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Sunday, May 31, 2020
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Second Amendment Radio and The Great Outdoors
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Lockdowns And Gun Control Fail Chicago Again
Opinion By Larry Keane
USA – -(AmmoLand.com)- Chicago is proving strict gun control laws are a failure. Sadly, it’s a lesson that is costing lives. City and state officials, however, are refusing to learn this tragic lesson.
Criminal misuse of firearms led to the deadliest Memorial Day weekend in the Windy City in five years. That’s despite state, city and police officials preparing for a surge in criminal violence. Democratic Gov. J.D. Pritzker already implemented a statewide stay-at-home order. Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, newly sworn Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown and even gun control groups announced deterrence plans ahead of the weekend, doubling efforts to curb expected violence.
On Tuesday morning, following a weekend that saw criminal misuse of firearms result in 10 deaths and 39 wounded, Mayor Lightfoot said, “It was a fail. Whatever the plan was, it didn’t work.’”
Surprise! Criminals Don’t Follow the Law
The numbers were staggering following the weekend and Superintendent Brown reflected, “Most individuals complied with the order…But the stay-at-home order did little to prevent violence…” He attributed Chicago’s high weekend crime figures to “rival gangs” and blamed “clashes involving the sale of illegal drugs.”
Mayor Lightfoot pleaded with Chicagoans following the weekend to do more to help stave off future criminal violence. “We can’t do this alone solely with the resources of the Chicago Police Department and I have said this many times,” she said. Passing the buck seems to be in style right now.
Instead of holding criminals accountable, Illinois public officials are more interested in restricting the liberties of those who follow the law. Criminals have been released from jails, some committing violent crimes right away including murder, and prosecutors announced they wouldn’t prosecute law-breakers during the COVID-19 outbreak. At the same time, Mayor Lightfoot pointed fingers at Superintendent Brown, her hand-picked top cop, and the governor for poor planning, prison releases, and a nonfunctioning judicial system. Superintendent Brown blamed pent up frustration over lengthy lockdown orders by the governor.
Meanwhile, Illinoisans are fed up. More than 100,00 background checks were completed for the sale of a firearm in Illinois during the coronavirus pandemic, coinciding with the nearly 4 million background checks for gun purchases nationwide during the same timeframe. Reports from firearm retailers suggest the many of the purchases have been first-time buyers legitimately concerned for their safety. In strict gun control states, first-time buyers have been surprised by the overly rigorous process.
It turns out mocking law-abiding citizens for exercising their constitutionally-protected Second Amendment rights to protect themselves as many in the media often do, or foolishly urging criminals to “chill” during times of crisis, are failing strategies. The same goes for layering on duplicative gun laws that only target the law-abiding but ignores criminal activity.
Is anyone truly surprised that criminals, who do not obey gun control laws, also refused to abide by “stay-at-home” orders?
Gun Ownership Up, Crime Down
Antigun big-city mayors and governors calling for more gun control are barking up the wrong tree. Firearm ownership in the U.S. is at an all-time high. At the same time, violent crime and homicide are on a continuing downward trend nationally.
NSSF® encourages gun owners to be educated, safe, and responsible. The firearm industry trade association launched the successful initiatives Project ChildSafe® and Operation Secure Store® to reduce unintended firearm accidents in the home and theft and robberies at firearm retailers. These efforts have paid off as unintended firearm fatalities in the United States are at the lowest numbers ever recorded in over one hundred years.
Reducing crime starts with holding criminals accountable. The Department of Justice proved that. The firearm industry has shown that Real Solutions® work. Everything else is scapegoating.
About The National Shooting Sports Foundation
The National Shooting Sports Foundation is the trade association for the firearms, ammunition, hunting and shooting sports industry. Its mission is to promote, protect and preserve hunting and the shooting sports. Formed in 1961, NSSF has a membership of more than 10,000 manufacturers, distributors, firearms retailers, shooting ranges, sportsmen's organizations and publishers. www.nssf.org
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Trump's dithering will be remembered (letter)
Saturday, May 30, 2020
Ugly America: I am Appalled by What's Happening
A look back at Trump comments perceived by some as inciting violence
Letter: Guns and Liberation in Lansing, Michigan
LETTER: 2nd Amendment resolution was a waste of time
Treason, 2nd Amendment claims borne of ignorance
Lies About Hydroxychloroquine, Just Like Lies About Guns
Opinion by Alan Chwick & Joanne D Eisen
USA – -(AmmoLand.com)- We gun owners quickly know truth from lies. If we miss our target, the truth is, we did something wrong. Gun owners are also good at smelling the BS as in bogus science as we have seen it time and again in “gun violence' research.
It has now become more than evident that one of our major parties has broken with the tradition of the peaceful transfer of presidential power as is slowly being revealed in the Michael Flynn case. The Democrat lust for power has destroyed the rules by which we live, with the enthusiastic help of the Main Street Media (MSM), and a few Rhino-Republicans, cheering them on.
Democrats, and the MSM, are using lies as their chosen weapon. So recognizing the lies from truths is an important matter. We make serious life decisions, daily, based upon what we think of as truthful information. But it can be challenging to determine the truths from the lies.
We have lived through several years of huge lies. The Democrats, and the MSM, are now pushing another lie designed to cause the kind of fear that will delay and further damage our economy, and get rid of a duly elected President whom they hate.
Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ)
We know that the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) has, for decades, been spreading lies about guns and gun owners that harm the Second Amendment of our Constitution. The famous and highly respected NEJM cares more about financial gains, and the leftist politics of its editors, than the truth.
And now the NEJM appears to be colluding with Democrats and the MSM to boost fear of COVID-19, by minimizing the possible beneficial effects of HCQ.
The MSM are shamelessly and hysterically, claiming that HCQ is a killer.
The problem is that, if people fear HCQ, or have no access to it, some might needlessly die. Alternatively, people will fear quickly getting back to normal because there will be no easy fix if they become ill, and so the economy will fall a little deeper into recession. Ignorant folks who easily accept lies might look upon Democrats and Socialism more favorably.
The inexpensive and decades-old HCQ has become highly politicized by the Fake-News and the Get-Trump crowd.
If HCQ helps to avoid illness and death as the real science seems to verify, the presence of COVID-19 would only be as annoying as common influenza. But there are questions about the benefits of using HCQ at the end stages of the disease after the lungs are already damaged. It appears that there might be a need for it to be administered as soon as possible.
It helps to know the origins of ‘facts.' Who said what? Have they told the truth in the past? This is what we found.
On May 7, 2020, the NEJM published a study about the use of HCQ to treat patients with COVID-19. Every word is accurate. But the researchers used people who went to emergency rooms and were then admitted to the hospital. So right from the beginning, selection bias was introduced into the research results because of the advanced stage of the disease in these patients.
The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) published a similar study, also using hospitalized patients, and also concluding that HCQ is not effective for treating COVID-19. And The Lancet, a respected British journal also using hospitalized patients, found that HCQ was not effective and was associated with potential heart problems.
Because pharmaceutical companies and medical researchers find it convenient to use hospital settings, we can expect that this kind of study outcome will be repeated.
These studies are being used politically to drive the latest MSM narrative that tells Americans that HCQ is dangerous to take and that it doesn't work against COVID-19. Gov. Phil Murphy has virtually banned the drug in N.J. Many hospitals and physicians are no longer recommending it. And the World Health Organization, which covered up for China, is no longer researching HCQ as a treatment for COVID-19.
We can compare the NEJM and JAMA studies to research by the French doctor, Phillippe Gautret. Gautret is attempting to evaluate the effectiveness of HCQ, “at an early stage before irreversible respiratory complications take hold…” He reports positive results with HCQ use.
In order to know who is willing to ignore politics, give up some financial gain, and tell us the whole truth, we should look at the biased way NEJM has treated research in the past.
Now we switch to how they treated firearms research, similarly.
On firearms, Dr. Miguel Faria, surgeon and author, explained that the medical literature is biased, “riddled with serious errors in facts, logic, and methodology, and thus utterly unreliable.” He relates how, in 1988, that NEJM published a paper by Dr. John Sloan, purporting to show that stronger gun control in Vancouver, Canada, was responsible for a lower homicide rate when compared to Seattle, Washington. At the same time, the NEJM refused to publish Dr. Brandon Centerwall's study, which overturned the Sloan results.
Dr. Faria's latest book, America, Guns, and Freedom #ad, tells the story of his fight against the junk science of guns, and how the public health establishment has been bent on moving society in an authoritarian, collectivist, and disarmed direction.
Dr. Faria, whose family fled the communist regime in Cuba, was one of the original leaders in the fight against fake firearms science. His book documents the medical establishment's tactical use of “tainted research with preordained results” in their war against firearms and our freedoms.
Politicians and our MSM flagrantly use these outright lies. The late civil rights attorney, Don Kates, described medical anti-gun researchers who, “all too often feel no compunction about asserting falsehoods, fabricating statistics, and falsifying references…”
Here is a sprinkling of the firearms phobic articles published by NEJM after the 1988 Sloan/Centerwall controversy was exposed.
In 1993, NEJM published the infamous Dr. Arthur Kellermann’s article telling us that it was more dangerous than useful to keep guns in the home. Among the many statistical errors, Kellermann flagrantly tells us that he mixed up his felons with his victims. He wrote, “Fifteen victims were killed under legally excusable circumstances. Four were shot by police acting in the line of duty. The rest were killed by another member of the household or a private citizen acting in self-defense.”
How could NEJM publish such obvious drivel? They wanted to frighten us into changing the way we vote, even if it costs American lives.
In October 2017, after the mass shooting in Las Vegas, NEJM published a rant about the easy availability of semiautomatic firearms. Later that same month, they published another rant, urging their readers to “Join, volunteer for, or donate to organizations fighting for sensible firearm legislation.”
In September 2018, NEJM published Dr. Garen Wintemute's How To Stop Mass Shootings. Wintemute described the need for more comprehensive background checks and Red Flag Laws for those not stopped by the background checks.
We all know that gun control does not lead to a safer society as promised, and promised, and yet again and again. We all know that ultra, restrictive gun laws only lead to a more robust firearms black market.
Our Founding Fathers wrote a document that attempted to ensure peaceful transfers of power by responsible citizens. There would be no Kings and no Tyrants to choose our path into the future. We, American citizens, decide for ourselves, and that should extend to our medical decisions.
We choose our leaders, and we, alone, change them. Make sure you do just that this November of 2020?
About The Authors
Alan J Chwick has been involved with firearms much of his life and is the Retired Managing Coach of the Freeport NY Junior Marksmanship Club. He has escaped from New York State to South Carolina and is an SC FFL (Everything22andMore.com). AJChwick@iNCNF.org | TWITTER: @iNCNF
Joanne D Eisen, DDS (Ret.) practiced dentistry on Long Island, NY. She has collaborated and written on firearm politics for the past 30+ years. She has also escaped New York State but to Virginia. JoanneDEisen@cs.com
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America Burning, We Now Know What to Expect if Trump Wins in November ~ VIDEO
Opinion
USA – -(AmmoLand.com)- Multiple major US cities we're left burning after so-called “protesters” took advantage of the death of George Floyd at the hands of one rogue cop, to destroy, steal and burn private and public property.
Instead of peaceful protest calling for change, we had organized agitators and teenagers, and criminals take advantage of a heartbreakingly tragic situation to rob, loot, and destroy, then burn post offices, banks, retail, fast-food restaurants, and liquor stores.
Lost in all of this was any mention of George Floyd, but we heard plenty of incoherent foul mouth laced rants against President Donald Trump as Secret Service Agents were hit in the head with bricks as they pushed back crowds in front of the White House.
None of this had anything to do with the death of Mr. Floyd as the cop filmed killing George has already been arrested and charged with murder in record time. And the FBI, DOJ, state and local authorities are all investigating the filmed death.
A Storm is Here
We now see the future response we can expect from Democrats and their thug allies when they lose the election in November,,, again. This time it appears that rather than crying and screeching, they are intent on destroying and burning America.
Each of the cities engulfed in flames last night are Democratically controlled strongholds with weak Mayors and Governors. They all have allowed this chaos and destruction to go on without enforcing the law or sending in the police or national guard to stop this madness, all in the name of letting “protesters” blow off steam. When in our lifetimes have we ever seen an American police station abandoned and allowed to be looted and burned. I hope no one was locked in cells!
Where is the national leadership of the Democratic party? Not a single one of them has come out in condemnation of the law-breaking looters? On the Republican side, we have only seen a few including Texas senator Ted Cruz call them out for what they are, criminals thugs!
We saw the deep states' attempt at a soft coup in the case of Michael Flynn towards Donald Trump. It seems that the peaceful transition of power has disappeared from our nation, and we are seeing a trial run of their next attempt at a hard, violent coup to change America into the United Communist States of America forcibly.
The past few nights should be a wake-up call for anybody who believes in law and order and the decency towards their fellow Americans. We have heard this time and again that “this election is the most important one” well, it appears now we're at another election battle for the soul of our country, which makes this one another most important one, so be prepared to vote.
And as always stay heavily armed, trained, dangerous, and prepared to defend our way of life and our Constitution. God bless the USA! We are going to need it.
About Tred Law
Tred Law is your everyday patriot with a deep love for this country and a no-compromise approach to the second amendment.
He does not write articles for AmmoLand News every week, but when he does write, it is usually about liberals F-ing with his right to keep and bear arms or the American way.
The post America Burning, We Now Know What to Expect if Trump Wins in November ~ VIDEO appeared first on AmmoLand.com.
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No More No-Knocks, they are Killing Innocent People ~ VIDEO
Opinion
USA – -(AmmoLand.com)- Here we go again. Another innocent killed by police serving a “No-Knock” warrant in the middle of the night, and another person arrested for shooting at unidentified, un-uniformed, home invaders.
This time it happened in Louisville, Kentucky. Although it is only now attracting national attention, the tragedy took place back on March 12, when 26-year old Breonna Taylor was shot 8 times by 3 plain-clothes police officers who had just kicked in her front door. Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, says he believed the intruders were home-invaders and he fired one shot as the attackers came through the door.
Walker was arrested and indicted on charges of Attempted Murder of a Police Officer. At last report, those charges have been dropped pending the outcome of investigations by the Kentucky Attorney General’s Office and the FBI. If those investigations don’t come out with favorable findings for Walker, he could find himself before another grand jury facing the same or revised charges.
By twisted coincidence, the police raid on the home of Breonna Taylor occurred less than 24 hours after a similar “No-Knock” raid in suburban Maryland where 21-year-old Duncan Lemp was killed and his pregnant girlfriend wounded. As in the Kentucky raid, the stories of the police involved and the witnesses present, don’t agree. Montgomery County, Maryland Police say their officers announced themselves and that the victim/suspect refused to follow police commands before being shot.
Lemp’s girlfriend says police began firing through a bedroom window while she and Lemp were asleep in bed!
That raid was based on an “anonymous tip” that Lemp was in illegal possession of firearms. Lemp had a juvenile record that stipulated that he was not to purchase or possess firearms in Maryland until he had attained the age of 30. Three rifles and two handguns were found in the home that Lemp shared with his parents and younger brother.
Police statements regarding the raid seem to be carefully worded to allow somewhat flexible interpretations, not unlike Bill Clinton’s statements about what “is” means. For instance, police have said that Lemp refused to obey police commands and that upon entry into the bedroom, a rifle was “recovered,” but they don’t actually say that Lemp was threatening officers with the rifle, or that he was even holding it, just that it was in the same room. These ambiguous statements, and the claims of Lemp’s family, have prompted the family’s attorneys to call for the release of the body-cam videos from the officers involved in the raid. So far, Montgomery County, MD police have refused to release any video of the incident.
That refusal to release video has come under additional fire recently, after another officer-involved shooting by the same department resulted in the release of the body-cam video within 24 hours. Skeptics suggest that the reason that video was released, was because it strongly supported the officer’s contention that he had no choice but to fire in that situation. Could it be that video from the Lemp assault is being withheld because it doesn’t support officers’ claims? Are we next going to be told that none of the officers involved were wearing body cameras, or that those that were, either forgot to turn them on or had some technical issue that caused them not to work, as happened in the Erik Scott case in Las Vegas in 2010?
Back in Kentucky
Police in Kentucky say that there was no video of the assault on Breonna Taylor’s apartment, and that’s believable, though inexcusable. In that case, there were only 3 officers involved in the raid, all in plainclothes. Of course, that raises all sorts of other questions, such as why there were only 3 officers involved, why all were out of uniform, and why there isn’t some policy requiring that cameras be used during any warrant service where there’s time and opportunity to do so?
That’s just one suggestion for policies and regulations that states could implement to reduce the problems associated with “dynamic entries” and other aggressive SWAT tactics used by police:
Require that the warrant service be recorded from beginning to end, preferably with a body-cam on every participant.
Another reform intended to reduce these problems, is a law that requires police agencies to submit biannual reports on the use and activities of their SWAT teams, including reporting when, where, why, and how these officers and tactics are deployed, along with data on suspects apprehended, evidence acquired, and any injuries or serious property damage sustained in the process.
This law was pushed through the Maryland Legislature back in 2009 by the former Mayor of Berwin Heights, a suburb of Washington, DC. The mayor’s arguments for the law were especially compelling since, a few years earlier, he and his mother-in-law had been held at gunpoint, handcuffed face-down on his kitchen floor, in a pool of blood from his two Labrador Retrievers that officers had killed when they raided his home. The raid was based on a package containing marijuana being delivered to the mayor’s address. It turned out that the package was shipped by a smuggling operation and was supposed to be stolen by one of their operatives from the carport where the UPS driver had left it. They hadn’t planned on the mayor’s mother-in-law visiting and taking the package inside before their operative could acquire the package.
This type of law has only been adopted by two states, Maryland and Utah, and obviously it didn’t prevent the March raid on the Lemp residence, so what else could be done to prevent these tragedies?
For starters, judges need to be more demanding and cautious in their issuance of warrants and perhaps face consequences for signing off on a warrant based on a flimsy affidavit.
Of course, judges don’t want to be seen as micro-managing the police or having to face any consequences, but they must take responsibility for the outcomes of warrants they sign. In cases like the death of Breonna Taylor, not only should the officers who executed the raid, and the supervisor who signed off on it, be held accountable, but so should the judge who approved the warrant. At the very least a judge’s involvement in issuing a questionable warrant should be made public knowledge, especially around election season for elected judges.
Ultimately, “No-Knock” or “Knock-Knock-Bang” warrants should only be issued in very specific and extreme circumstances to save lives. Kicking in doors, setting off flash-bang grenades, rappelling down from the roof and crashing through windows, shooting dogs, using armored vehicles to pull off window bars, and all of these other movie-style tactics, simply don’t belong in our neighborhoods. Like the BATF raid on the Branch Davidian Church in Waco, Texas, there’s almost always a better way, such as capturing the suspect while he’s checking the mail or pumping gas, calling on the phone and asking for a meeting, or simply knocking on the door and showing a warrant.
If the evidence being sought is small enough to be flushed down the toilet during the service of a warrant, then it’s probably not enough to warrant putting police officers at risk to try and procure it with a dynamic raid. If the suspect is so dangerous that a SWAT raid might be warranted then it would probably make more sense to try and catch him away from his home turf, rather than trying to take him from his “castle.”
Examples of warrant service going bad are far too common and almost completely preventable. There have been far too many victims created by the tactics themselves.
People like Cory Maye, who served 10 years on Death Row for shooting at strangers kicking down his door, and Jose Guerena, a former Marine and combat vet, who jumped from his bed when he heard pounding and explosions, and was shot dozens of times because he was holding a gun in his own home. Or Cheye Calvo, the Mayor of Berwin Heights Maryland, mentioned above, or Katheryn Johnston, a 92-year old woman who was shot to death after she fired a shot at a group of home invaders crashing through her front door. It turned out that they were corrupt narcotics officers trying to shake-down a drug dealer, but they got the wrong address.
All were innocent victims of aggressive police raids that I’ve written about in the past. Statistically, these tragedies are rare, considering that SWAT teams or tactics are employed something like 40,000 times a year in this country, but even though only a small percentage of those end up in the news as bungled operations, many more result in unnecessary death and destruction, and even more result in trashed homes, trashed lives, and deep scars among some members of the community, widening rifts that departments should be working hard to close.
It’s well past time for the public, politicians, and police unions to join together to address these tactics that unnecessarily jeopardize the police and the public.
About Jeff Knox:
Jeff Knox is a second-generation political activist and director of The Firearms Coalition. His father Neal Knox led many of the early gun rights battles for your right to keep and bear arms. Read Neal Knox – The Gun Rights War.
The Firearms Coalition is a loose-knit coalition of individual Second Amendment activists, clubs and civil rights organizations. Founded by Neal Knox in 1984, the organization provides support to grassroots activists in the form of education, analysis of current issues, and with a historical perspective of the gun rights movement. The Firearms Coalition has offices in Buckeye, Arizona and Manassas, VA. Visit: www.FirearmsCoalition.
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Knife Rights: West Virginia Knife Law Preemption Takes Effect May 31st
U.S.A. –-(Ammoland.com)- West Virginia SB 96 that expands the state's firearms preemption statute to include “deadly weapons,” including knives, goes into effect Sunday, May 31st.
Preemption prevents enforcement of existing local knife ordinances and prohibits new ordinances, more restrictive than state law which only serves to confuse or entrap law-abiding citizens traveling within or through the state.
Knife Rights appreciated the efforts of SB 96 sponsor Senator Charles Trump. We would like to thank the National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action and their lobbyist Art Thomm, as well as Ian Masters from The West Virginia Citizens Defense League for their work on this critical legislation.
Knife Rights passed the nation's first Knife Law Preemption bill in Arizona in 2010 and with West Virginia, has helped lead 13 states to enact knife law preemption.
About Knife Rights
Knife Rights is America's grassroots knife owners' organization; Rewriting Knife Law in America
and forging a Sharper Future for all Americans. Knife Rights efforts have resulted in 32 bills enacted repealing knife bans in 22 states and over one hundred cities and towns since 2010.
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Letters to the Editor: May 30, 2020
Friday, May 29, 2020
Decision 2020: Lindsey Graham faces three primary challengers for his US Senate seat
State Rep. Rusty Grills officially announces bid for re-election
Governor responds to hanging effigy
21 Of The Most Powerful Photos Of This Week
Kentucky governor responds to protesters who hung effigy of him: 'They will not intimidate me'
Shawn Michael Powers
Gun Show Promoter Challenges Texas City’s Last-Minute Reneging on Venue Agreement
U.S.A. – -(Ammoland.com)- The City of Marfa, TX faces a lawsuit if it keeps a gun show from taking place at the Marfa Activity Center this coming weekend, a demand letter (below) from attorney Warren V. Norred advised city, county and state officials Monday. He’s the attorney recently in the news for helping win an order by the Texas Supreme Court to release Dallas salon owner Shelly Luther from jail after she defied shutdown orders and reopened her business.
The firm represents Gregory Romeu and his business, Devil’s Advocate Armory, which paid fees for the show in February, and which was advised at the last minute that it now won’t go on, ostensibly due to COVID-19 fears. That will cause substantial financial loss, Norred documents:
“Mr. Romeu has already expended thousands of dollars to prepare for this show, including but not limited to local catering, use of hotels by vendors, radio ads, ensuring sufficient help to run the operation. Each of the approximately 60 vendors expects to make a profit ranging from $500 to $10,000 over the weekend. That’s profit, and not merely income. If we assume $4,000 profit, the lost profit for Mr. Romeu and his vendors will exceed $250,000.”
“My analysis is that Marfa’s case is much weaker than that of Dallas,” Norred told city leaders. “You have an actual contract with Mr. Romeu.
“Yes, it’s true – the virus fear showed up around that time, and a lot of people have shut down a lot of commercial activity based on that fear,” Norred acknowledged. “And if the City had contacted Mr. Romeu in February or March or even April, the parties could have perhaps worked something out. However, none of that happened.”
“[W]hat [the city] cannot do is form an agreement to lease its building, take my client’s money, and then a week before the show make a decision to breach that contract based on zero cases of COVID-19 and a Governor’s executive orders concerning the COVID-19 virus to stop a gun show after months of inaction,” Norred asserted. He bolstered that by “attaching the opinion of Attorney General Paxton’s March 27, 2020 Opinion … which makes clear that emergency orders do not stop gun sales.”
“The person that runs the Marfa Visitor Center / USO operation in Marfa, Texas literally begged me to start running gun shows again in that town since the last producer moved away years ago,” Romeu tells AmmoLand Shooting Sports News. “[She] observed my activity on and passing of the Second Amendment Sanctuary Resolution for Presidio County last July, she was constantly egging me on to start running the shows in the larger 80 table venue available, the Marfa Activity Center, vs. the 40 table visitor center that was normally used.
“I ran the first show Veterans Day weekend last year and was able to sell 17 tables. Now with the attention out across the gun world, I've got 58 tables sold.
“After paying the rent for the building in mid-February and spending thousands on banners, radio spots and three road trips from Presidio to El Paso to Midland, Tx and back to promote the show, the city of Marfa waited until a week ago via an administrator's assistant, to tell me they were not opening any city buildings for the next 60 days due to COVID-19 when all businesses across Texas are opening and once again beginning to thrive,” Romeu continued. “They did not tell me about them shutting this building down until a week ago which causes severe damage to not only myself but the vendors and the public as well.”
The plan now is to “gather much-needed funds … should we move this simple matter into the courts,” Romeu says. “Some $5-10 thousand is needed for Mr. Norred to proceed to court, funds I would have gladly paid out in this matter had I not spent it in producing and promoting this show for the City of Marfa.”
Gun owners who agree that a city reneging on its commitments and closing down gun show venues like this affects us all can help by supporting a trust set up to finance this case. Contributions, which will only be used if the case goes forward, can be sent to Norred Law, PLLC, 515 E. Border Street Arlington, TX 76010, specifying “Devil’s Advocate Armory.”
About David Codrea:
David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.
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Gun Voter Alert: Everytown Anti-Gun Group Reveals Endorsements
U.S.A. –-(AmmoLand.com)- Everytown for Gun Safety, the gun prohibition lobbying group founded by billionaire former presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg, has just done American gun owners a favor by releasing to The Hill its first round of political endorsements in an effort to retain a “gun sense” majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.
There are 58 names on the list, and not surprisingly, they are all Democrats. The Hill is reporting that the list was “released exclusively” to the publication Thursday. It is also now posted on their website.
Essentially, for Second Amendment activists across the country, it amounts to a roster of incumbents and candidates they can oppose in November. There are nine in California, eight in Pennsylvania, seven in New York, six each in Arizona, Illinois and Texas, with the remainder divided up among several states.
As noted by The Hill, this is just the “first round” of endorsements for Everytown, which the newspaper identifies in its headline as a “gun control group.” The story does not label Everytown as a “gun safety” organization, as they are frequently described by other news agencies.
Nationally, Everytown already promised to spend at least $60 million on its “electoral program” this year. The Hill noted that Everytown’s senior political adviser, Charlie Kelly, said his organization’s priority is to defend what the newspaper described as “a number of incumbents facing contested races.”
Several factors will play into the 2020 elections including the coronavirus pandemic panic and how Democrats and Republicans responded, plus the Democrats’ failed impeachment effort against President Donald Trump, and perhaps even the embarrassing way Senate Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee treated Judge Brett Kavanaugh during the hearing process on his appointment to the high court.
But Everytown’s endorsements put another issue in the spotlight: Gun control and the Second Amendment. Anti-gunners seem fearful that another Second Amendment ruling could be devastating to their efforts by expanding the known parameters of the right to keep and bear arms. Still unsettled by either the 2008 Heller ruling or the 2010 McDonald decision are questions about concealed carry, and whether the amendment protects modern semiautomatic sporting rifles, the so-called “assault rifles” gun control proponents want banned.
Over the past three years, Trump and the Republican-controlled Senate have been quietly filling some 200 vacancies on the federal courts with presumably pro-Second Amendment judges. Since those appointments are for life, Trump's lasting legacy could easily be how he reshaped the lower federal courts.
Trump has also put two conservatives on the Supreme Court, Neil Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, and in a separate story, The Hill discussed on-going “speculation” about the potential for a third high court vacancy. That speculation appears to focus on Associate Justice Clarence Thomas and whether he will retire now, with Republicans controlling the Senate and the White House. It refers also to the “health of the court’s aging liberal bloc,” including Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She has survived four bouts of cancer, The Hill observed, but still remains active.
Thomas has not indicated he will be retiring, and he has chided fellow justices in recent years for their reluctance to take on another Second Amendment case.
Presently, the high court has at least ten pending Second Amendment cases seeking review. So far, none of those cases have been accepted.
According to Scotusblog.com, all ten Second Amendment cases were relisted for the next Supreme Court conference, scheduled for Thursday. The court will announce on Monday whether any of those cases have been accepted. For more conferences are scheduled in June on successive Thursdays. The court adjourns its current session in late June, typically announcing its most important decisions on the final day.
The court will convene again on the first Monday in October, and any cases accepted for review will be heard during the next session.
Gun rights groups have begun organizing the grassroots this month with a trio of online workshops that drew more than 1,000 pre-registrations from across the country. Organized by the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, and the Second Amendment Foundation, the seminars have been hosted by their new Director of External Affairs, Glen Caroline, late of the National Rifle Association.
Now with the release by Everytown of candidates it supports, grassroots activists have identifiable targets. It will be up to them to recruit challengers or support already-declared pro-rights candidates.
Everytown is expected to support state legislative candidates and those running for governor. Several current Democrat governors have become very unpopular with their constituents over the coronavirus shutdowns that put tens of millions of people out of work, put many small business operations out of business and resulted in something of a culture shock with social distancing, masking and other restrictions.
Among the more controversial restrictions put in place at the state level have been closures of gun shops and shooting ranges, despite the fact that the Trump administration announced weeks ago that gun stores are considered “essential” businesses. SAF, NRA, the Firearms Policy Coalition and other groups have been busy in court over the past two months challenging such closures in several states.
About Dave Workman
Dave Workman is a senior editor at TheGunMag.com and Liberty Park Press, author of multiple books on the Right to Keep & Bear Arms and formerly an NRA-certified firearms instructor.
The post Gun Voter Alert: Everytown Anti-Gun Group Reveals Endorsements appeared first on AmmoLand.com.
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Hawkins: The 2nd Amendment Is a Bulwark when Law and Order Crumbles
2020 Republican Congressional Voting Guide
Below The Radar: Responsible Body Armor Possession Act
U.S.A. –-(AmmoLand.com)- People think that the Second Amendment revolves around guns. That is not quite the case. The right to keep and bear arms doesn’t begin and end with guns – in fact, while guns have occupied the centerpiece of the debate over the Second Amendment, the right to keep and bear arms is a lot more encompassing.
In the Caetano decision, the Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment protected stun guns, but also stated that the arms being borne didn't have to exist at the time of the Second Amendment's enactment. So yeah, when the phaser gets invented, it, too will be protected by the Second Amendment. But bearable arms aren't just guns or futuristic laser pistols. Knife Rights has been taking on the battle with bladed weapons. One other facet emerging in the Second Amendment debate is body armor. There are some efforts to restrict or ban possession of body armor in Congress.
One of those efforts is HR 4568, the Responsible Body Armor Possession Act, introduced by Representative Grace Meng (D-NY). This legislation makes it illegal for civilians to own Level III body armor after the enactment of the bill.
Now, this ban isn’t a full ban in the way that Beto O’Rourke and Eric Swalwell want to ban the AR-15. Those who bought Level III armor before the bill becomes law will be allowed to keep it. Afterwards, though, buying or possessing Level III armor becomes a federal felony with a sentence of up to 10 years.
According to the National Institutes of Justice, part of the Justice Department, Level III body armor can stop any round up to 7.61x51mm NATO rounds. At one store, a given set of body armor comes in at around $440, which is a little less than half the price of a Mossberg 930 SPX autoloading shotgun.
Just looking at the body armor on the page, one thing jumps out: Just how conspicuous it is. Wearing this armor is going to attract a lot of attention – which is why you don’t hear a lot about criminals wearing this sort of body armor during crimes.
So, why the ban? Well, Representative Meng didn’t put out a press release for this bill, which has cropped up in past Congresses – albeit introduced by other Representatives. A previous version, introduced by Representative Mike Honda (D-CA), was justified on the grounds that it would make responding to active-shooter situations safer for first responders.
The fact is, we don’t even know that possession of certain types of body armor is even a factor in tragic events like mass shootings. It seems, like modern multi-purpose semiautomatic firearms, that this bill is another massive punishment on Americans for crimes and acts of madness they didn’t commit.
Second Amendment supporters should take the time to contact their Representative and Senators and politely urge them to oppose this legislation. Any sort of ban on anything that punishes Americans from crimes and acts of madness they did not commit is not reasonable.
About Harold Hutchison
Writer Harold Hutchison has more than a dozen years of experience covering military affairs, international events, U.S. politics and Second Amendment issues. Harold was consulting senior editor at Soldier of Fortune magazine and is the author of the novel Strike Group Reagan. He has also written for the Daily Caller, National Review, Patriot Post, Strategypage.com, and other national websites.
The post Below The Radar: Responsible Body Armor Possession Act appeared first on AmmoLand.com.
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Governor responds to hanging effigy
ATF Warns Police of The “Boogaloo Movement” ~ VIDEOS
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND –-(Ammoland.com)-The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives Baltimore field office, in conjunction with the Baltimore Police Department, has issued an “Officer Safety Bulletin” warning police departments of the “Boogaloo movement.”
According to the bulletin, the agency has noticed people posting on private social media groups about the “Boogaloo” by “individuals who identify with extreme second amendment rights.” The notice says the law enforcement agencies have seen threats against federal and local law enforcement officials in these posts. It warns that these social media posts expect a second American Civil War.
The Boogaloo is a meme about a second American Civil War/Revolutionary war. The meme takes its name from the 1984 movie, “Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo #ad.” Social media users sometimes refer to it as the “Big Igloo.” The meme has become a sign of protest against what gun owners see as an ever-encroaching government. Gun rights advocates have shown up to rallies across the country wearing Hawaiian shirts.
No violence has broken out at any of these pro-rights rallies. In January, several thousand people were wearing Hawaiian shirts at the VCDL Lobby Day in Richmond, Virginia. Despite the massive number of flower print shirts, there wasn’t a single act of violence. Multiple gun-related companies now sell Hawaiian shirts, including mainstream companies like 5.11 Tactical. KAE also offers a “Boogaloo” Cerakoting package for firearms.
The bulletin goes on to warn police that people wearing Hawaiian shirts may possess “multiple types of weapons.”
It warns law enforcement that an American flag with an igloo instead of stars and a flower pattern replacing one of the stripes might be a sign of danger. It does go on to caution officers that someone wearing a Hawaiian shirt doesn’t give them probable cause to conduct an investigation.
AmmoLand News spoke to a Baltimore beat cop who was not authorized to talk about the bulletin, but he shared his thoughts with AmmoLand. He told us that he and other officers think that the bulletin is laughable and shows the disconnect between the higher-ups and the rank and file officers. He points out that he owns a few Hawaiian shirts himself.
The ATF and other government agencies have a history of questionable research when it comes to domestic extremism. In the FBI’s “Preventing Violent Extremism in Schools” publication, the agency list playing video games like “Call of Duty” as a sign of extremism. The majority of teenagers play video games at least casually.
According to a classified FBI Document titled “IMV Frequently Asked Questions,” the FBI warns that individuals with military or law enforcement experience are a risk for extremism. In the same document, the government says that using encryption, IP-anonymizers, and password-protected websites is a sign of extremism. These actions are highly recommended by network security experts to protect or identity online.
Bureau of JusticeAssistance Terrorism Indicators, State and Local Anti-Terrorism Training PDF
In documents obtained by Gun Owners of America about the program called State and Local Anti-Terrorism Training (SLATT), the Department of Justice classifies anyone who buys “military-style weapons, clothing, or equipment” as suspicious. It goes even further by stating that anyone who purchases large quantities of ammunition or who fires automatic firearms as also suspicious.
Gun rights advocates feel that documents like the “Boogaloo Movement Officer Safety Bulletin” is yet another targeted action by the federal government against law-abiding gun owners.
The ATF and Baltimore police would not comment on the bulletin citing that they did not write the bulletin for public consumption.
About John Crump
John is a NRA instructor and a constitutional activist. He is the former CEO of Veritas Firearms, LLC, and is the co-host of The Patriot News Podcast which can be found at www.blogtalkradio.com/patriotnews. John has written extensively on the patriot movement including 3%'ers, Oath Keepers, and Militias. In addition to the Patriot movement, John has written about firearms, interviewed people of all walks of life, and on the Constitution. John lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and sons and is currently working on a book on leftist deplatforming methods and can be followed on Twitter at @crumpyss, on Facebook at realjohncrump, or at www.crumpy.com.
The post ATF Warns Police of The “Boogaloo Movement” ~ VIDEOS appeared first on AmmoLand.com.
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Marxicrats & United Communist States of America, Test How You Will Vote in NOV.
Opinion
Ft Collins, CO –-(Ammoland.com)- “We've developed a new citizenry, one that is selective about cereals and automobiles, is captivated by twelve dancing rabbits singing about toilet paper, but is not able to think.” ~ Rod Serling.
- Capitalism has failed!
- Our Constitution, especially our Bill of Rights, is antiquated!
Nancy P’s “Marxicrats,” sleazy moral relativists, one and all (good people are not attracted to the leftist cause), will now lead us into a modern, glorious, Communist utopia.
Today’s Marxicrats view pre-pandemic, capitalist USA as a “failed state,” and yearn to replace our Constitutional Republic, with its pesky limitations on powers of government, individual economic freedom, and protection of individual rights, with a slick, modern, 21st Century United Communist States of America, the new UCSA!
Hard-left Democrats (is there another kind?) now have a chance to permanently seize power, just as their Communists antecedents did during violent revolutions throughout the 20th Century, scrapping our Constitution and replacing it with a modern “Master Plan”
Joining their ranks are hoards of shallow, self-absorbed “chatterers,” (snowflakes) whose very existence hinges upon how many “likes” they have on Facebook (see above).
Once in power, we’ll see professing liberals morph federal LE agencies into modern-day variants of the NKVD, who will predictably employ violent intimidation against non-compliant citizens of their “Brave New World”.
In fact, they’ve started already! Such a sinister plot ran unchecked under the BHO Administration and is just now finally being revealed. So, don’t tell me they would “never do it.” They’ve done it! Just ask Mike Flynn!
Communists of the past century moved with decisiveness, ruthlessness, violence to seize power during periods of social unrest.
Today’s Marxicrats are no different. There are no people of honor among them.
They mean to seize power permanently and rule absolutely, violently, replacing our blessed Republic with a smothering Communist oligarchy, and our courts, particularly our Supreme Court, will predictably abandon their solemn duty to protect us, just as they have in the past.
The media already has!
Here is the Test – When their voices unite:
- ‘Rights?’ You don’t need rights. You need ‘protection'!
- ‘Freedom?’ You don’t need freedom. You need conformity. We’re doing it for your own good, you know”!
When you like the sound of those two lines, you know whom to vote for… the UCSA.
“I have little interest in ‘streamlining’ government, nor in making it ‘more efficient,’ for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to ‘promote welfare,’ for I propose to extend Freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel old ones that do violence to our Constitution, or have failed their purpose, or that impose on the people unwarranted financial burden. I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is ‘needed’ before I have first determined whether it is Constitutionally permissible. And, when attacked for ‘neglecting my constituents' interests,’ I shall reply that I was informed that their main interest is Liberty, and in that cause I am doing the best I can.” ~ Barry Goldwater 1964
/John
About John Farnam & Defense Training International, Inc
As a defensive weapons and tactics instructor John Farnam will urge you, based on your own beliefs, to make up your mind in advance as to what you would do when faced with an imminent lethal threat. You should, of course, also decide what preparations you should make in advance if any. Defense Training International wants to make sure that their students fully understand the physical, legal, psychological, and societal consequences of their actions or in-actions.
It is our duty to make you aware of certain unpleasant physical realities intrinsic to the Planet Earth. Mr. Farnam is happy to be your counselor and advisor. Visit: www.defense-training.com
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