I don’t like to repeat the same thing again and again, but I must say that the upcoming SCOTUS session which will hear a challenge to New York’s Sullivan Law seems to be bringing every nut-job out of the woodwork to weigh in – on both sides!
Now I expect Gun-nut Nation to start bleating their usual bleats about how gun-control laws will ‘disarm’ Americans and lead to fascism or worse. I’ll put that one in the same rhetorical trash can which contains the ‘fact’ that getting immunized against Covid-19 will make us sterile and end the human race. It’s a ‘fact,’ after all.
But I expect better from my friends in Gun-control Nation because they always tout various legislative and/or regulatory responses to gun violence by stating that these schemes are developed with reference to evidence-based ‘facts.’ Not just fact. Evidence-based facts.
Want the latest example of how Gun-control Nation is going to make an argument before the SCOTUS which is just as crazy and ridiculous as anything we get from the other side? A group of African-American public defenders and legal aid groups have filed a brief which asks the SCOTUS to throw out the Sullivan Law because the law is used to “criminalize gun ownership by racial and ethnic minorities.”
And to explain why depriving Blacks of their ‘right’ to own a gun, we have none other than Professor Carol Anderson, whose book, The Second – Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America, shows how gun laws have been used to keep African-Americans powerless. And the moment you give the cops discretionary authority of who can arm themselves with a gun, you know for sure that Black Americans won’t be able to legally own or carry guns.
Professor Anderson says it like this: “Black people are vulnerable when they are armed, and vulnerable when they’re unarmed.” In other words, the Sullivan Law ‘criminalizes’ Blacks because the law doesn’t allow them to arm and protect themselves the way Whites are allowed to arm and protect themselves with guns.
Obviously, if we want laws to be applied equally to everyone, regardless of race, gender, or anything else, we need to take discretionary gun licensing away from the cops because they’ll just use the procedure to deny concealed-carry to Blacks.
I love the idea that if you can’t walk around with a gun in your pocket that you’re somehow making yourself an easier target for someone else who happens to be walking around with a gun. I’ve been hearing that one from the gun industry for the last 40 years since gun makers realized that nobody except some eccentrics like me were still buying guns for hunting and sport.
Way back in the 1960’s, nobody really gave one rat’s damn about 2nd-Amendment ‘rights.’ There was a little murmur from the corners of Gun-nut Nation during the debates leading up to the Gun Control Act of 1968. But even America’s ‘oldest civil rights organization,’ the NRA, didn’t make big stink when the law came up for a final vote.
That was then, this is now. And now we have a majority of Americans firmly convinced that keeping a gun in your home is a good thing to do, and only seven states still give the cops any decision-making ability to decide who should, and who shouldn’t walk around with a gun.
Want to know what makes people vulnerable to the point that they end up getting killed or wounded because they can’t defend themselves with a gun? It’s actually very simple – we live in a society where nobody backs down. Not only don’t people back down, but we just came through four years in which the country’s Chief Executive got up in front of masses of people every, single week and exhorted them to stand their ground and ‘fight.’
What exactly were all those MAGA knuckleheads fighting for? That was never made very clear. But if you can walk into the local gun shop, plunk down five hundred bucks and walk out with a product that will make it easier to stand your ground, why the hell not?
Jul 28, 2021 @ 11:11:30
I looked at the fees New York City charges, which are nonrefundable if you get denied, and just about fainted. Especially with the frequent need for putting in expensive renewals. I’d have less of a problem with “may issue” if the city didn’t jack up the fees, and if there were a reasonable appeals process with a rule that rather than the cops being able to deny you and you had to fight it, the cops had to show their work and defend a denial before a neuteral board, if such a board is possible.
As my brother said the other day when I asked him if our youngest brother had a NYS pistol permit (our old man is getting way up there in age and we wanted to make sure his guns were on one of the son’s permits), he responded “hell no, and I hope to god he never gets one”. So if my brother was doing the ma-issue review, he would deny his own kid brother’s application and with plenty of good cause.
Of course the bottom line is gang bangers don’t bother getting online to apply for a NYC permit. They get their guns the old fashioned way: on the street, and their “permit” is the ever present tatoo or gang colors.
Me? I think the best way to reduce demand for public carry is to demonstrate that its safe without it. Why spend five hundred bucks on a chunk of steel and polymer and lug it around in your pants if it is as useful as a 1974 Texas Instruments calculator?
Jul 28, 2021 @ 11:40:00
Maybe some of the things those MAGA knuckleheads were fighting for were:
Addressing the Paris climate treaty,
Negotiating better trade agreements,
Kick-starting energy production,
Deregulation,
Expanding pipeline projects,
Promoting religious liberty,
Reforming veterans’ care,
Denounce the EQUALITY Act. Intro in the House in March 2019, which:
Would add sexual orientation & gender identity to the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
But now, in just 6 short months…I’m paying $2/gallon more for the gas in my car, I’m paying 30% more on my food bill (oh, and that’s 30% more I’m paying in taxes). I thought President Biden’s tax plan was only going to impact the rich?
Maybe this could be the reason why someone in D.C. is doing a lot of whispering?
I wonder if this is evidence‐based ‘facts’ or just fact?
Jul 28, 2021 @ 16:44:28
To your long list. I don’t know where you live but my gasoline price has gone up by 30 cents a gallon and the AAA says that my increase is more or less what is going on nationally. So why you are saying that your gasoline price is $2 higher than it was before 2016 is beyond me. As for the food increases, why don’t you ask yourself how much of that is due to the deal that Trump made with the Chinese to buy billions of dollars from us in soybeans and other commodities because, as he explained to the Chinese, getting more money in to the pockets of farmers will get him re-elected. Of course he hadn’t yet realized that the election was going to be stolen from him. I assume you agree with one too.
Let’s look at your other items, okay?
1. Addressing the Paris climate treaty, Addressing the treaty? He didn’t address anything. He quit. He happens to be the only chief executive of a national state who was convinced that global warming was a hoax. If he was really concerned about America having to shoulder a bigger part of the burden for reducing fossil fuels, he would have sat down and talked to the other leaders. But the guy who had a ghost writer do the Art of the Deal book for him has never, ever sat down with anyone and negotiated a deal about anything. What he knows how to do is insult people, curse them and pretend that nobody is tougher than he is.
2. Negotiating better trade agreements. Yea, he negotiated the sale of commodities to the Chinese. He also made a slight change in the NAFTA agreement which was up for renewal anyway. If there were any other trade agreements I must have missed them.
3. Kick-starting energy production, This is one of the biggest lies of all. We were energy independent by 2010. We didn’t need to kick-start anything because even then we were not only satisfyung our own en ergy needs, we were also exporting energy.
4. Deregulation, This guy actually has the nerve to describe his executive orders as ‘legislation.’ And since you’re so convinced that his deregulating whatever he claimed to deregulate was so good, could you ;provide me one example of something he deregulated which has made any difference at all? Just one, okay?
5. Expanding pipeline projects, Onw project, Keystone. And we needed it like we needed a hole in the wall. Know of any others? How about the pipeline that Russia is building to get oil out of Iran? Funny, but guys like you never mention that one.
6. Promoting religious liberty, I don’t have the faintest idea what you are talking about. Oh, I forgot. He wants everyone to be able to go into a church or synagogue and not wear a mask.
7. Reforming veterans’ care,. Want to tell me exactly what he did that has made any difference in the VA medical system?
And by the way, how come you’re not listing all the wonderful things he did to stop Covid-19?
I’m not really expecting you to read all this because as you said previously, you only read ‘important’ things. And after all, why let facts get in tnhe way of your opinions, right?
Jul 28, 2021 @ 12:35:28
P.S. No, not EVERYONE should be allowed to walk around with a gun.
Jul 28, 2021 @ 18:44:48
Okay, maybe I did a little of the Wonderland myself. I was paying $2.17/gallon in January this year and yesterday I filled up and the price was $4.10/gallon. So it’s not a $2/gallon increase but $1.93/gallon. Sorry.
Also, thanks for pointing out all those CNN talking points. And for reforming veterans’ care. Yes, and thank you, I do want to tell you exactly what he did that has made any difference in the VA medical system.
Close to the end of 2020 President Trump ushered in the greatest improvement to veteran health care since World War II, and the liberal, tree-hugging anti-gun people like some I know still refuse to credit him with this accomplishment.
Alice in Wonderland word games are still being played and the talking points of CNN and Slate News are failing to tell the public what millions of veterans like me know: the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has never worked better, in part because President Trump gave veterans the real, permanent choice of using private health care providers.
Some points and in the wake of the prior administration’s VA wait-time scandal, Congress authorized a temporary program that allowed some veterans to see doctors outside VA. This was called the Veterans Choice Program. However, the program never solved the wait-time problem at VA, but created new hurdles for veterans seeking care in the community. Which I am not going to bore you with now, but compare that program with the results to the MISSION Act, which President Trump signed in order to fix the waiting problem as well as other issues. This is not a “temporary” program but a permanent and more comprehensive than the Veterans Choice Program.
The MISSION Act also created a new urgent care benefit that gives eligible veterans access to urgent and walk-in care at participating non-VA clinics. This is a huge step forward in terms of convenience for people like me.
As numbers show, it’s the MISSION Act that delivered real, permanent choice to veterans like me, even though some media reporters, so-called fact-checkers, and liberal tree-hugging anti-gun people I know, have obscured this by focusing on semantics.
Now, don’t you just love what a Democrat administration has been doing to America in Record Time?
Israel is on fire, War in the middle east, Major US pipeline hacked, Price of everyday goods is skyrocketing,
Russia is massing troops on the border with Ukraine. Ukraine is threatening to take Crimea back by force.
China is threatening Taiwan and its neighbors while also threatening our ships and Navy.
North Korea is testing missiles again and restarting their nuclear weapons program.
Iran has been emboldened and making more than their normal threats.
Our southern border is a humanitarian disaster caused directly by this administration, and the administration that promised transparency is hiding it and not letting the media have access.
Ford is closing a plant and moving it to Mexico after just bringing it back from Mexico because of the current administration’s plan for Increased taxes.
With all this being said, I do believe President Joe Biden is serious when he was shrugging off a torrent of new allegations linking him to his family’s allegedly corrupt business practices, and saying that Hunter Biden was “the smartest guy I know.” He didn’t whisper this response. Maybe he should have.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd-ZPO89ulw
Jul 28, 2021 @ 23:38:47
If you like global economic competitors like China who are free to continue to grow then yes, you should like this deal.
If you like the Iran Nuclear Deal, then you must not like the economic sanctions on Iran. Good for you. Maybe you and President Obama can send another $1.7 billion, entirely cash, to Iran.
According to a report by the Investor’s Business Daily, in December of 2018 the U.S. exported more oil than we imported, for the first time in 70-plus years. And this all happened despite the federal “energy policies.”
The Russian pipeline, are you referring the one that President Biden has decided to waive sanctions against the Russian-owned company. Hmm
Promoting religious liberty…doesn’t surprise me that you don’t have the faintest idea.
President Trump and COVID-19:
1. December 31, 2019 China reported its discovery of the Coronavirus to the World Health Organization, confirming more than forty infection.
2. A few days later the U.S. offered to send scientists to China to assist. U.S. received no response from China.
3. Mid-January started screening people coming from China to U.S.
4. January 21, the CDC directed its Emergency Operations Center to provide support for the virus response.
5. Also on January 21, the first infection was reported in the U.S
6. January 23, the CDC sought emergency approval fro the FDA to permit U.S. states to use a CDC developed diagnostic test to detect the Coronavirus.
7. January 23 Coronavirus had killed eighteen people and infected 650, mostly in China, and the WHO would not yet declare the virus a global health emergency.
8. January 27, Trump tweeted that he had made an offer to Chinese president Xi Jinping to send experts to China to investigate the virus, and the CDC urged Americans to avoid nonessential travel to China.
9. January 29, Trump announced the formation of the President’s Coronavirus Task Force.
10. January 31, Trump declared the Coronavirus a public health emergency and issued a travel ban suspending entry into the U.S.A. for foreign nationals who were in China during the fourteen-day period preceding their entry or attempted entry into the U.S.
11. February 23, raised travel advisory levels for Japan & South Korea.
12. February 24, asked Congress for $2.5 billion to fight virus, Pelosi delayed a vote on the measure.
13. February 26, Trump discussed virus containment & appointed Pence to lead his Coronavirus Task Force.
14. February 29, issued travel ban for Italy, South Korea, & Iran.
15. Early March administration announced it would buy some 500 million N95 respirators over the next eighteen months. Trump signed an 8.3 billion bill to distribute to fed state, and local agencies
16. Trump & Pence met with major insurance companies to persuade them to waive copays for COVID-19 testing.
17. Small Business Administration issued low-interest loans to small businesses affected by the outbreak
18. Education Department eased rules to provide colleges & universities more flexibility to conduct online classes
19. March 12, Trump imposed a thirty-day travel ban on travelers from Europe.
20. March 13, Trump declared a national emergency to access $42 billion to fight the virus.
21. March 16, Trump announced national guidelines to slow the spread, which stressed social distancing. Not to gather with more than 10 people, discretionary travel and social visits, eating and drinking in bars, restaurants, public food court, & refrain from visiting nursing homes. And many other suggestions.
22. March 17, started talking about a stimulus package. DoD announced it would make 5 million respirators and 2,000 ventilators available to HHS.
I believe you get my point on the wonderful things President Trump did.
The list goes on, & on, & on.
And what were the Democrats doing all this time? Hmm…moving forward with impeaching President Trump over a phone call.
Your correct…why let facts get in the way?
Jul 29, 2021 @ 07:06:27
Amazing how you have managed to create a description of Trump’s response to the Covis-19 pandemic that is about as far from reality as Trump has been. From the very beginning, Trump was told by medical experts like Birx and Fauci that this was a very unique virus because as opposed to SARS and Ebola, it was transmissible by people who had the virus but didn’t have symptoms. And since it would take time to ramp up a system that could test 300 million people on a regular, continuing basis, the only thing that could prevent a spread of unmitigated dimensions was a lockdown. Which Trump not only resisted, but went out of his way to: a) downplay the seriousness of the virus – remember in February he said that the virus would ‘disappear’ by April? b) stopped listening to his medical experts and in fact began attacking them in public because they wouldn’t go along with his politicized medical ‘advice;’ c) brought in a doctor to run the task force who had no background of any kind in infectious diseases but had gone on Fox News (where else?) promoting a herd-immunity response that had absolutely no scientific basis at all; d) went on national television and pushed various home remedies (bleach) to ‘cure’ the virus; e) went out of his way to support red-state Governors who refused to mandate social distancing or lockdowns. Where has the virus spiked higher than anywhere else in the last month? Florid and Missouri. Gee, what a surprise. And by the way, for all the talk about Warp Speed, the b\first company to produce a vaccine, Pfizer, didn’t take one dime from the government. And when Biden’s medical team met for the first time (in December) with the Trump Task Force, effectively led by Trump’s son-in-law who had absolutely no experience in anything having to do with anything the Task Force was supposed to be doing, they discovered there was was no plan of any kind for distribution of the vaccine, or prioritizing distribution of protective gear or anything else. How do I know this? Because I happen to know one of the members of Biden’s team. And incidentally, my wife is the Senior Attending Pediatrician at the teaching campus of not one but two national medical schools so I get and have always gotten all the guidelines issued by the Feds since last year. So with all due respect, when it comes to how Trump dealt with the virus, you don’t know what you are talking about.
And last – Trump made one difference when it came to the virus. He came up with a racist name for it – the Kung Flu. Which is how he communicated about every issue during his Presidency. When in doubt, come up with a childish way of describing something, a misspelling doesn’t hurt and a little racism can be thrown in as well.
Jul 29, 2021 @ 06:42:51
I have no issues with anything you said above about the VA. I’m glad the vets are getting what they need and id this is because of Trump, that’s fine. I don’t think there’s ay connection between how the price of gasoline has gone up and government energy ‘policy.’ There has never been a government energy ‘policy.’ Your comments about Iran, Korea and China would each require a long response but that will have to await another time.
Believe it or not, I fault Trump with one thing and one thing only. He degraded the office of the President. The President doesn’t use profanity in public. The President doesn’t refer to other countries as ‘shitholes.’ The President doesn’t insult foreign leaders and make up stupid, childish nicknames for people who disagree with him. The President doesn’t send out tweets with misspellings that a 3rd-grader wouldn’t make. The President at all times should represent this country with dignity, decency and decorum. Trump held the office held by Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and FDR. You don’t hold that office and behave the way he behaves. An it’s not a trade-off. Either you represent this country properly or get out. Period.
Jul 29, 2021 @ 10:55:10
“Where has the virus spiked higher than anywhere else in the last month?”
Let’s just forget the 900 percent spike in the Rio Grand Valley sector of Texas. How’s that “catch-and-release” working for you?
“Because I happen to know one of the members of Biden’s team.”
Is that like how you know so well David Chipman, the man you’ve talked with several times? Oh, no you’ve communicated with him on several occasions.
“So, with all due respect, when it comes to how Trump dealt with the virus, you don’t know what you are talking about.”
Says a “gun guy.”
P.S. For your beloved Fauci, is that the same guy that in January 2020, said that the United States “did not have to worry” about the coronavirus and that it was “not a major threat.” ???
“Either you represent this country properly or get out. Period.”
I use to hear stuff like this from fake thugs. But then again…that’s when I was in grade school.
P.S. And the President doesn’t go on an apology tour.
Jul 29, 2021 @ 12:52:11
I was talking about the Biden team of medical people who went down to DC to begin planning to take over the Covid-19 work allegedly being done by Trump’s so-called Task Force. As for my beloved Fauci, what he has said from the very first time that he ever spoke about Covid-19 was that until and unless we have sufficient data, that anything he said was subject to change. Not only was that statement ignored, but it has been turned into the claim that Fauci ‘lied.’ A charge, of course, made by Trump again and again. Which is total horsesh*t. I don’t want Trump to go on an apology tour. I want him to start behaving properly and shut up.
I notice you couldn’t take the trouble to respond to what I said about how Trump denigrated the office of the Presidency with his vulgar, stupid and misspelled tweets every day. But there is one issue I need you to explain if we are going to continue any kind of dialog. What did you mean when you said that I wouldn’t understand the religious freedom issue?
And by the way, the average U.S. retail price of gasoline was $1.82 on January 1, 2009., the lowest it had been since January 2006, the beginning of the recession. It then rose and was between $3.65 nd $3.30 until it fell to $1.78 in February,. 2016. It then started rising again until May, 2019, when it was at $2.79. In December, 2019 it was $2.53. It then dropped to $1.79 in April, 2020 and was at $2.31 by January of this year. As of July 1, 2021 it was $3.11. Gee, isn’t it amazing that gasoline prices go down when the economy slumps (2007 – 2009, and January 1, 2020 through the end of the year?)
Remember, I’m waiting for an answer to the question about relkigious freedom above.
Jul 29, 2021 @ 11:10:25
Just one last thing, then I’ll stop. (Thank God)
When you say that you fault Trump with one thing and one thing only. As I look at your list, to me, it sound as if someone got their feelings hurt.
Thank God President Trump didn’t run this country by feelings.
Jul 29, 2021 @ 13:55:01
“What did you mean when you said that I wouldn’t understand the religious freedom issue?”
I don’t believe I said anything about “religious freedom issue.” Maybe another one of your Wonderland moments, but I did mention “promoting religious liberty.”
If my memory serves…I was addressing “things those MAGA knuckleheads were fighting for…” Promoting religious liberty is one that would essentially remove any legal protections that small business owners, nonprofits, churches, schools, and private individuals currently enjoy to live & operate according to traditional & deeply held religious beliefs about sex, the human family & human dignity. (President Trump strongly defends American’s religious liberty.)
Now that I’ve answered your question, I thought that I might add something dramatic, something cutting, something like “You realize that you are destroying our country with all this crazy talk about guns, ‘rights,’ negligent discharges, and past administrations.” But I won’t. You are our country after all, or one face of our country, that so many have fought to defend.
Now…thank God I’ll stop this discussion. It’s past time for you to get some Wheaties and settle down.
Jul 29, 2021 @ 16:02:26
Why don’t you just stop being so snarky, okay? This may come as a great shock to you, but the Supreme Court, even before Trump was elected, never upheld a law that made it illegal for business owners or anyone else to decide who could and couldn’t be on their property or work on the property because of religious beliefs. Talk about patting yourself on the back for nothing, which is what Trump did every chance he got. And I didn’t ask you to respond to my real criticism of Trump but of course you didn’t – namely, a man who spent 4 years openly denigrating the most important political office in the entire world. You think that sending out daily tweets with 4th-grade misspellings, profanity and stupidly childish personal attacks was appropriate for an American President? Oh, I forgot, with guys like you it’s either all-Black or all-White. Never a middle ground. So of course everything Trump did was great,. right?
Jul 29, 2021 @ 19:33:13
You’re correct Mike, I have been mocking you and mostly in an indirect sarcastic way. So the question should be…why? We will never be friends. You are kind of like a mouse and I’m the cat.
I’ve been following your blog for years now, and over the past couple years I’ve been commenting on your posts. I know quite a bit about you (maybe more than I should) and one thing I know for sure, you don’t have a sense of humor. You’re humor will never accelerate to any kind of trust. I believe you have a difficult time in life and have little ability to cope with stress. You have shown this with some of your responses to critics over the years that I’ve been following your blog.
You see, I’m getting in my later years and have had many experiences. Since I was drafted into the Army for the Vietnam war I’ve had some of the best firearms training made available to man. I’ve trained at Quantico, Miami, Phoenix, Los Angeles, and even with Israeli Forces. As I have followed your blog I found that you yourself are snarky with many who challenge you on some of your position on gun control. So I thought you set the stage of your blog to be snarky at times. So, I’m sorry, I was wrong, and I may have hurt your feelings. For that I will try to stop being so snarky and be a little more serious.
I’ve carried a gun almost daily since the Army and at times had to use it in anger, and at times others have used their firearm in anger towards me. So you see when it comes to ‘rights’ and the 2nd Amendment I understand the importance, and when people like you try to use what little influence you have to take a choice away from free people it offends me. That’s why we will never be friends.
In the words of Malcom X, “The white liberal is the worst enemy to America…”