Category Archives: RKBA

It couldn’t happen here, could it?

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I read. By that, I mean I read a lot. If you see me away from home, you may notice I have my tablet with me. I have a couple of thousand books on it. I finished a book last night, Joe Steel by Harry Turtledove. http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1406509652l/22544038.jpgI’m not going to give it a review. I rarely, if ever, review books. I’ve read a lot of Turtledove’s books and his favorite theme is Alternate History. I would suggest you read this one. It has some critical insights within it.

The alternate history in this book is simple…what if Joe Stalin’s parents had emigrated to the US well before Joe Stalin was born? Leon Trotsky, a darling of some current leftists, would have succeeded V. I. Lenin to lead communist Russia. Joe Stalin, who is called Joe Steel in the book, becomes a California congressmen running against FDR in 1932…and FDR and Eleanor mysteriously die in a fire in the New York Governor’s mansion.

I remember my father saying, he was an FDR democrat, that the country came to within a hair’s breadth of a revolution in 1932. Progressive propaganda blamed Wall Street for the nation’s woes. Some of that blame is valid; much was not.

The book uses that concept to show how the US could be changed into a dictatorship by an unprincipled strongman. I don’t know Turtledove’s politics but some of the tactics used by Joe Steel are eerily similar to some being used by Barak Obama.

How could the US be suborned into a dictatorship? The answer is in the book if you look: complacency, ignorance, and bigotry against the fundamental principles of this nation with a well-planned attack by democrats against free enterprise and capitalism. Take a look at our current politics and you’ll see the parallels in the book.

When FDR’s tactics were blocked by the Supreme Court, FDR attempted to pack the court with his cronies. In Joe Steel, Stalin has them charged with trumped up violations and shoots them for treason. The aims of FDR and Joe Steel were the same, only the tactics were different.

The book disturbed me. Not by its theme nor of its plot; it disturbed me because it could easily happen here. We don’t have someone knocking on our door in the middle of the night. They use battering rams instead.

***

If you’re a student of military history, you may have noticed something that is no longer allowed in the US military. Not all that long ago, a soldier’s weapons were stored, not in the armory, but with him in his barracks. In the 1990’s, during Clinton’s administration, that changed and those weapons were removed, taken from the troops. If the question was asked, “Why?” no real answer was given. There is one very reasonable motivation—the military leadership feared their troops.

The disarming of the military had consequences. One direct consequence was the massacre at Ft. Hood. There have been other, less well-known incidents as well.

Ted Cruz has an answer. Allow troops to carry personal weapons on base. It won’t alleviate the fears of mutiny by the leadership. It will, however, allow troops to have the means to be able to defend themselves and their families.

Ted Cruz takes on the military, says ‘Second Amendment rights are removed’ from troops on base

Base commanders fear accidents, escalation of personal disputes

By Jacqueline Klimas – The Washington Times – Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Sen. Ted Cruz is asking lawmakers to consider allowing troops to carry personal firearms on base for protection, reviving a fight that has previously been a nonstarter with Congress after military leaders said they didn’t support the change.

While many lawmakers said Tuesday they were open to having a discussion on changing the rules in a Senate Committee on Armed Services hearing, most said that they would defer issues of base security to military leaders — who have historically been against allowing concealed carry on their posts.

Mr. Cruz formally sent a letter to Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican and chairman of the committee, on Tuesday afternoon asking for a hearing on the subject, saying that current restrictions impede Second Amendment rights and weaken the safety and security of troops.

“The men and women in our military have been at war for over a decade; they understand the responsibilities that go along with carrying a firearm,” Mr. Cruz wrote in the letter. “Yet their Second Amendment rights are removed at the front gate.”

I suggest you read the entire column at the Washington Times website. It’s worth a read.

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Firearms in the local news

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Jackson County, MO, has been in the news this week. The first was the result of unintended, for some, consequences. The second was grandstanding by Kansas City Sly James.

Back in December, the Jackson County legislature added  sub-section (c) to an existing ordinance, 5534.2. That addition said:

c. Discharge a firearm or projectile weapon:

(1) Anywhere within the area described as the “Urban Development Tier” in the Jackson County Master Plan “Strategy for the Future,” dated January 1994, as amended; or

(2) In a manner so as to allow a projectile to travel beyond the boundaries of the tract of real property from which it was fired onto another tract not under common ownership.

This subsection 5534.2.c shall not apply to any otherwise lawful activity taking place on the grounds of a firing range or gun club as permitted under section 24005.9 of this code or under the duly enacted ordinances of any competent municipal authority within Jackson County. (Ord. 2106, Eff. 6/16/92; Ord. 4595, Eff. 12/02/1

Before this section was added, the boundaries of this ordinance was 1-mile beyond existing city limits. After the change most of rural Jackson County was within the new boundaries making shooting firearms illegal in almost all of Jackson County. The Independence Examiner was present and published this article yesterday.

Dozens of people attended a meeting Tuesday night at Bass Pro Shops in Independence largely focused on Jackson County's weapons offenses ordinance. Zach McNulty | The ExaminerTuesday night, the Western Missouri Shooters Alliance hosted a meeting between 120 or more Jackson County residents and officials from the county and nearby state districts. The officials were MO State Senator Will Kraus (Lee Summit), State Representative Sheila Solon (Blue Springs), Jackson County Legislator Greg Grounds (Blue Springs), Jackson County Mike Sharp and his deputy Col. Hugh Mills. Jackson County Legislator Greg Grounds and Jackson County Mike Sharp took the brunt of the questions and comments from the residents.

At the end of the meeting, Legislator Grounds vowed to repeal the new section. Sheriff Shark stated he was assist as he could to do the same. State Senator Will Kraus and State Representative Sheila Solon said that if the county didn’t act, the state would.

The flaw in the ordinance was using a map, drawn for economic development and planning, to determine areas of high density population. The map was never intended for that purpose and is frequently updated, expanded, to show future plans for expansion into the county. Greg Grounds reported he was one of three county legislators who would vote to repeal the section added to the ordinance. Five of the nine county legislators must agree.

There has been a meeting to repeal this new section. That meeting was continued. The followup meeting is scheduled for July 28th.

“The hearing was continued to 28 July, 2014 at 2:30 in the Jackson County Independence courthouse, in the basement,” said Kevin Jamison, President of the Western Missouri Shooters Alliance.

The second instance of firearms in the news was Kansas City Mayor Sly James pushing for an ordinance to prohibit open carry within Kansas City. The city’s Public Safety committee rubber-stamped an endorsement of the proposal.

“’Our community is not a battleground,’ James told the committee,” in an article posted on the Kansas City Star’s website. That statement would be a surprise to anyone who peruses the Star and it’s continuing causality lists that appear almost daily in the Star. It’s unclear what James meant by the statement since there are been no instance of open carry in Kansas City leading to an exchange of gunfire. 

Likely, James is using the old “blood in the streets!” screed that the left has yet, after decades of use, proven. Everywhere citizens are allow to carry, openly or concealed, crime has decreased, not increased.

We really should not be surprised by James faulty logic and fear-mongering. After all, James is a democrat, and Kansas City is a democrat enclave in conservative Missouri. James is following the democrat reflex to continue democrat policies of ensuring Americans are defenseless against the growing criminal element.

James admitted that the city’s ordinance is likely to be an effort in futility. Missouri SB 656 had a provision to prohibit local governments, like Kansas City, from writing ordinances banning open carry. Democrat governor Jay Nixon vetoed the bill earlier this month. However, SB 656 had enough votes in the legislature to override Nixon’s veto. The legislature has already used their veto override once this year.

State Senator Will Kraus (Lees Summit), speaking before the Western Missouri Shooters Alliance Tuesday night, said he was confident the state legislature would override the veto of SB 656 during its veto session on September 10th.

So, if Sly James knows this new city ordinance will be revoked by the legislature, why do it? Anyone knowing the antics of Sly James would immediately say, “It’s to get more face time before the TV cameras!” That would be true, but he already has near-constant coverage by virtue of his office as Mayor. What other motive could he have? Perhaps, so say some, James is looking towards the future and thinking about challenging Roy Blunt for Senator. James knows he can get more political creds from democrats by making the exercise of Kansas Citians right to bear arms more difficult.

Am I an open carry advocate? No, I am not. But there is the occasional circumstance where I would like to remove a cover garment, like a jacket, exposing a weapon and not be penalized for momentarily carrying openly.

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Iowa joins with 44 other states to implement the RKBA

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In case the acronym RKBA is unfamiliar to you, it means Right to Keep and Bare Arms.  The US 2nd Amendment, in other words.  Iowa is one of six states that has no such right in their state constitution.  They are about to correct that deficit.

Iowa House OKs bill to protect gun rights

Democrats walk out to protest move

By James Frazier, Thursday, March 1, 2012.

CEDAR FALLS, Iowa — Despite increasingly permissive gun laws, Iowa has long been one of only six states without a right to bear arms in its constitution.
Those days may be numbered, as the Iowa House has passed a bill to explicitly protect gun rights in the state constitution despite vigorous Democratic objections that included a mass walkout from the Statehouse.
Democrats in the Iowa House forcefully made their objections known with Wednesday’s walkout, claiming they were protesting the bill being brought to the floor without advance notice. They also had attacked earlier versions of the bill as an extremist bid to strike down all gun laws.
At a press conference, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy characterized the bills as eliminating “all gun laws, gone, not through legislation, but through altering the Iowa Constitution.”

As usual, democrats are more concerned about the loss of state repression of a basic human right than enabling those rights for the citizens of their state.  They follow the usual democrat tactic—fleeing, like those democrats in Wisconsin and Indiana. They refuse to perform their duties as legislators and use this tactic to block the exercise of the other legislators in the state. 

The democrat opposition continues.

We left in protest so that there could be some openness and transparency and some sunlight drawn on what this issue is: very, very extreme,” he said.
Republican leaders dispute that and charge that the walkout was not about the issues but about making a scene — it could not have paralyzed the legislature as a Democratic walkout in neighboring Wisconsin over an anti-union bill did.

Unfortunately for the democrats, this tactic doesn’t work in Iowa. Instead it put on display the idiocy of those “lawmakers.”  You see, the quorum requirements in Iowa is 50% and the split of the state legislators is 64-40, ‘Pubs over the dems.

Oops!

When the dems heard the vote was still scheduled, they returned—and lost the vote 61 to 37.

House Speaker Kraig Paulsen, Hiawatha Republican, had declined to continue the debate until the Democrats had returned so as not to inflame an already sensitive issue, but Thursday he criticized the Democrats for walking out.
“Iowans send us here to go to work. Instead of standing here and debating, doing what Iowans pay and expect us to do, they left the capitol,” Mr. Paulsen said.

Gun rights advocates have made significant headway in Iowa. Concealed Carry was upgraded to make the state  “shall issue” instead of “may issue” and thus broke the power of the local Sheriffs to block Concealed Carry permits to anyone except their supporters.

The statists continue to lose. Illinois is the only state that prohibits this basic human right, the right to protect yourself and your family from the human predators amongst us. Iowa is about to rejoin the other 44 states with an affirmation of this basic right.  That leaves five more state that have yet to implement this right, California, New York, Maryland, Minnesota and New Jersey. It’s interesting to note that these five states plus Illinois have some of the nation’s highest rates of violent crime.  Perhaps if they allowed their citizens to means and ability to defend themselves, those violent trends would reverse.

I’ll not hold my breathe, however.  It’s too much intelligence to expect from the dems.

Democrats still don’t get it on gun rights, says Rasmussen poll

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This article was written by a friend of mine, Dave Workman. Dave is a past NRA Director, Writer and Editor for Gun Week magazine and has had editorials published in many newspapers across the country.

Democrats still don’t get it on gun rights, says Rasmussen poll

March 9, 2:19 PM · 11 comments

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A Rasmussen poll on the Second Amendment released March 5 had some good news and some bad news. Unfortunately, it was not surprising news for veteran gun rights activists.

The poll revealed that while 92% of identified Republicans who responded say the U.S. Constitution affirms an individual right to own a gun under the Second Amendment, only 64% of those who said they were Democrats believe that. They were even behind the 71 percent of respondents who claimed no political affiliation, while supporting individual gun rights..
Astonishingly, even after the Supreme Court ruled last June 26 in the case of District of Columbia v. Dick Anthony Heller, 14 % of those answering the poll do not believe there is a constitutional right to own a gun. It would be nice to know where each of these fools live, so they could be mailed a map showing them routes out of the United States.
Eleven percent of the respondents aren’t sure about the right, according to the Rasmussen poll. Here is a sure-fire way to convince them. Open a halfway house in their neighborhoods for convicted sex offenders or drug addicts. These “uncertain” people will soon be stacked three deep at the nearest gun shop sales counter, with their checkbooks open.
In my most recent book with Alan Gottlieb of the Second Amendment Foundation called These Dogs Don’t Hunt: The Democrats’ War on Guns, we demonstrate why the Rasmussen poll contained no surprises. For some reason, far too many Democrats stubbornly resist the notion that there are ten amendments in the Bill of Rights, and that rights of “the people” are held by individuals, not state governments. The Bill of Rights is an all-or-nothing proposition, not a menu.
Most gun control fanatics consider themselves “progressives,” but in actuality, they promote repression of the most basic of fundamental rights, that of self-preservation. They don’t care for guns, and really don’t want people to have them.
Witness the District of Columbia municipal government. Since the high court ruled last year that the District’s handgun ban was unconstitutional, city leaders have begrudgingly had to formulate a law that allows citizens to once again legally arm themselves in their homes for personal protection. However, the authorities have made that just as difficult as possible, leading to this week’s lawsuit against the District by the Second Amendment Foundation and three Washington, D.C residents. My colleague, Mike Stollenwerk, writes about it here.
Progressives typically worry about the rights of guys like Ronald Keith Matthews, a crackhead who gunned down King County (WA) Deputy Richard Herzog in 2002, or they go after the rights of law-abiding gun owners after a killer with an illegally-carried pistol fatally shoots a minister during a church service.
Matthews was under Department of Corrections supervision (see this column), having been released from prison 11 days before he murdered Herzog with the lawman’s own gun. Terry Joe Sedlacek, the suspect in the killing of Pastor Fred Winters in Troy, Illinois on March 8 did not have a required Illinois Firearm Owners Identification Card, so he should not have had that .45 he used to shoot the minister.
If 36% of Democrats could figure out that law-abiding Americans have an individual right to own guns, and that people who kill cops and preachers shouldn’t have any rights…now that would be progress.