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2nd Amendment Tag

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on April 13, 2016 24 Comments
Last month, we interviewed children's authoress, Amelia Hamilton. Her reimagined renditions of well-loved fairy tales, published by the National Rifle Association, have raised more than a few eyebrows. In Hamilton's versions, the characters, like Red Riding Hood, are armed. The result? Granny doesn't get eaten, and everyone lives happily ever after. With outlets like the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Daily Show picking up her stories, Hamilton received more than her fair share of hate. All too obvious is that the haters never read the fairy tales in their newly armed glory before responding to them.

Posted by Andrew Branca on April 08, 2016 19 Comments
The Washington Post reports on a new study that suggests racial bias motivates police to fatally shoot black suspects at a disproportionally high rate.  That study, entitled “Fatal Shootings By US Police Officers in 2015: A Bird’s Eye View,” is published in the once well-respected scientific journal Nature. The first alarm bells went off for me when I noted the source of the "data" used for this "study":  journalists from the Washington Post itself, as well as the left-wing UK newspaper, The Guardian.  As we've seen in the past, "data" collected by journalists is rarely worth the paper it's printed on, not surprising given their generally utter lack of expertise in the subject being covered.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 24, 2016 24 Comments
The latest in the NRA's Freedom's Safest Place video series features Charlie Daniels, who starts out with a provocative statement: "You might have met our fresh-faced flower-child president, and his weak-kneed Ivy League friends." Good thing he limited "weak-kneed Ivy League" to "friends" of Obama. Otherwise I'd take great offense. Here is the full text:

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on March 22, 2016 11 Comments
Meet Amelia Hamilton -- dear friend, gifted children's authoress, and education advocate. Amelia Hamilton is a blogger and author of the Growing Patriots children's books. A lifelong writer and patriot, she also loves hockey, old cars, old movies and apple juice. Amelia has a master’s degree in both English and 18th-century history from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. Her dog Virgil is her co-pilot. With two books under her belt in the Growing Patriots series, Hamilton's latest project has encouraged the wrath of just about every left-leaning media outlet on the internet. Taking our favorite fairy tales, Hamilton is reimagining these well-loved stories with one tiny little change -- the would-be victims are armed. Her first installment, Little Red Riding Hood (Has a Gun), was published on NRA Family mid-January. Last week her latest, Hansel and Gretel (Have Guns), hit the internet. They're great reads and highly recommended (if I do say so myself).

First, a little about you:

Posted by Sarah Rumpf on March 21, 2016 25 Comments
The Supreme Court of the United States ruled today that Second Amendment does include stun guns, in a ruling issued on Monday. In the short per curiam ("by the Court") opinion in Caetano v. Massachusetts, the Court set aside a ruling by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, rejecting the arguments offered for allowing the state to ban possession or use of stun guns as in conflict with the Second Amendment. Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas wrote a separate concurring opinion supporting the self-defense rights of Jamie Caetano, the Boston woman whose conviction was the basis for the case. The State of Massachusetts now has the choice of dropping the conviction against Caetano, or coming back to try new arguments to support their ban.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on March 20, 2016 44 Comments
A 25-year-old black woman who appeared to be brandishing a handgun was shot and killed by police in Virginia; it was later discovered that, like Tamir Rice, she held a non-firing replica (see below). CBS reports:
A 25-year-old black woman was shot and killed by police officers in Virginia on Saturday after threatening them with what turned out to be a fake handgun, police said. Investigators with the Norfolk Police Department's Vice and Narcotics Division were conducting a surveillance operation when they came across a fight in a parking lot, police said.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on March 09, 2016 27 Comments
As Obama, Bloomberg, and assorted progressives continue in their gun-grabbing push, red states and those states with Republican legislative majorities have been pushing back, legalizing guns on campus, expanding carry laws, and now, in West Virginia, allowing permitless concealed carry. The bill, HB 4145, allows anyone over the age of 21 to carry a concealed handgun without a permit and was vetoed last Thursday by Democrat Governor Tomlin in a theatrical ceremony. In a bipartisan vote in first the State House and then in the State Senate, the governor's veto was overridden. The Charleston Gazette reports:
It will soon be legal for adults in West Virginia to carry hidden handguns with no training and without a permit, after the Legislature acted swiftly, and against the wishes of law enforcement, to override Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin’s veto of the legislation. Tomblin held a rare veto-signing ceremony Thursday, surrounded by dozens of police officers, to try to convince legislators to let the veto stand. “I urge you to look around this room for a moment and see that law enforcement are concerned about this bill,” Tomblin said Thursday. They didn’t listen.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on March 09, 2016 15 Comments
According to the Washington Times, the U. S. military under Obama has shed so many troops and weapons that it is "only marginally able" to defend the nation.  At least one Republican presidential nominee, Ted Cruz, has laid out detailed plans for rebuilding our nation's military, and a recent revelation about Navy SEALs starkly illustrates exactly how important this goal actually is. SEALs who've met with Representative Duncan Hunter (R-CA) have confided that the Navy is so short of combat rifles that SEALs have to share them, rotating rifles amongst returning and deploying teams. CBS News reports:
Navy SEAL teams don't have enough combat rifles to go around, even as these highly trained forces are relied on more than ever to carry out counterterrorism operations and other secretive missions, according to SEALs who have confided in Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif. After SEALs return from a deployment, their rifles are given to other commandos who are shipping out, said Hunter, a former Marine who served three combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. This weapons carousel undercuts the "train like you fight" ethos of the U.S. special operations forces, they said.
According to Hunter, money is not the problem, and citing one reason for the problem, a SEAL explains that the slow-moving bureaucracy can take as long four years to approve new combat rifle purchases.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on March 04, 2016 13 Comments
New York City mayor, Bill De Blasio, has taken a peculiar stance in his defense of the increase of stabbings in NYC; he asserts that these stabbings are the (positive?) result of fewer guns on the streets. Fox5ny reports:
New York mayor Bill de Blasio is trying to put a positive spin on a recent rash of stabbings and slashings across the city.  He credits the NYPD taking guns off of the street. "I'm not a criminologist but I can safely say that guns are being taken off the street in an unprecedented way.  Some people, unfortunately, are turning to a different weapon," de Blasio says. New Yorkers have been on edge because of a series of highly-reported attacks, including several seemingly random attacks on the subways.  The city was averaging more than 10 stabbing attacks a day in the first six weeks of the year.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 04, 2016 5 Comments
The NRA has a very well-done video series, Freedom's Safest Place. The latest video is Venezuela:
I emigrated from Venezuela—one of the most dangerous countries in the world today. A few years ago, the government came for our guns. We were told we would be safer without them. Of course, the politicians, the rich and famous, their bodyguards and criminals—they still have their guns. Everyone else lives in fear. Mothers and fathers are powerless to defend their families. But the drug cartels and gangs—the colectivos—still have all the guns they want. And 90 percent of murders are never solved.

Posted by Andrew Branca on February 29, 2016 45 Comments
(UPDATED: This post has been updated with the transcript of the oral arguments, at the bottom of this post. h/t Shall Not Be Questioned blog.) In a turn of events sure to shock those who follow the US Supreme Court, Justice Clarence Thomas has broken with his 10-year-long record of declining to engage in oral argument, reports USA Today. Only once in the last 10 years has Justice Thomas made even the slightest remark during oral arguments, and that was merely a one-sentence aside made in jest to Antonin Scalia some three years ago.  Justice Scalia, a close friend of Thomas', passed away two weeks ago. The case which prompted Thomas to substantively engage in oral argument, Voisine v. US, centers on the Second Amendment.  Thomas choosing to break his habitual silence on this Second Amendment case may have been in homage to his friend Scalia, who greatly enjoyed displaying his wit in oral arguments. The recently deceased Scalia was instrumental on crafting pro-Second Amendment decisions by the Supreme Court in recent years, including the acknowledgement of a Constitutional right to keep and bear arms for self-defense in the cases of Heller and McDonald.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on February 28, 2016 22 Comments
Despite numerous efforts to fight the Texas's campus carry law, including a bizarre protest involving dildos, the law stands, and students are free to carry licensed firearms on campus beginning on August 1st of this year. A University of Texas (UT) Architecture dean has declared that the new law is the reason for his decision to leave UT. The Texas Tribune reports:
The University of Texas at Austin's longtime architecture dean announced on Thursday he is leaving, saying the state's new campus carry law played a major role in pushing him out. . . . . The departure is a blow for UT-Austin. Its architecture school has consistently ranked among the best in the nation under Steiner. This year, Architectural Record ranked its undergraduate program seventh.

Posted by Andrew Branca on February 26, 2016 10 Comments
Today marks the fourth anniversary of the fateful day on which Trayvon Martin made the imprudent and quickly fatal decision to viciously beat (as testified to by eye witnesses) an armed George Zimmerman. Presumably coincidentally timed with anniversary, Florida has made or is making a couple of substantive changes in its laws covering some key facets of self-defense. The first change actually made this week is that Florida has removed the crime of aggravated assault from among the gun crimes that fall subject to the state's infamous "10-20-Life" mandatory minimum sentencing requirement. We'll cover that change in this post. (We've previously written on proposals for this change, here: Changes Proposed to Florida’s Infamous “10-20-Life” Sentencing Law.) The second change has not yet taken effect, but is advancing through the legislature.  That is the Florida senate approval of a change to the state's self-defense immunity law that would require state prosecutors to disprove self-defense by clear and convincing evidence in order to deny a defendant immunity from prosecution (and civil suit).  We'll cover that prospective change in a subsequent post. For now, let's take a look at the changes to "10-20-Life" signed into law this week.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on February 24, 2016 14 Comments
While Obama and the progressive left continue their gun-grabbing attempts to leave law-abiding citizens at the mercy of random shooters and terrorists, one business owner in Georgia has instituted a new policy that requires all of his employees to obtain a concealed carry permit so they can be armed in the workplace. WSB-TV reports:
A local business owner with several offices in Georgia is now requiring all of his employees to get a concealed carry license and be armed. After each employee at Lance Toland Associates gets their license, Toland presents them with a gun known as the judge. He says it is one of the most effective self-defense weapons and all his aviation insurance agencies carry them openly in the office. “Everybody has one of these in their drawer or on their person. I would not want to come into one of my facilities,” Toland said. “It's a 5 shot .410, just like a shotgun and you call it hand cannon.
Apparently his employees were eager to meet this new requirement and earn their own 4/10 judge pistol.

Posted by Mike LaChance on February 17, 2016 16 Comments
Jesse Hughes is the front man for Eagles of Death Metal, the band which was performing in the Bataclan theater during the Paris terror attack. The band is returning to finish their show and Hughes gave an interview to a French TV show. When guns came up, things got interesting and emotional. Eric Scheiner of CNS News reports:
Eagles of Death Metal Frontman: 'Did Your French Gun Control' Stop Anyone From Being Killed at Bataclan in Paris? In a recent interview with French iTélé, Hughes said that French gun laws did nothing to help the victims.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on February 11, 2016 26 Comments
Comedian and actor Carlo Bellario was arrested while shooting a low-budget film in residential Woodbridge, New Jersey last November. Unaware a movie was being filmed, neighbors called the cops. When police arrived on the scene, they learned the film's producers did not have proper permits to film in the neighborhood, nor did they have a permit to film with a prop gun. Because Bellario was wielding a soft-pellet pistol (considered a firearm in New Jersey), he was arrested, charged with weapons possession, and spent four days in jail.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on February 08, 2016 24 Comments
When will Florida Man ever learn? Apparently, never. In Pensacola, Florida, suspect, Jarell Blackmon used a fake pistol to rob a food mart. He cleaned out the cash register and made off with ten cartons of cigarettes before the cashier used a real gun to shoot him. The Pensacola News Journal reported:
A Pensacola man robbed a Beacon food mart store early this morning using a fake pistol. According to a press release from the Pensacola Police Department, the suspect, Jarell Blackmon, 24, entered the store at 1101 W. Cervantes Street at 2:25 a.m., wearing camouflage, at hat and a bandana over his face. The clerk said he told the suspect to remove the bandana, but he refused. Blackmon then came behind the counter and pulled out a pistol which the cashier assumed to be real.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on February 07, 2016 8 Comments
Last year, Professor Jacobson posted about a Texas school posting a sign that the staff is armed, and now, one Oklahoma school district is following suit and allowing teachers and staff to carry and to use whatever force is necessary to thwart potential attacks. The Muskogee Phoenix reports:
New signs posted on the grounds of Okay Public Schools announce an "Armed School Employees" policy in place. The Okay Public Schools Board of Education passed an “Armed School Employees” policy in August. On Monday, the district publicized that policy with signage in front of the school. “The signs are more or less a deterrent,” Superintendent Charles McMahan said. “We don't want to be a soft target.” McMahan said his administration looks for ways to keep students safe and secure, particularly since the Okay Police Department was disbanded in December 2014. Although Wagoner County sheriff's deputies are available, McMahan said it is “seconds, not minutes, that matter.”
Gun-free zones are soft targets; indeed, one former sheriff describes them as a "helpless victim zones." This move in the Okay school district is very likely to serve as a deterrent.  So far, however, there is only one Okay employee currently approved to carry in Oklahoma and now at school.
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