Category Archives: Guns

A conversation about guns and the intentions of POTUS

The assault weapons of the time when the 2nd Amendment was adopted. If you were really good, you might have been able to fire one round a minute.

The assault weapons of the time when the 2nd Amendment was adopted. If you were really good, you might have been able to fire one or two rounds a minute.

Last night during the debate, I Tweeted:

No, Jeb. It is not the first impulse of POTUS to “take guns away from law-abiding people.” That can’t be supported…

— Brad Warthen (@BradWarthen) January 15, 2016

This led to a brief back-and-forth with Bryan Caskey about whether that was true or not. Eventually I urged him to send me evidence supporting his position after the debate. Today, he obliged…

You asked for the evidence. Okay, here it is:

First, let’s understand what the Australia policy actually is. Just so we’re clear, the “Austraila Policy” is not just an optional buy-back of guns. It’s a MANDATORY (as in required by law, or else you’re committing a crime) buy-back program for a lot of guns, and it’s an outright ban on semiautomatic and self-loading rifles and shotguns, and all handguns. All. Oh, you want one? Well then mate, you have to show up to the government of Australia and show a “genuine reason” for wanting to own a gun, and guess what, the reason of “self-defense” isn’t a valid reason.

When has Obama touted this super-duper policy? What evidence is there? Well, here are three times he said praised this gun control system. Submitted for your approval…

1. June 10, 2014: “Couple of decades ago, Australia had a mass shooting, similar to Columbine or Newtown. And Australia just said, well, that’s it, we’re not doing, we’re not seeing that again, and basically imposed very severe, tough gun laws, and they haven’t had a mass shooting since. Our levels of gun violence are off the charts. There’s no advanced, developed country that would put up with this.” …

2. June 22, 2015: “When Australia had a mass killing … it was just so shocking to the system, the entire country said ‘well we’re going to completely change our gun laws’ and they did, and it hasn’t happened since,” Obama said.

3. October 1, 2015: “We know that other countries, in response to one mass shooting, have been able to craft laws that almost eliminate mass shootings. Friends of ours, allies of ours — Great Britain, Australia, countries like ours. So we know there are ways to prevent it.”

Here’s the thing. You just can’t tout Australia’s gun laws without touting the mass confiscation program which is the heart of it. So when Obama says we should look to respond to shootings as Australia did, he’s not talking about background checks. He’s not talking about gun shows. He’s not talking about magazine limits. He means that we should ban and confiscate guns. No amount of him saying “I believe in the Second Amendment” and him smirking whiles saying “No one is coming to take away your gun” can change this. He can’t just casually bring up countries that have confiscated firearms as some great achievement that we should look to emulate unless he really wishes to push the conversation toward confiscation.

But hey, I’m sure this guy would never try and mislead us. If you like your gun, you can keep your gun.

To which I responded…

My point was, he’s never tried to do anything like that. So it’s kind of disingenous to say that’s his default response.

I can sort of identify with Obama’s position, even though he may be, in his heart of hearts, more anti-gun than I am.

I have an ambivalence that I see in him. (And which you are HIGHLY unlikely to identify with.)

I believe that probably the ONLY thing that would significantly reduce our gun-death rate would be a radical reduction in the number of guns that exist and are in circulation. And yeah, that would mean something like Australia, or Britain.

And I think that is actually a sensible, rational response to the problem.

At the same time, I see it as completely politically impossible in this country. Not because of the 2nd Amendment — frankly, I think the most obvious interpretation of those words would be that gun ownership is protected within the context of a well-ordered militia. But the idea that it means no personal ownership of any kind of weapon should ever be abridged is SO embedded in our political culture that it’s unshakable.

So I end up feeling like there’s not really anything I can do.

And I think Obama reaches a similar conclusion, except that being the president, he doesn’t want to own up to powerlessness.

I don’t believe it EVER occurs to Obama to try to do something to “take guns from law-abiding citizens” because he’s too pragmatic to waste time on such a thought.

Where the distrust comes in is that folks on your side of the debate see that he’s someone who would LIKE the political realities to be different. But he knows they AREN’T different, and acts accordingly.

Is this making sense? As I say, I’m describing an ambivalence…

To which he responded…

I agree he’s never actually tried. Where my distrust comes from is that I don’t think he is actually letting us know what his real heart-of-hearts position is. I think (as you say) his true position is something along the lines of the Australia Model, and he knows that openly, honestly saying “Look, I believe we need to confiscate guns like they did in Australia” would be (1) political suicide; and (2) would not actually get anything done, anyway.

That’s because as you say our idea that gun ownership as a personal right (unconnected from service in a formal military unit) is “embedded in our political culture that it’s unshakable”. I agree that Obama acknowledges that reality, and that’s what really keeps him from openly saying “Here’s what I believe”. I see him as someone who will not tell us what he really wants because it’s so outside the mainstream of what is embedded in our culture.

To give you a counter-example, I give you exceedingly more credit for laying your cards on the table and saying “Here’s what I believe” than I do to Obama, who keeps trying to reassure me that he’s a big believer in the Second Amendment. Every time I hear him say “I believe in the Second Amendment”, I have a flashback to Sunday school where a teacher was telling us about believing in God, and how lots of people would say that. She would then say, “Believing in God isn’t the end of the spiritual journey, because even the Devilbelieves in God.”

You’re going to flip your lid when you read this, but I think Obama believes in the Second Amendment like the Devil believes in God.

For instance, if Scalia had a heart attack today, I believe Obama would appoint a Justice to SCOTUS tomorrow who would overturn Hellerand tell us that privately owning a firearm is contingent on military service.

I would prefer that Obama say “Look, I believe we need to confiscate guns like they did in Australia, Some of you may not agree, but that’s what I believe”, and then we can all lay our cards on the table about what we actually want. Then we can talk about what we’re all willing to do. However, it’s really hard to make a deal with someone when they won’t level with you about what their real beliefs are.

At which point I decided to share the conversation with the rest of y’all…

Obama wept: Tears of rage, tears of grief

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Obama wept

Hey, y’all! Obama’s coming to get your guns!

Of course, he’s not. The measures he announced today will do practically nothing to stem gun violence, and won’t go out and take a gun from anyone’s hands, be they warm and alive or cold and dead.

But that’s the way it will play, isn’t it? Gun rights people are sort of binary creatures. They have two modes. In one, they are happy and comfortable in their personal bunkers with several years worth of MREs, an off-the-grid power supply, and good fields of fire in every direction. And in the other, they’re screaming “OBAMA’S COMING TO GET MY GUNS!”

Except Bryan, of course.

Doubt me on this? Read the second graf of this story:

“He wants to take my guns,” said Kim Nettles, a 66-year-old West Columbia resident who said Obama’s plan — to issue executive orders Tuesday enacting new gun rules — is “illegal.”…

In the real world in which we live, though, there’s little the president or anyone else can do about the fact that there are so very many guns out there, and sooner or later some of them are going to be in the wrong hands. It’s an economic problem — too many unstable, violent people chasing too many guns.

And so, rather than some avenging angel who is singlehandedly going to undo the 2nd Amendment, we have a president who weeps in frustration. And grief, of course…

The NYT’s front-page editorial about guns

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We knew that the New York Daily News was conducting a rather lurid campaign against guns on its tabloid front, but things have taken a significant new turn in a more respectable direction.

The Gray Lady, The New York Times itself, has published its first front-page editorial since 1920, headlined, “End the Gun Epidemic in America.”

This is a profound development, folks. The editors of the Times have resorted to a step that they did not see as necessitated by anything going on during the Great Recession, World War II, the turmoil of the 1960s, Watergate, 9/11 or anything else that happened during the past 95 years.

I suppose that’s because, while those other things were huge news events, none involved such difficult questions about what sort of nation we want to be as does this. More to the point, none of those things were likely to run into such adamant opposition as this initiative. If we’re really, truly, after all these years, about to have a serious national discussion about guns, it may be our toughest disagreement since slavery.

An excerpt from the editorial:

All decent people feel sorrow and righteous fury about the latest slaughter of innocents, in California. Law enforcement and intelligence agencies are searching for motivations, including the vital question of how the murderers might have been connected to international terrorism. That is right and proper.

But motives do not matter to the dead in California, nor did they in Colorado, Oregon, South Carolina, Virginia, Connecticut and far too many other places. The attention and anger of Americans should also be directed at the elected leaders whose job is to keep us safe but who place a higher premium on the money and political power of an industry dedicated to profiting from the unfettered spread of ever more powerful firearms.

It is a moral outrage and a national disgrace that civilians can legally purchase weapons designed specifically to kill people with brutal speed and efficiency. These are weapons of war, barely modified and deliberately marketed as tools of macho vigilantism and even insurrection. America’s elected leaders offer prayers for gun victims and then, callously and without fear of consequence, reject the most basic restrictions on weapons of mass killing, as they did on Thursday. They distract us with arguments about the word terrorism. Let’s be clear: These spree killings are all, in their own ways, acts of terrorism….

Bryan and I have already been having a discussion about this today, via Twitter. This post is intended to broaden the discussion:

@BradWarthen How much do you think it moves the needle on the issue, if any?

— Bryan Caskey (@BryanCaskey) December 5, 2015

@BryanCaskey I see it as effect as much as cause, a snowball picking up a little more snow as it rolls. Sign of growing resolve on that side

— Brad Warthen (@BradWarthen) December 5, 2015

@BradWarthen You seen the “resolve” on my side of the issue? There’s a line in that NYT piece that would start a civil war.

— Bryan Caskey (@BryanCaskey) December 5, 2015

@BradWarthen And I’m one of the “rational” people.

— Bryan Caskey (@BryanCaskey) December 5, 2015

@BryanCaskey Yeah. It’s a stone wall covered in reactive armor plates that explode if anyone LOOKS like they might step in its direction…

— Brad Warthen (@BradWarthen) December 5, 2015

336 days, 355 mass shootings

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I got this from The Washington Post‘s Wonkblog. How is a “mass shooting” defined for the purposes of this count?

The San Bernardino shooting is the 355th mass shooting this year, according to a mass shooting tracker maintained by the Guns Are Cool subreddit. The Reddit tracker defines mass shootings as incidents in which four or more people, including the gunman, are killed or injured by gunfire.

The Mass Shooting Tracker is different from other shooting databases in that it uses a broader definition of mass shooting — the old FBI definition focused on four or more people killed as part of a single shooting.

It would be also be the second mass shooting just today — in the early morning hours, one person was killed and three were injured in an incident in Savannah, Georgia.

Speaking after the Colorado Springs shooting last week, President Obama urged Americans to not let this type of violence “become normal.” But the data show that this type of incident already is normal. There have been more mass shootings than calendar days so far this year…

So if only three people are hit, it’s not a mass shooting, by this count.

The president’s challenge to DO something about gun violence

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POTUS is fed up, as would be any national leader who’s had to make far too many of these statements, and doesn’t want to make any more of them.

And we know how futile all of the words he’s said in the past have been, in terms of providing actual leadership toward solutions to the problem.

As I’ve said over and over, I’m not sure what we can do about the problem of gun violence, because the problem is that there are just too many guns. It doesn’t matter who has them at a given point in time, or how careful we are about who makes the initial purchases, there are just so many of them that lots of them are inevitably going to fall into the wrong hands.

And I don’t know of anything we can do about that that has the slightest political chance of being enacted in this country. I mean, you want to see violence in the streets? Try implementing the worst apocalyptic nightmare of the gun lobby — try rounding up the guns. Not that we’d ever get to the point of starting such a program, because it’s politically impossible.

But I certainly share the president’s frustration, and I’m glad that the entire country doesn’t look at me expecting me to say something meaningful every time one of these things happens…

‘What dreams are made of:’ Your own, personal flamethrower

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Our discussions about gun control go nowhere, so let’s talk about this.

A flamethrower and a BIG ol’ tank of gasoline: What could possibly go wrong?

“You might ast yerself, what is this? Well, ah’m ‘one tell ya. This, my friends, is what dreams are made of,” says the crusty, country-fried Santa in the video above. “Look at that, would ya. Heh-heh, ha-HAAAH! Ah’m talkin’ ’bout get some fer sure. Guys, this is a XM42 personal flamethrower.” When he gets to the word “personal,” he tilts his head forward and peers out knowingly from under his brows, letting each and every one a you red-blooded viewers know that he sees into your innermost desires, and knows this is what you’ve always wanted.

Or, as the boys at Bennettsville High School when I was in the 9th grade would have said had they seen this, “GOT-tawmighty!”

I learned from The Washington Post today that:

Anyone with $899 and an Internet connection can buy one.

No background checks, no permits, and in 48 states, no regulation….

Which are the two states that would presume to stand in the way of your God-given right to burn s__t up at will? Well, California — the ultimate left-coast Nanny state — requires a permit. Maryland outright bans them.

I must confess that — perhaps because the Warthen part of my family tree hails from Maryland — I have, shall we say, reservations about the ready availability of these weapons. I’ve always thought there was something a little unsavory and shall we say unsportsmanlike about them. Oh, I’m sure that if I were a grunt on Iwo Jima or Normandy, I’d welcome them as a way of frying the machine-gunners who’d been killing my buddies from the safety of a concrete pillbox. But in playing a Red Army sniper in Call of Duty: World at War, I always aimed for the Germans with the tanks on their backs first. No one wants to be on the receiving end of one of these things, even in virtual reality.

The political battle lines are drawn. On his first day in office, President Obama signed a three-decade-old U.N. ban on the use of napalm and flamethrowers (some of which use napalm as fuel) on civilians.

Now, civilians can have their very own flamethrowers in most of this country. And as the guy in the video says, “As always, keep up the fight against flamethrower control… and gun control. And remember, Big Daddy loves yuh. Oo-rah!”

OK, let’s talk about guns in America

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State Sen. Marlon Kimpson says he’ll introduce legislation to do the following in the wake of the Emanuel AME massacre and other recent mass shootings:

▪ Close a three-day loophole that allows some S.C. gun purchasers to buy and take home a gun before a background check has been completed. That rule, and errors in the federal background-checking system, allowed alleged Charleston church shooter Dylann Roof to buy a gun.

▪ Require background checks to be conducted through the State Law Enforcement Division and the federal system before a gun sale can be completed

▪ Ban assault weapons, defined as semi-automatic firearms designed and configured for rapid fire

▪ Require reporting of lost or stolen guns

▪ Require state registration and permitting of all guns…

In response to Senate Judiciary Chairman Larry Martin’s statement that there is “no appetite” in the State House for gun control legislation — which you had probably guessed already — Sen. Kimpson “said the Charleston church shootings, which killed nine African-Americans including a state senator, ‘opened people’s minds to doing things in the State House that have never been done before.'”

Which is true enough. Whether that applies to this, however, remains to be seen.

On the same day that I read that, I received a graphic from someone with a blog called CrimeWire, urging me to share it.

Actually it doesn’t tell me a lot I didn’t know, but I share it for those of you who like infographics. It’s lighter on numbers than most such efforts. For instance, I doubt many minds will be changed by such an assertion as, “The Harvard Injury Control Research Center found that there’s substantial evidence that indicates more guns means more murders.” Oh, yeah, says Jim Bob, sittin’ with the boys around the cracker barrel. I bet they’s a heap o’ hunters up at the Harvard Injury Control Research Center.

For those who prefer text, the facts in the graphic seem to have come from a Washington Post story, headlined “11 essential facts about guns and mass shootings in the United States,” that ran the morning after the Charleston shootings.

As for my own views… As I’ve stated before, I think the problem in America is just that too many guns exist. Everybody talks about the rights of individual gun owners, but I don’t really look at who owns the guns. Ownership is something that can change easily, through burglary for instance. There are just too many of them in existence, and it’s inevitable that some of them will be in the hands of the wrong people at the wrong time.

It’s an economic problem: Too many violent people chasing too many guns.

But while I feel like I diagnose the problem correctly, I have no idea what to do about it. I just don’t see a solution. We are so far down this road, and nothing but the mass destruction of the overwhelming majority of guns that exist would back us up. And there are far too many Americans who adamantly oppose taking a single step back. I don’t see that changing.

So I’m not terribly hopeful that any legislation I’ve seen or heard of would have a chance of significantly reducing gun violence. Anything that passes constitutional muster just tinkers with the technicalities of how guns change hands and move around.

Oh, and before the more dedicated advocates for the 2nd Amendment start hollering, “Brad’s gonna round up all your guns and destroy them,” allow me to clarify: That is NOT gonna happen. Not in this country. No one can MAKE it happen. It’s a political impossibility. So stay cool. I only mention this to underline the fact that I see no workable solution to the problem of Too Many Guns.

I usually don’t say “I give up” on an issue. I usually try to suggest a solution. But I just don’t know where to go on this.

The confusing knot of jurisdiction lines around Columbiana

Walid Hakim sticks to his guns

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Just another one of those guys Obama spoke of, clinging to his guns.

We last saw Walid Hakim suing the state — successfully — for throwing him and his fellow Occupy Columbia off the State House grounds.

As the best-known unleader of that movement, Walid looked and acted the part — Central Casting might have sent him over to play a part in a flick about the Days of Rage, or perhaps one of the lesser-known of the Chicago Seven.

Now, he’s suing the city of Columbia for trying to pry his gun from his warm, live hands.

So… the city is concerned about a bunch of redneck yahoos bringing guns to the city center in a tense moment, and the guy who sues is… Walid?

He just refuses to be typecast, doesn’t he?

He could be on his way to another victory in court, although I do have a question about one of his assertions:

As a lawful concealed weapons permit holder, he won’t be able to protect himself when he is near the State House if danger arises, his affidavit said.

“Unless prohibited by a valid law, I always carry at least one firearm on my person or in my car,” Hakim said. “I had planned to be near the State House for various lawful activities. Based on the ‘emergency ordinance,’ I am forced to change my plans.”…

Walid doesn’t go near the State House unless he’s packing? Really? His assertion seems to go beyond the feared danger of this Saturday — except that he says he doesn’t carry when “prohibited by a valid law,” which would mean he wasn’t armed while on the State House grounds.

Interesting.

Walid in the role we usually think of.

Bernstein files bill to try to stop the next Dylann Roof

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This just in from the House Democrats:

Rep. Beth Bernstein to Introduce Background Check Completion Act in SC House

Legislation will mirror Congressman Jim Clyburn’s bill in US House

Columbia, SC – Richland County State Representative Beth Bernstein announced Thursday that she will prefile the “Background Check Completion Act” in December. The same bill was filed earlier this week in the U.S. House of Representatives by South Carolina Congressman Jim Clyburn.

The bill will require licensed gun dealers in South Carolina to wait until a background check is completed before selling a firearm. Under current law, if the FBI does not approve or deny the background check within three days, the licensed dealer has the discretion to proceed with the sale of the firearm. The alleged shooter in the Charleston massacre used this loophole to purchase the weapon that was used to kill nine people last month. Bernstein’s bill will close that loophole and make sure all background checks are completed before a transaction can be made.

“This is one of the most dangerous loopholes we currently have in our gun laws,” said Representative Beth Bernstein, a mother of two young daughters. “Most law-abiding citizens who purchase firearms have their background checks approved within minutes. But when someone has a criminal record, or pending charge, it may take longer for the FBI to gather all the information to determine if that person is legally authorized to buy a gun. We shouldn’t put an arbitrary three day deadline on something that could result in a deranged individual or criminal purchasing a gun. If we’re going to require a background check, we should require the background check be completed.”

Representative Bernstein stressed that this bill is not a form of gun control.

“As a CWP holder, I’m a strong supporter of gun rights and the second amendment. And I can assure you this bill is not gun control. It simply makes sure that the background checks that are already taking place are completed. If this bill would have been in place earlier this year, the Charleston shooter would not have legally been sold a gun from a licensed dealer. If closing this loophole saves just one life, it is worth it.”

Rep. Bernstein commended Congressman Clyburn for proposing this legislation on a federal level and maintained that she will pre-file the same bill in the South Carolina House of Representatives in December.”

####

Did shoestring annexation bring down the Confederate flag?

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Y’all, I’m sorry I was unable to find a map that shows how crazy the jurisdiction lines are in this area. Anyone know where I can find something like that online?

Or, far more horrifically and directly, did Columbia’s shoestring annexation lead to the murders of the Emanuel 9?

This is Kathryn Fenner’s assertion, which she sketched out in an email:

Roof was arrested at Columbiana, by Columbia Police, in Columbia, but in Lexington County. When he went to buy a gun at Shooter’s Choice, the background check was done by calling Lexington County, who sent the checker to the police–the checker called the West Columbia Police, who had no record, instead of Columbia–because unless you are a wonk like me, you might not realize that Columbiana is in the city limits–shoestring annexation, just like Woodcreek Farms where the Mayor lives.
If Roof had not been able to buy the gun….

You’ve read about all the confusion over the jurisdiction in which Dylann Roof was charged. And you’ve probably been confused yourself passing in and out of jurisdictions in the Columbiana/Harbison area.

At least some of this confusion was caused by the shoestring annexation of Columbiana in 1989, as a way of grabbing those expected tax revenues.

Hence the connection that Kathryn has drawn.

Americans concerned about crime used to favor gun control. Not so much now…

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People used to say “He who lives by the sword dies by the sword,” Ned Stark being a case in point. Today, they seem to think that if you outlaw swords, only outlaws will have swords…

You know, today would be a good day to just let Bryan take over the blog, the way he did while I was out of the country. I’d suggest that, but I’ve been binge-watching “Game of Thrones” via HBO NOW, and if there’s anything to be learned from that, it’s that it can be dangerous to leave someone else in charge of your kingdom.

Here’s the second topic today suggested by Bryan. He alerted me to this report from the Pew Research Center, which is summed up in this lede:

For most of the 1990s and the subsequent decade, a substantial majority of Americans believed it was more important to control gun ownership than to protect gun owners’ rights. But in December 2014, the balance of opinion flipped: For the first time, more Americans say that protecting gun rights is more important than controlling gun ownership, 52% to 46%….

I think this is related to what’s been happening in the GOP the last few years.

Increasingly, “conservatism” is really libertarianism in disguise, and is related to anti-government feeling in the country. People who once upon a time would have wanted just the cops to have guns don’t trust cops that way any more. It’s a two-edged blade — distrust of government on one side, a libertarian view of the 2nd Amendment on the other.

Also, as the Pew report notes, people have an exaggerated sense of the prevalence of crime. They think the streets are more dangerous than they are, and since they don’t trust government to protect them from all that imagined mayhem, they want to pack heat….

Doug’s out shooting today. Stay indoors; hide behind something solid

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Apparently, they survived. After the expedition, Bryan emailed this shot of Doug holding the 20 gauge over-and-under Beretta in a safe manner.

Apparently, they survived. Bryan emailed this shot of Doug holding the 20 gauge in a safe manner.

Bryan Caskey, who so kindly took me out shooting clays a couple of weekends ago (and I had a great time), has Doug Ross out there as I type this.

Doug professes to have never held a gun before. Or a rifle, either, I believe. Today he is armed, with several boxes of ammo.

Pray for their safety. And your own…

In case you haven’t had a good 2nd Amendment argument today…

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This just in:

Washington, DC (WLTX) – U.S. Capitol Police have arrested a Camden buisnessman after they say he tried to take a gun into an office building on the Capitol grounds.

Ronald William Prestage, 59, is charged with carrying a pistol without a license. Officers say they recovered the 9 mm handgun from him as he tried to enter the Cannon House Building, which is one of the structures containing the offices of members of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Police haven’t said yet if he gave an explanation for why he had the weapon…

Actually, my headline is kind of misleading. I doubt many of my regulars, even the most ardent gun-lovers among us, will want to assert the right to enter the U.S. Capitol offices while packing heat.

Am I right? If not, have at it…

By the way, if you read the rest of the piece (I quoted as much as I thought I could get away with under Fair Use), you’ll find that this Mr. Prestage is an upstanding member of the community, the manager of the Kershaw County Airport (which you would think would make him a little more sensitive about where it’s a good idea to carry a gun, and where it isn’t). No rootless drifter/gunslinger is he.

He’s also president of the National Pork Producers Council. Yeah, I thought that was an unusual combination, too, but that’s what the story said…

Whoa! Did this picture of our gov grab your attention? It did mine…

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Six men came to kill me one time. And the best of ’em carried this. It’s a Callahan full-bore auto-lock. Customized trigger, double cartridge thorough gauge. It is my very favorite gun.

— Jayne Cobb, on “Firefly”

My first thought was that it must be photoshopped. There’s something unreal about it, from the glint in her eye to the… really unusual weapon she’s holding with such delight.

I found myself reminded of Jayne Cobb showing off Vera. I mean, certainly the governor will give this baby a name…

But The Sun News reports that it’s for real:

AYNOR — Welder Jamieson Woodard leaned against a table a good way beyond the semi-circle of television cameras Monday as S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley got her commemorative, semiautomatic rifle from PTR Industries.

Woodard is part of the contingent of employees who transferred to Horry County when PTR left Connecticut because of restrictive gun laws passed by the state legislature.

The law, written in reaction to the killing of elementary school children and teachers in Newton, Conn., bans the sale of the guns PTR makes.

“Not only did it put us out of work,” Woodard said of the law, “it was the little guys that really got hurt.”

During the ceremony Woodard watched, Haley said she promised PTR that South Carolina would never politicize gun ownership, and those are the kind of words that have helped the company and its employees feel they’ve been received with open arms.

“People here are a lot friendlier than they are up North,” Woodard said…

Jayne with Vera: “It is my very favorite gun.”

The statement that the NRA had to walk back

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The NRA’s Chris Cox, walking it back.

The NRA got in trouble with its fans for suggesting that perhaps some of its adherents were engaging in behavior that was a bit… off:

[A] small number have recently crossed the line from enthusiasm to downright foolishness… Recently, demonstrators have been showing up in various public places, including coffee shops and fast food restaurants, openly toting a variety of tactical long guns… Yet while unlicensed open carry of long guns is also typically legal in most places, it is a rare sight to see someone sidle up next to you in line for lunch with a 7.62 rifle slung across his chest, much less a whole gaggle of folks descending on the same public venue with similar arms. Let’s not mince words, not only is it rare, it’s downright weirdand certainly not a practical way to go normally about your business while being prepared to defend yourself. To those who are not acquainted with the dubious practice of using public displays of firearms as a means to draw attention to oneself or one’s cause, it can be downright scary.

After that drew a great deal of heat from the membership, the NRA’s Chris Cox walked it back, saying:

There was some confusion, we apologize, again, for any confusion that that post caused… Now, the truth is, an alert went out that referred to this type of behavior as weird, or somehow not normal. And that was a mistake. It shouldn’t have happened. I’ve had a discussion with the staffer who wrote that piece, and expressed his personal opinion. Our job is not to criticize the lawful behavior of fellow gun owners.”

Lindsey Graham could have warned these guys: Saying stuff that makes sense can get you into a heap of trouble with your base.

Cox further reinforced his position by blaming the whole contretemps on “the media.” Nothing like the old standby tactics…

Florida sheriff wants to amend ‘Stand Your Ground’

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Don’t know how I got on this sheriff’s mailing list, but I thought some of y’all would be interested in his perspective:

Sheriff Scott Israel is the most outspoken sheriff in Florida when it comes to changing the “Stand Your Ground” law.

Click to view a recent article about his stance in Huffington Post

Now that Tallahassee legislatures are considering amendments to “Stand Your Ground,” Sheriff Israel is making sure his voice and his view is heard.

Below is an op-ed available for publication that clearly states the necessity for change in this law.

Contact me for interview opportunities or additional information.

Thanks!
Jen

Jen Hobbs
JenMHobbs@gmail.com
845-863-6448

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Where I Stand On Stand Your Ground
Sheriff Scott Israel

I stand with the mothers of Trayvon Martin and Jordan Davis in their fight to amend Stand Your Ground – to grieving mothers who lost their children to senseless gun violence. Last Monday, these two brave mothers-turned-activists led a peaceful march with hundreds of protesters on the Florida state Capitol in Tallahassee. The women were joined by families of other victims of this law.

A bipartisan proposal by Florida State Senators David Simmons (R) and Chris Smith (D) passed the State Senate Judiciary Committee on October 15 by a 7-2 vote, and now heads to other committees for consideration before coming to the Senate floor for a full vote. The original 2005 law was written by none other than Sen. Simmons.

I applaud Sen. Simmons for recognizing that the law is not perfect, and for reaching above partisan politics on this tremendously important public safety issue. The proposed Simmons-Smith amendment makes clear that the statute should prohibit people from later claiming self-defense if they started or unnecessarily escalated a conflict when safe withdrawal outside the home was an option.

Many people have made the case that the George Zimmerman trial, which spurred the interest in revising Stand Your Ground, had nothing to do with the self-defense law.

This opinion is misguided.

In February 2012, when Zimmerman shot 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida, the police who were called to the scene, unable to refute Zimmerman’s claim of self-defense. By law, they were unable to file charges and follow through with normal procedures, thus compromising the investigation from the start. Sanford city officials stated: “By Florida Statute, law enforcement was PROHIBITED from making an arrest based on the facts and circumstances they had at the time.”

The Stand Your Ground law effectively tied the hands of law enforcement in the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin, and will continue to do so until this law is fixed. In the case of Mr. Zimmerman, the threat was not immediate. He should have been obligated to get in his vehicle, leave the area, and avoid that confrontation. If the law had read differently, maybe he would have.

When Michael Dunn fired nine bullets into a Dodge Durango at four seemingly unarmed teenagers, killing 17-year-old Jordan Davis in Jacksonville, Florida, his actions were facilitated by this broken law. Deadly force should never be a first choice; it should be a choice used only after all other reasonable options have been exhausted.

The law is not stagnant. It is open to change, particularly when the change leads to less violent incidents and more accountability.

As one of only a small handful of sheriffs in Florida to support a change in the Stand Your Ground law, I feel the need to be active and vocal in this all-important discussion. Florida was the first of at least 22 other states that have enacted similar Stand Your Ground statutes, so it is also right that we lead in the effort to fix it. More than 26 young people in Florida have already lost their lives in Stand Your Ground cases. This law, here and elsewhere, must be fixed before more needlessly die.

For these reasons, I support these important first steps in amending this valuable law.

Bryan Caskey’s dispassionate analysis of CWP bill

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Relax… Bryan says it won’t be like this…

Today, I offer you two views of the new bill to allow patrons to carry firearms into bars and restaurants that serve alcohol. There’s Cindi Scoppe’s “Armed, untrained and cruising the bars.” (And I’m not at all convinced she was unaware of the double entendre implication of “cruising,” just to take it to an unexpected level.) Excerpt:

YOU’RE IN A bar in the early morning hours, and there’s a guy across the room who’s drinking heavily, who keeps glaring at you. It’s more than a little unsettling, because you know South Carolina now allows concealed-weapons-permit holders to carry guns into bars. You also know that the Legislature watered down the training requirements when it passed the guns-in-bars provision. And you know that South Carolina has an extremely liberal stand-your-ground law, which allows you to use lethal force if you feel threatened.

So when the drunk across the room suddenly reaches inside his jacket, you pull your own pistol and shoot.

Only you’re not the best aim, so you hit his companion.

And it turns out that he was reaching for his ringing cell phone.

That scenario was described to me a year ago by a Republican senator who was troubled by the obsession of some of his colleagues with lifting the state’s restriction on carrying concealed weapons into establishments that sell alcohol. Clearly, his scenario won’t play out every day once the guns-in-bars legislation becomes law. (The bill still must be signed by the governor, and she can’t do that until a ratification session, which can’t happen until at least next week because the Legislature is taking the week off due to the possibility of snow.) It won’t happen every month, and probably not every year. But it’s not much of a stretch to imagine it could happen once or twice….

And then there’s our own Bryan Caskey, who seems to have hit his stride as a blogger with this topic, combining his knowledge of the law and his love and respect for guns (and rifles, too, I assume). He reports via email:

On Friday I got my post up about the CWP bill, and boy, did it take off, traffic-wise. I normally get a couple hundred hits on my whole blog during an active day, but my CWP bill post got over 300 hits alone…and counting. What’s more amazing to me is that the post has received 51 “likes” via the Facebook button. I think my record for “likes” on a post is maybe 2. For my blog to penetrate to Facebook, someone else has to pick it up, since I don’t use Facebook.

Pageviews is one thing, but having someone hit that “like” button on Facebook is different – it requires actual clicking interaction from the reader than simply doing nothing. Anyway, just thought I’d pass that along and toot my own horn a little.

As always, feel free to link or disregard.

And of course, I prefer to link. Good for Bryan. Basically, he was dissatisfied with reporting on the bill itself, and decided to provide a detailed, dispassionate analysis. He did so quite well. Just as he says he learned a good deal from the 8-hour CWP course that would no longer be required under this bill (which he thinks is a bad thing about the bill), I learned a good bit from his post.

He saw good and bad in the bill — but neither as much good as most gun lovers would like, nor as much bad as those of us who say, Yeah, that’s just what was missing in SC — a new law saying its OK to pack heat in bars (people like Cindi, and to some extent me) — think.

Here’s the weirdest aspect, to me. After explaining that the bill would still allow bar and restaurant owners to declare their establishments gun-free zones by posting signs, Bryan adds this:

Additionally, even if the bar or restaurant doesn’t post the sign, they can still request that any particular person carrying concealed leave on a case-by-case basis. If that person refuses to leave, same penalty as above. So if you’re a bar or restaurant, you can either chose to have an entirely gun free zone, or a selectively gun free zone….

Yeahhhh… I’m just trying to imagine a bar owner with the cojones to carry that off. Think about it — the only time a proprietor might intervene in such a manner is when there’s a tense situation, right? You know, the kind where he goes, “Well, normally I’d allow guns (hence no sign), but THIS guy’s worrying me right now…” The guy’s packing heat, he’s apparently losing it, and you’re going to change the rules on him now? If Gary Cooper, or better yet Wyatt Earp, came back to life and opened a bar in Five Points, maybe. But I don’t know who else would manage that.

Anyway, Bryan’s post is helpful and informative. I recommend it. And he now has 86 “likes” on Facebook.

7-year-old boy suspended for being 7-year-old boy

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Passing on this bit of news from Maryland:

GLEN BURNIE, MD (CNN) – A 7-year-old Maryland boy was expected to return to school Tuesday after serving a suspension for forming his breakfast pastry into the shape of a gun and allegedly saying the words “bang, bang.”

Children at Park Elementary School went home on Friday with a letter explaining there was a disruption in school.

Josh Welch and his father B.J. say the disruption lead to a two day suspension for the second grader in Brooklyn Park.

Academics are hard for Josh, who suffers from ADHD, but he excels in art class. It is Josh’s own creativity that may have gotten him into trouble.

Josh was enjoying his breakfast pastry when he decided to try and shape it into a mountain. “It was already a rectangle and I just kept on biting it and biting it and tore off the top and it kinda looked like a gun but it wasn’t,” Josh said.

Josh takes full responsibly for trying to shape his breakfast pastry, but admits it was in innocent fun. “All I was trying to do was turn it into a mountain but, it didn’t look like a mountain really and it turned out to be a gun kinda,” Josh said.

When his teacher saw the strawberry tart he knew he was in trouble. “She was pretty mad? and I think I was in big trouble.”

Reminds me of when the elder of my sons was a toddler in his high chair eating toast. He ate it down to where he had two crusts left intact in an L shape. He then grasped it by one side, and aiming the other around the room said “Pow, pow!” Nearly broke my wife’s heart. She felt like she had done something wrong raising him — after all, his older sister had never exhibited such “violent tendencies.”

But boys will do things like that.

The fact that this one did it with a dessert-type item reminds me of a bit of silly dialogue from the original version of “The Office:” It was only a trifling matter. Nevertheless, they took him into custard-y.

bradwarthen.com

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