Category: Second Amendment rights

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crime and punishment Second Amendment rights self defense

Defense Against Road Rage

Road Rage, Florida, gun, guns, self defense, stand your ground

In February, Tina Allgeo was indicted on charges of murdering Mihail Tsvetkov in what the Orlando Sentinel called “a road-​rage incident that escalated and turned deadly.”

“Gun violence stemming from senseless disputes will not be tolerated,” the paper quoted State Attorney Monique Worrell.

The Sentinel provides more details in a September 8 report about how Florida’s attorney general, James Uthmeier, is demanding that Worrell drop the case since Allgeo was clearly defending her own life when she shot Tsvetkov.

The two had quarreled after Tsvetkov, who had been closely following Allgeo, struck her car “and then struck her during an attempt to escape after she got out of her car to survey the damage to her rear bumper.” Allgeo then accidentally sideswiped Tsvetkov’s car when she followed him to try to inspect his license plate.

“Video surveillance then showed Tsvetkov exit his car, open her driver’s side door and punch her repeatedly while trying to drag her out her vehicle before she shot him in the face.”

What recourse did she have except wait and see how badly Tsvetkov would beat her?

The Bearing Arms site comments that Worrell would have to show that Allgeo somehow set up Tsvetko, some random guy on the road, so that she would have an opportunity to shoot him in what only seemed like an act of self-​defense. That’s the only way it could be “murder.” Which, given the facts that have been reported, makes no sense.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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general freedom ideological culture Second Amendment rights

Another Disability for Paralympians

Olympics, shooting, guns, Instagram

The Paralympic Games, being held this year from August 28 to September 8, in Paris, are a “major international sports competition for athletes with disabilities.” 

We should cheer their efforts — not undermine them.

Meta’s Instagram apparently disagrees. In mid-​July, Instagram restricted the account of McKenna Geer, member of the American shooting team, so that it could be viewed only by current followers.

The “problem” seemed to be that she had posted photos of herself in competition. With firearms. For similar reasons, Instagram has also censored the accounts of other athletes. (Skittishness about pics of guns may be why an Olympics​.com photo of an Indian athlete “shooting” shows only head and arm.)

When the restrictions were imposed, Geer observed that she and other athletes use social media to spread the word about their sport and firearm safety, “build our personal brand, and connect with potential sponsors.” Her livelihood and ability to continue shooting competitively were thus at stake.

Geer’s Instagram account is again accessible to non-​followers. But the problem has not been resolved permanently. As aaronalvarado asserted at her account, “a bad AI program with no monitoring” may be to blame. “We appeal and the program shadow-​bans everything.”

If so, at least a human being is not consciously choosing to censor Geer or other athletes because they shoot competitively. But somebody wrote the programming. And Meta must be aware of these problems. 

It’s time to remove the “guns bad, context irrelevant” line of code.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment defense & war Second Amendment rights

Brace Yourself & Your Gun

gun, gun brace, 2nd Amendment, gun rights, gun control

Many foes of Second Amendment rights want to outlaw guns for everybody except military, police, Secret Service, sundry federal agencies, and bodyguards for left-​leaning celebrities.

Since this isn’t politically feasible given at least intermittent legislative and judicial support for the right to bear arms, anti-​gunners often pursue various piecemeal bans. The hope is that these will add up to an overall prohibition. Or at least provide an excuse to go after any particular gun owner for neglecting to comply with some subsidiary prohibition.

The anti-​gun forces seemed to have been having some success with an outlawing of “stabilizing braces” on short-​barreled rifles. A voluminous ATF rule sought to partially or wholly ban these braces — basically an added pistol grip —  even though the same agency had earlier said such braces were okay. 

And why wouldn’t it be okay to have a pistol brace if it’s okay to have a thing that shoots bullets?

Maybe the idea is that if you’re in a situation where you have to fight for your life using a gun, and a brace would help, trying to survive is okay, sure, but you shouldn’t have too much of a chance to survive. A stabilizing brace might give you an unfair edge? I’m guessing.

In mid-​June, the Northern District of Texas tossed this ATF gun-​brace-​ban rule. Which, according to Judge Reed O’Connor’s decision in the case, Mock v. Garland, is “arbitrary and capricious.” As Shooting News Weekly puts it, “Oof.”

Unlike the similar looking (at least to me) “bump stock,” braces do not change the mechanism of firing. And bump stocks were overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court about the same time. While stabilizing braces seem here to stay, a decision by the Supreme Court may still be required.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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defense & war general freedom Second Amendment rights

Of 15s and the Man

“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time,” Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1787 regarding Shays’ Rebellion, “with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”

Earlier this week, “in a mocking tone,” reports The New York Post, President Joe Biden asked, “How much have you heard this phrase, ‘the blood of liberty … washes those’” — before exclaiming, “Give me a break!”

Biden continued, “No, I mean it. Seriously. And, by the way, if they want to think they can take out government if we get out of line, which they are talking again about, well guess what, they need F‑15s.”

Hmmm. Our commander-​in-​chief has obviously contemplated whether or not ‘We, the People’ are capable of replacing or “tak[ing] out” the current regime, should Mr. Biden and his administration “get out of line.”

He doesn’t think we can do it.

Because Joe has F‑15s at his disposal and … well, we do not.

As with many issues, however, our president is sorely mistaken. You see, unlike the citizenry of most countries, Americans united have a firepower advantage over our government. That is the way it should be — how, with the Second Amendment, our founders designed the system.

The truth is, the president’s F‑15s cannot strafe us into submission. Nor will his bombers and nuclear weapons. Provided modern-​day patriots have the AR-​15 — today’s musket — and sufficient numerical support among 300-​million-​plus American citizens, the people could and would defeat any president’s high-​tech weaponry.

Without a fight if the president has any sense, citizen control of government prevails.

And there is also November. It’s an imperfect world.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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general freedom privacy Second Amendment rights

Second Amendment Privacy Act

gun control, Second Amendment, self defense, surveillance state

If you live in Georgia and have recently bought a gun or are about to, good news!

Governor Kemp has signed the Second Amendment Privacy Act to protect the financial privacy of persons buying guns and ammo. Georgia is the fourteenth state to enact such legislation.

According to Lawrence Keane, a lawyer with the National Shooting Sports Foundation, this means no more collusion between financial companies and the government to spy on the private finances of gun owners.

At least not in Georgia.

States must institute these protections because enemies of our right to bear arms have started using financial transactions as way to penalize gun owners. It would be nice if the federal government enacted equivalent protection. But given our present federal regime, the chances of that happening anytime soon are slim.

The main thing the Act does is prohibit financial institutions from requiring that a firearm code be associated with purchases of guns and ammo that you make using a credit card. When banks flag your purchase in this way, it’s easy to target you for sanctions like cancelling your account or maybe adding you, without any good reason, to a government watch list.

The Second Amendment Privacy Act also prohibits using existing firearms codes to discriminate against gun owners. So it protects people whose purchases have already been code-​flagged, not just people who buy a gun now.

It’s progress. Thirty-​six states to go.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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general freedom national politics & policies Second Amendment rights

The CDC on Self-Defense

CDC, gun control

This April, a Nashville homeowner shot an intruder intent on burglary.

Also this month, a St. Louis apartment dweller shot an intruder who threatened to kill his family.

A Newport Beach homeowner recently shot an intruder as well.

Aside from the obvious, what do such incidents, often in newspapers, have in common? The government is hiding research about them.

In December 2022, Fox News reported that to appease gun control activists, the Centers for Disease Control had deleted reference to a study on how often guns are used in self-​defense from its published research.

The CDC-​commissioned study by Gary Kleck showed that “instances of defensive gun use occur between 60,000 and 2.5 million times” annually. But in 2021, after being lobbied by the gun control activists, the CDC pretended that Kleck’s study didn’t exist.

Kleck said: “CDC is just aligning itself with the gun-​control advocacy groups.… ‘We are their tool, and we will do their bidding.’ And that’s not what a government agency should do.”

CDC’s conduct was not new. In 2018, Capital Research had asked why the agency was “Hiding Its Defensive Gun Use Statistics.”

For decades, we’ve had abundant data on how gun owners defend themselves from violent bad guys. CDC, which investigates something or other related to this subject, won’t share all that it knows.

We can’t legally require the media to stop hiding critical information. But we should be able to require our government to stop doing so.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment Second Amendment rights social media

A Gun with His Name On It

Trump, Glock, self defense, 2nd Amendment

An “X” post by a Trump spokesperson implicated the former president in a crime.

What followed implicates the U.S. Government in something far worse.

But first, to clarify:

  1. By “X” I mean “Twitter.” Remember, Elon Musk changed the name of his social media company.
  2. By “Trump” I mean, of course, Donald John Trump, former president of the United States running the same office, a man surrounded by armed guards at all times.
  3. By “crime” I mean an infraction of federal law, not a willful abuse of someone’s rights at common law. 
  4. The crime in question is the act of receiving “any firearm or ammunition which has been shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce” by a person “under indictment … a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year.” Trump’s been indicted quite a number of times, recently, and therefore isn’t legally allowed to buy a gun.

The initial tweet said Trump admired a Glock that had his name stamped on it. It was the “Donald Trump edition,” gold-​colored, retailing for under a thousand bucks. Trump’s on video saying he wants one of these handguns.

When X went all a‑twitter with the implications, spokesman Steven Cheung took down his post and the campaign issued a corrective: “President Trump did not purchase or take possession of the firearm. He simply indicated that he wanted one.” 

This is all explained by Jacob Sullum at Reason, who goes on to indicate that the law makes no real sense. The obvious absurdity of not allowing a well-​guarded presidential candidate to guard himself with gun of any kind, that’s one thing. Flouting the Second Amendment by prohibiting the innocent, i.e. not yet proven guilty, from bearing arms, looks far worse — a policy of rights suppression.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Corrigendum notice: a correction was made late on the date of publication [Trump is not a “Jr.,” as originally stated].

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Balking at the Ban

Key Albuquerque officials won’t enforce the New Mexico governor’s recent order.

At a press conference last Friday, Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham had vowed to suspend the right to publicly carry firearms “in any public space” in the Albuquerque area. The temporary order, declared in response to recent shootings, was justified by the governor as an “emergency health measure.”

The response has been far from uniformly positive. In addition to officials balking, a gun-​rights group, National Association for Gun Rights, is suing to block the order. And there has been talk of impeaching the governor. There was even an armed protest.

The governor is either unaware or heedless of the possibility that bad people with guns can be stopped by good people with guns — a lesson that would-​be robbers belatedly learned in Maryland a couple weeks ago when they failed to rob a pub full of police officers. (They had missed the cop-​bar scene in Code of Silence.) Violent criminals in the area, for their part, have somehow not agreed to defer their activities for a month in deference to her wishful thinking, however.

Officials who say they won’t cooperate with the governor’s aggressive power grab include Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller, Police Chief Harold Medina, and Bernalillo County District Attorney Sam Bregman.

Bernalillo County Sheriff John Allen says he is wary of the risks “posed by prohibiting law-​abiding citizens from their constitutional right to self-defense.”

District Attorney Bregman says, “As an officer of the court, I cannot and will not enforce something that is clearly unconstitutional.” 

Thus raising a standard to which people in positions of authority should repair much more often than they do.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability crime and punishment Fashion property rights Second Amendment rights

Don’t Make It Easy

crime, robbery, stand your ground, duty to retreat

Rachel Rogers and Jennifer Ferguson, employees at a Lululemon in Georgia, were fired for neglecting to stand by mutely during a robbery and for then calling 911.

“They’re just full-​blown, like, running circles around you grabbing as much as they can,” Rogers told WSBTV. “So, our reaction is to scream, ‘No! Get out! Leave!’ ”

The two employees called the police. The same thieves were caught when trying to rob another Lululemon store in the area the next day, perhaps because police were on the alert.

But two weeks later, Rogers and Ferguson were fired, without severance pay, for violating the retail chain’s policy of zero tolerance for calling 911 to report a robbery.

“We are not supposed to get in the way. You kind of clear path for whatever they’re going to do,” Ferguson said. “We’ve been told not to put it in any notes, because that might scare other people. We’re not supposed to call the police, not really supposed to talk about it.”

In a post blasting the company, Jennifer’s husband, Jason Ferguson, observed: “If we, citizens of the community, allow criminal activity to go unchecked, that is tacit approval for them to continue their ways.”

And how long can we hold onto our belongings and our civilization if we meekly usher in the Visigoths and Vandals and tell them go ahead, take whatever you want, we won’t try to stop you or even call the cops after it’s all over?

A lot of people, including higher-​ups at Lululemon, have forgotten that property rights are at the foundation of civilization.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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partisanship Regulating Protest Second Amendment rights

Partisanship & Pretense

Tennessee 3, three, guns, bullhorn

Protest is a tricky business. 

Had those in power their druthers, no protest would be allowed. Had those out of power their way, all their demands would be met.

I’d say the necessary middle ground lies in the rule of law.

Did the recent Tennessee legislature’s reaction to three legislators who broke House rules follow the law?

Not according to The Washington Post, which provided the “Democracy Dies in Darkness” spin in the headline: “Tennessee House expels two Democrats in historic act of partisan retaliation.”

In the wake of the shooting at the Covenant School in late March, with its death toll of six, “activists descended on the Tennessee Capitol and demanded that lawmakers pass gun-​control legislation. Republicans, with supermajorities in both chambers, refused to do so. The three lawmakers — dubbed the Tennessee Three — said they joined the protests inside the legislative chamber to speak out for Tennesseans whose voices have been ignored.”

But what they did is disrupt the proceedings of the legislature. Noisily. Angrily. Not-very-reasonably.

While it’s true that the votes to remove two of the three offending members were along partisan lines, it’s also true that all three offending members were unified by party.

But only two were removed from the legislature. Both are black, and the woman not removed is white. So of course the big issue for many became racism.

She escaped expulsion by one vote.

Was that vote racist?

Well, the two who were ousted used bullhorns within the legislative chamber. She did not.

That does seem an extra-​outrageous breach of decorum.

Of course, the whole idea of legislators jumping sides to pretend they are “voiceless” protesters is itself absurd, making the issue here neither partisanship nor racism.

It’s a question of posturing and pretense.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Note: After his expulsion last week, the Nashville-​Davidson Metro Council yesterday voted to return Rep. Justin Jones to the state legislature on an interim basis. A special election will be held to fill the seat in the coming months.

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