:

BELLEVUE, WA – Following Thursday’s (5-4) ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of District of Columbia v. Heller that the Second Amendment protects an individual civil right to keep and bear arms, and that a municipal gun ban violates that right, the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) and the Illinois State Rifle Association (ISRA) filed a federal lawsuit (complaint) challenging the City of Chicago’s long-standing handgun ban.

While the Heller decision did not go far enough, it will open the floodgates to thousands of challenges to individual’s right to defend themselves. If the government is entitled to have a resource, then so am I - I will applaud each and every pro-gun lawsuit that is filed in the coming months.

If someone can show me a single American city that can definitively correlate reduced violence with a ban on gun ownership I will vote for Barack Obama in the upcoming election.

The most important decision the Supreme Court has made in my 37-years has been handed down.

I’d like to tell all the anti-gunners to suck it right about now, but that would be petty. Instead, I’ll just say that I hope Michael Bloomberg drops dead from shock.

The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Americans have a right to own guns for self-defense and hunting, the justices’ first major pronouncement on gun rights in U.S. history.

The court’s 5-4 ruling struck down the District of Columbia’s 32-year-old ban on handguns as incompatible with gun rights under the Second Amendment. The decision went further than even the Bush administration wanted, but probably leaves most firearms laws intact.

The Heller decision is significant, but the battle against the unreasoning fear and ignorance about firearms being purposely spread through our society is just part of a much larger war against self-reliant individuals that is far from over. Eternal vigilance is necessary. The freedom lovers and the doers and those who care not for the mediocrity of the state must continue to ignore the bad laws when necessary and to campaign against the purveyors of collectivist ignorance.

This is one tiny victory in a war that we’ve been losing badly for decades. I’ll be standing by for a full analysis, but the small victory today warms my heart. It’s been pretty cold, politically speaking, for people like me who believe that idiots and not guns are the problem.

The most important decision the Supreme Court has ever made is coming soon.

This month, the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to decide District of Columbia v. Heller, the most important Second Amendment case in the court’s history.

More than five years ago, six Washington, D.C., residents challenged the constitutionality of the city’s 32-year ban on all functional firearms in the home. If the challenge is successful, it will mean the court has revisited and perhaps reversed United States v. Miller, the second most important Second Amendment case in the court’s history. For nearly seven decades, gun controllers and gun rights advocates alike have struggled to apply the murky doctrines propounded by Justice James Clark McReynolds in his 1939 Miller opinion.

The Heller decision will be a practical choice. The “War on Drugs” is really a war on citizens - citizens who believe that they, not the state, are the ones who are in the best position to decide what should or should not pass into their own bodies. The “War on Drugs” created a new subset of Americans who are automatic criminals because they believe their bodies belong to them and not the state. If the Supreme Court decides that citizens have no individual right to bear arms, they will be creating another artificial class of criminals - people who believe that it is the individual and not the state that bears primary responsibility for his or her own security. If the Court creates an unnecessary, foolish and short-sighted “War on Guns” it will make the 40-year-old and completely unwinnable “We Own Your Body” war pale in comparison.

And Americans’ civil rights will continue to be spit on, ground into the dirt and thrown down the toilet. Let us all hope that the Court does not force my fellow gun owners and I to rise up and resist tyranny.

Personally, I’ve never found the wording of the second amendment to be unclear. However, people will argue about nuances when they disagree in any area. Stephen Halbrook tries to clear up original intent in his article entitled In Webster’s English.

The Second Amendment states simply, “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.”

The Supreme Court questioned whether the D.C. statute “violate[d] the Second Amendment rights of individuals who are not affiliated with any state-regulated militia, but who wish to keep handguns and other firearms for private use in their homes.”

For the answer, turn to Noah Webster.

Known as the Father of American Scholarship and Education, Webster believed that popular sovereignty in government must be accompanied by popular usage in language. In “A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language,” published in 1806, and “An American Dictionary of the English Language,” published in 1828 and adopted by Congress as the American standard, Webster defined all the words in the Second Amendment.

“People” were “the commonality, as distinct from men of rank,” and “Right” was “just claim; immunity; privilege.” “All men have a right to secure enjoyment of life, personal safety, liberty and property,” he wrote.

Thus in the language of Webster’s time, “the people” meant individuals and individuals have “rights.”

The bottom line, from my perspective, is that Americans are entitled to carry weapons for both individual and community defense purposes. The founders wanted a guarantee set in stone because they had been abused by a king. It was pretty black and white. Any weapons the king’s soldiers had were weapons the colonists could have too.

We can argue till we are blue in the face about machine guns and rocket launchers and suitcase nukes, but the bottom line is that law abiding people aren’t going to use those items to massacre others. That’s about 98% of the population we are needlessly worrying over and restricting for no good reason.

Social crusaders and their first counsins the do-gooders love to tell the rest of us what is wrong with us. They’re usually completely ignorant of root causes involved and attack the symptoms instead. Got a gun violence problem? It’s the guns we should take away, not the violence.

Great Britain prohibits firearms but still has major crime issues. It is hard for me to feel sorry for this lady.

The grandson of prominent anti-gun campaigner Pat Regan has been arrested on suspicion of stabbing her to death. Mrs Regan, 53, was discovered at the property on Marlborough Grange in the Hyde Park area of Leeds on Sunday.

I don’t understand why it is so hard for people to focus on changing the mental constructs and environmental factors that lead to violent mentalities. If you have a violent person, and you take away his gun, he will get a knife. If you take away the knife, he will get a bat. If you take away the bat, he will find a brick.

Why not ask why the damn kid is so violent to begin with and fix that? Non-violent people with guns and knives don’t represent a threat to anyone. It’s too late for Pat Regan and maybe too late for her grandson, but it isn’t too late for society to re-examine root causes and fix the problems. Is it?