Time for Universal Background Checks for Abortions, Voting & Car Buying

Finger Prints Background checks nics privacy iStock-924058482
Time for Universal Background Checks for Abortions, Voting & Car Buying, iStock-924058482

USA – -(AmmoLand.com)- We’ve all heard, and probably used or argued against various analogies about regulating guns like we regulate cars, or comparing the ID requirements for buying a gun to the ID requirements for voting. Still, maybe it’s time to take these analogies out of the hypothetical realm of the debate platform, and into the real world of legislation.

What if pro-rights politicians were to craft legislation that echoed gun control laws, but was applied to such things as voting, purchasing an automobile, publishing a newspaper, and obtaining abortion services?

This line of thinking started with a recent dissent written by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas after the Court refused to hear ten different Second Amendment appeals on the same day. The cases had been pending before the Court for months. It was widely expected that they would take up at least one of them, since they haven’t addressed a Second Amendment case in a decade, and the lower courts have been openly butchering the last two Second Amendment cases they did hear, particularly the Heller decision. These current cases addressed issues such as New Jersey’s tight restrictions on the issuance of concealed carry permits, and several states’ restrictions on so-called “assault weapons” and “high-capacity” magazines.

The Supremes have kept silent, even in the face of such blatant distortion as lower court judges claiming that a minor comment in the Heller decision, comparing restrictions on military firearms like the select-fire M16 to civilian firearms like the semi-auto AR-15, means exactly the opposite of what Justice Antonin Scalia obviously intended in that landmark decision.

This court is supposed to be the most conservative Court since Reconstruction. Yet, they can’t muster four votes to agree to hear one of these cases, all of which directly impact on an enumerated, constitutional right.

Court watchers across the political spectrum agree that the main hitch in the Court’s get-along is Chief Justice John Roberts. Roberts, who was part of the majority in both the Heller and McDonald decisions, seemed reluctant to go along with those decisions unless they were written extremely narrowly and provided outs for legislators and judges in their efforts to restrict some guns in some places. Having replaced Justice Kennedy as the wavering swing vote, it could well be that the four “liberal” justices, and the four justices of the “conservative wing” have reached the same conclusion: they are all uncertain how he would vote on any of the recent cases, so they chose not to take any chances.

Saving our Second amendment from a ruling that could gut the human right for America.

A 4/4/1-wild-card Court Spilt?

Regular readers of my work will recall that I have said for years that the Court is not split cleanly with 5 “conservatives” and 4 “liberals,” especially on Second Amendment issues. While there are definitely four justices solidly in the “liberal” camp and almost always unified in their decisions, the “conservative” side has always been fractured. Initially, it was a 4/3/2 split, but now, with the addition of Kavanaugh, the split has shifted to more of a 4/4/1, with Roberts being the big wildcard.

The good news is that by refusing to hear any of the pending cases, there’s no chance of SCOTUS coming out with a bad Second Amendment decision right before the November elections. A decision that hurt gun rights would almost certainly have led to a backlash against President Trump and Republicans at the polls. As it is, some are calling for GunVoters to shift their votes to Libertarian candidates, but that would be equivalent to demanding jobs by burning down businesses. The only hope of getting a reliable Court to hear and favorably resolve Second Amendment cases, is to reelect President Trump and make sure he has a strong Republican majority in the Senate to confirm his judicial nominees. Trump’s brash statements, and especially his Twitter habit, can be off-putting, but what he does is far more important than what he tweets. His pattern is the precise opposite of the typical political animal, in other words, productive and to the benefit of the American people.

Gun Voter Vote Ballot Polling Election
If GunVoters fail to turn out in strong support of Republicans – even the weak-kneed Republicans like Arizona’s Martha McSally, we’ll end up with Chuck Schumer running the Senate.

If GunVoters fail to turn out in strong support of Republicans – even the weak-kneed Republicans like Arizona’s Martha McSally, we’ll end up with Chuck Schumer running the Senate and anti-rights zealots like Mark Kelly (Mr. Gabby Giffords) backing him up. We absolutely can’t take that chance. Every GunVoter must be active and engaged leading into November, and they must bring along as many votes as possible to deny the Democrats any majority at any level. Maybe at some point in the future, we’ll be able to support pro-gun Democrats and Libertarians, but right now, the stakes are too high, and the Democrats have made their intentions clear.

When the justices refused all ten gun cases, Justice Thomas wrote the scathing dissent that raised some of the comparisons mentioned above. He asked if the Court would sit idly by if a state were requiring citizens to show a “compelling need” and get a permit before exercising their rights of free speech.

He then went on to suggest that “it seems highly unlikely that the Court would allow a State to enforce a law requiring a woman to provide a justifiable need before seeking an abortion.”

Well, then let’s put this theory to the test. Rather than just making these comparisons as rhetorical arguments, lets put them forward as legislative proposals, using gun control laws as the constitutional precedent to support them. Let’s propose and debate – and possibly even pass – actual legislation that would require that buying cars, voting, aborting a baby, publishing a newspaper, publicly protesting, etc., meet the same types of restrictions and requirements commonly applied to purchasing, possessing, and bearing arms.

Would legislators in Alabama, Oklahoma, and Texas support legislation requiring that a person seeking an abortion must demonstrate a “justifiable need,” like those seeking to carry in New Jersey and Maryland? And, of course, the determination of what constitutes “justifiable need” would be at the discretion of an un-elected bureaucrat. Lawmakers could cite the New Jersey and Maryland laws, and supporting court decisions, as evidence that the proposals are constitutional.

Or how about a law requiring prospective voters to submit personal identifying information, including a state or federally issued ID and submit to a full background check every time they go to the polls? Of course, every voter would have to go through the whole process each time they wished to vote, regardless of how many times they’ve voted n the past or even if election officials recognized them from previous elections or knew them personally.

Voter eligibility status can easily change, so better to “instant check” every time, like they do with gun purchasers, we need to be safe… right?

Instead of just talking about “what if other rights were as restricted as the right to arms,” let’s put those proposals on the table with legislative proposals, and let’s support those proposals with comparisons to existing gun laws and citations of current court precedents.

If it can’t be justified for voting, getting an abortion, buying a car, or publishing a newspaper, how can it be justified for the one right of the people that specifically states that it “shall not be infringed?”

It’s time to challenge hypocrisy head-on.

Defund the Police. Disarm the People… What Could Go Wrong?

The End is Already Here civil unrest
Defund the Police. Disarm the People… What Could Go Wrong? img iStock file

USA – -(AmmoLand.com)- After the unconscionable treatment of George Floyd in police custody, righteous outrage led to angry protests, which too often became violent riots. As the MSM told us they were all peaceful protests in many cases putative “protests” were simply cover for rampaging looting, arson, and vandalism.

Meanwhile, Democrat mayors and governors ordered police in many jurisdictions to take a “hands-off” approach, supposedly to allow the protesters to “burn off” their anger and frustration on innocent citizens’ private property, without police intervention escalating the situation. Time and again television and social media showed police standing by as violent “protesters” (often led by white, middle-class Antifa punks) broke windows, torched buildings, and ransacked stores. In one videoed incident, a large contingent of heavily armed police showed up at a store being looted, and viewers watched as the looters, with their arms full of other people’s stuff, poured out of the store, running directly through the ranks of police, who made no effort to even slow them down, much less take them into custody.

It has become clear that in places where police have taken a “hands-off” position, the violence and criminal behavior escalated, while jurisdictions that met force with force and attempted to at least contain violent protesters, vandals, and looters, there was less violence and less destruction of residents property. Those locales returned to something closer to business-as-usual fairly quickly, while the “hands-off” jurisdictions were still putting-out burned city-long block-fires and experiencing eruptions of violence and criminality two weeks later.

As the protests sputtered out in some places and dug in elsewhere, organizers and activists were faced with a serious question for which they originally had no answer: “What do you want?”

In the case of George Floyd, the officers involved in his detention and death had been fired from the Minneapolis Police Department within days of the tragedy, and the officer who had spent some 9 minutes taking a knee on the back of Floyd’s neck, was arrested on a murder charge. And this all happened before the first large gathering of protesters. Soon the charge against the former policeman was elevated from 3rd-degree murder to 2nd-degree murder, and the other 3 officers present during the incident were also arrested and charged with aiding and abetting murder.

The wisdom of those charges being escalated will almost certainly be a point of argument for legal scholars for decades to come, since “over-charging” those involved could ultimately lead to an acquittal, but the point is, the only real demands from protesters were “Justice for George Floyd” and “Stop police violence against African Americans.”  With the officers involved losing their jobs and being arrested for murder and accessories to murder, the wheels of justice for Mr. Floyd seemed to be rolling in the right direction. As to stopping police violence against African Americans, that’s a pretty broad demand, that, unfortunately, overshadows a related and much larger issue: African American violence against African Americans.

Even so, the overwhelming disgust of virtually everyone, over the treatment of George Floyd, was already generating a broad public outcry, leading to reviews of police “use of force” policies and plans for additional training in departments around the country.

Americans and our elected servants were taking the deaths of George Floyd and other Americans, such as Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor, seriously even before the protests started. So after more than a week of marching and sporadic rioting, the protesters seemed to be running short of objectives. Then a new chant started making the rounds: “Defund the police!”

Defund the Police!

Soon the chant morphed into signs and in Minneapolis, where this all started, blackface masks with “DEFUND POLICE” emblazoned across them in bright yellow, appeared on the scene. The Democratic mayor of Minneapolis went to one of the protests to grovel and apologize for being white and having privilege, but when he wouldn’t go so far as to support the total abolition of the Minneapolis Police Department, he was booed and shamed from the area.

Now various politicians and media elites are making excuses or expressing support for some version of defunding the police. Most are qualifying the idea as more a shift of some resources from the police to social services, but that doesn’t seem to be jibing with the demands of the protesters.

Meanwhile, several other dynamics are playing out. The same Democratic politicians who are expressing the strongest support for the idea of defunding the police, are also among the strongest supporters of draconian gun control proposals. And, of course, the case of Ahmad Aubrey, who was shot and killed by a group of white men who suspected him of criminal activity, has also brought renewed attention to “vigilante” activity, so opposition to vigilantism was added to the protesters’ demands.

At the same time, Antifa backed protesters in Seattle have “occupied” several blocks of the city and declared it the CHAZ, for Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (now renamed CHOP – the Capitol Hill Organized (or Occupied) Protest). They’ve put up walls and posted armed guards to control their borders, and have bands of armed people policing -uhm- patrolling the streets to maintain order and make sure that no one is violating any of their new laws. There isn’t any official “government,” per se, but a rapper called Raz seems to have declared himself to be an authority figure reinventing Government services including fire protections within the CHAZ or CHOP. Then having his followers protect the property of people supportive of the cause, and threatening violence if people don’t obey.

Behind the scenes, a Seattle City Councilwoman appears to have been one of the primary instigators of the creation of the CHAZ, and she seems to still be pulling a lot of the strings within the Zone. Other protesters in other cities have been attempting to create their own “autonomous zones,” but as of this writing, only the CHAZ has been “successful.”

All of this boils down to the question of how to move forward from here?

Virtually everyone in the country agreed that what happened to George Floyd was barbaric and inexcusable, but a politically motivated prosecutor upgrading the charges to a level that will be harder to gain convictions, could result in acquittals, and a new round of rioting. Protesters are making demands that can’t possibly be met, so they can never be satisfied. The core protest leaders are avowed Marxist Communists who openly call for the abolition of the United States and private property. The Democratic Party and its leaders are pandering to these Communists in the most embarrassing ways, while simultaneously calling for bans on “assault weapons,” “high-capacity” magazines, private transfers, and all sorts of other restrictions on the private possession of firearms, all while expressing support for defunding the police, and calling for open borders…

So who’s going to go collect the “assault weapons” from the deplorables in the heartland when the police are defunded?

It’s starting to seem like maybe these folks – from the protesters in the streets to the politicians in their gated communities – haven’t really thought all of this through.

NRA Meeting to be Held in Springfield, MO?


Update: 09/16/2020: NRA subsequently shifted again, settling on a meeting in Tucson scheduled for October 24.  Registration for the meeting opened online at https://www.nraam.org/ on September 16.

(Past Update: 06/09/2020: NRA has a semi-official announcement of the location and date found here: NRA’s 149th Annual Meeting of Members rescheduled in Missouri)

NRA Board of Directors
NRA Board of Directors: NRA Meeting to be Held in Springfield, MO?

USA – -(AmmoLand.com)- A letter sent out on NRA Whittington Center letterhead, indicates that, as I had predicted, the NRA Annual Meeting of Members will indeed be held in conjunction with the regularly scheduled, September Board of Directors meeting. What is unexpected is the location discussed in the letter – Springfield, Missouri.

The Whittington Center is a beautiful range facility NRA built in New Mexico. The letter, dated May 28, 2020, told recipients that the NRA Annual Meeting, which had been put off due to COVID-19, has been scheduled for September 5. 2020, in Springfield, MO, with a Board of Directors meeting on the following Monday, the 7th, which happens to be Labor Day.

NRA Whittington Center Conflict Letter
NRA Whittington Center Conflict Letter

The main purpose of the letter was to explain that a previously scheduled event for the Whittington Center, is going to be rescheduled for early October, due to its original date conflicting with the new date for the NRA Annual Meeting.

No official announcements about the new meeting plans have come out of NRA HQ so far. There is nothing about the meetings on the NRA website and there has been nothing in the Official Journal, so consider this information a very solid rumor, rather than a confirmed fact.

Under the NRA Charter and Bylaws, a Members’ Meeting must be held every year before November 30. 2020.

There are also requirements regarding proper notice. Under the Bylaws, notice of the Members’ Meeting must be published in the Official Journal (the NRA business section inside each of the NRA’s magazines) in two consecutive editions prior to the meeting date. Since the lead time for the magazines is usually about 2 months, and the magazine dated for the next month usually comes out early in the month prior, that leaves NRA with few options for making the required announcements. This being the beginning of June, the July edition of the magazine would normally be hitting members’ mail boxes any day now. But it looks like some, and maybe all of the NRA magazines are combining July and August editions, with magazines going out in the third week of June. That narrows NRA’s window even more. If an official announcement about the meeting is not included in a regular July edition, then NRA could be in breach of their obligation under the bylaws if they don’t have announcements in the August and September issues. That would be cutting things mighty thin, and might not meet the legal requirement. We’ll find out soon.

In the meantime, I sent the following note to NRA Secretary and General Counsel John Frazer on Tuesday, June 2:


I’m sending this as an open letter and plan to publish it, along with your reply, if one is forthcoming in a timely fashion.

I saw the Whittington Center letter stating that the Annual Meeting of Members will be held in Springfield, MO on September 5, with a Board meeting following on the 7th.
Can you confirm that this information is correct?

If this information is correct, can you provide some more detail? For instance the venue, times, and information about any concurrent events?
I’d also be interested in any information you could provide me regarding the rationale for this choice of locations, as opposed to holding the meetings in Northern Virginia, close to NRA HQ and the support staff, and whether this choice originated with the Board or with staff, but I don’t want to bog you down with too many questions, so please share whatever you are able to.

I assume that more information will be forthcoming in the July or August edition of the Official Journal, but I would think that getting accurate information out to members as early as possible, would be in the best interest of the Association and its members.
I look forward to hearing from you.

In Liberty,

I did get a quick reply back from Secretary Frazer asking me when I was hoping to publish. I responded that I wanted to go to press within a day or two, but have not heard anything since then. I held back publishing this article in hopes of a reply, but can’t wait any longer. If I do hear back from the NRA, I will add a note to this piece.

A friend checked with the Springfield, MO convention and visitors bureau and was told that no deal has been signed with the NRA yet, just a proposal. I also checked with some members of the NRA Board of Directors and they had no knowledge of the meeting being even tentatively scheduled.

It should be noted that the Bylaws stipulate that the Annual Meeting of Members shall be held “at such time and place as determined by the Board of Directors.” If I’m informing Directors of plans for a meeting in Springfield, MO, it’s a pretty safe bet those Directors didn’t participate in the decision to hold the meeting there. Just one more example of the Board allowing staff to lead them, rather than the other way around.

It’s also worth noting that the NRA has taken over the Shooting Illustrated Concealed Carry Expo, which happens to be being held in Dallas over the same weekend that they’re talking about holding the Members’ Meeting in Missouri. Seems like they’d get a better turnout and be able to do more special, fundraising side-events in conjunction with the Dallas event. Didn’t I read somewhere that money is an issue at NRA these days?

The news might change in a few days, but for now, I’ve started shopping for airline tickets and accommodations in Springfield, and I hope many of you will do the same. Just don’t do the non-refundable kind. While the members at an NRA Annual Meeting wield little direct power, we do potentially have enough power to influence the Board to take needed action. If possible, plan to be there for the Members’ Meeting on Saturday and stay through the Monday Board meeting. The Board is supposed to represent the members and the staff is supposed to follow the instructions of the Board. It’s past time for that mode to be put back in place. Get some friends together and plan a road trip, whether to Springfield, Dallas, or DC. Share travel and room costs. Participate in trying to save our Association.

Stay tuned to AmmoLand News and www.FirearmsCoalition.org for updates and other information.

No More No-Knocks, they are Killing Innocent People

Maryland Man Killed by Police During High Risk Warrant
No More No-Knocks, they are Killing Innocent People

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.

Another Texas Police Department Implements Viridian Gun Cameras
Gun Cameras: Require that the warrant service be recorded from beginning to end, preferably with a body-cam on every participant.

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.

Since When are American’s Rights Not “Allowed”!?

USA – -(AmmoLand.com)- In recent weeks, American adults have been subjected to the word “allowed” at levels they’ve not seen since elementary school.

America’s gun owners have had this word thrown at them for decades, and many have, unfortunately, gotten used to it. Some of us have always bristled at the cavalier way this word has been bandied about in reference to our fundamental rights.

Now more Americans are discovering that it’s unnerving and maybe a little ominous to hear politicians, bureaucrats, and “reporters” explaining what we are and are not “allowed” to do.

While the word “allow” is sometimes chosen out of simple laziness, the word contains a disturbing presumption of authority, which suggests that its use is not always accidental. When a reporter talks about whether the Governor will “allow businesses to reopen,” that statement, unconsciously or not, grants as fact that the governor has the authority to decide whether businesses can be in business. When bureaucrats say that lawful carry of firearms has been “allowed” in the Michigan State Capitol for decades, the use of that word implies a privilege that was bestowed upon the people by a higher authority, and which can be revoked by that authority at any time.

Americans should be outraged whenever the word “allow” is applied to almost anything that they might choose to do.

The word “allow” rightly belongs almost exclusively only to parents, teachers, and property owners. Parents might not allow certain words to be used by their children. Teachers might allow a designated amount of free time for students to work on personal projects, and property owners might not allow smoking on their premises. Those are all valid and acceptable uses of the word “allow.” What is not valid or acceptable is the use of the word “allow” in relation to what a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, may decree regarding the rights of the people.

The government of the United States and the governments of the several states, along with their subsidiary governments, derive their authority from “we the people.” We allow these governments certain powers and privileges, for our convenience and the general welfare. We allow them to institute certain laws and regulations for the public good. We do not authorize politicians and bureaucrats to manage our lives or dole out our God-given rights as they might see fit.

Whether the media and government operatives are using the word “allow” intentionally to suggest certain authority, or they’re just lazy about how they express themselves, the result is the same. They are reinforcing the idea that “the state” is the authority, and “the state” may mandate or proscribe virtually any action or behavior of “the people.”

That’s not how it works. Not under our Constitution and the philosophy of liberty upon which our system of government is founded.

Under our system, “We the People” allow government specific authority and duties, but the government doesn’t “allow” us to do anything. We might allow the government to establish laws and regulations, such as the penalty for a serious crime or a speed limit. But we wouldn’t – or shouldn’t – say that the government “allows” us to drive 65 MPH on the freeway. Instead, we would say that driving faster than 65 MPH is prohibited. It is semantics, but the semantics are important. We, the People, have given the government the authority to set speed limits on public roadways. That’s very different from the government granting the privilege of driving and setting restrictions on our exercise of that privilege, but that is what is implied when the word “allow” is used. The word “allow” assumes wide authority and implies that anything falling under that broad authority, is a privilege granted by the “allowing” entity.

Long-time AmmoLand News readers will recall that I’ve raised this issue in the past. When I’ve raised it before, only a few people, mostly within the gun rights community, have seen the significance of this argument. With the whole Chi-Comm virus mess going on now, more people are seeing the word “allow” used against them, and they’re beginning to understand the nefarious nature of that word.

For many, it’s just a feeling. They’re not sure why, but when they see or hear a report that uses the word “allow,” they feel somehow insulted. The same thing with the term “Essential Workers”. Well, all workers are essential, but that is another debate.

Well, they should feel insulted. We should all feel insulted when any reporter, politician, or bureaucrat suggests that our rights are actually privileges bestowed upon us by a benevolent state, and which the state can revoke for any reason, or no reason at all, at any time. The suggestion is an outrage, and we should all be livid every time we hear or see it.

Rights, liberty, freedom – these are not things that the state “allows.” These are core human rights, and they run through virtually everything we do.

Just a few months ago, it would have been outrageous for any reporter or politician to use the word “allow” in reference to churches meeting. Still, today, we have governors, mayors, and the media openly discussing whether or not to “allow” church services. A major metropolitan police force has declared that “Protest is not essential,” and only essential activities are “allowed.” Gun shops and ranges have had to sue to demand that they be able to remain open and operating lawfully.

Suddenly, thanks to fear of this latest Chi-Comm Virus, the word “allow” is being applied to virtually everything we say or do. That must not be allowed to continue. Every time you see the word “allow” in a news story unless it is talking about what “we the people” allow the government to do properly, you should be outraged and should leave a comment or write a letter to the editor calling out the writer’s use of that word. If the reporter is quoting a politician or bureaucrat, challenge the reporter to question the use of that word, and then send a letter or email to the politician or bureaucrat – and their boss – demanding that they stop using language that suggests subjugation of the American people.

Rights are not “allowed” by politicians or bureaucrats. While the word “allow” can be convenient when reporting about government restrictions, it is lazy, inaccurate, and undermines the perception of rights across the board.

So be outraged. Be angry. Be indignant, and let the reporters, bureaucrats, and politicians know that you’re outraged and that you demand that they stop undermining rights and misinforming the public with their sloppy, lazy, or intentionally subversive choice of words. Demand better. Don’t allow them to get away with this reprogramming effort. Spread this message far and wide, and demand that our rights be respected – in deed and in word.

New Mexico Reverting to Old Mexico?

New Mexico Reverting to Old Mexico?
New Mexico Reverting to Old Mexico?

It seems that politicians and their medical advisors have lost sight of the objectives of social distancing. While they still speak in terms of “flattening the curve,” their actions appear to be more focused on eradicating the curve altogether. While that might be a noble goal, it’s not particularly realistic, and it’s not what we the people signed up for.

Recall that the point of “flattening the curve” was to prevent the novel Chinese Corona Virus from overwhelming our healthcare system, resulting in mass casualties due to a lack of medical facilities to care for the sudden flood of cases. Well, we’re now well into, or beyond, the peak period in most places and this “new normal” that we are all living appears to have worked. Even in critical hot-spots like New York City, where heavy population density, combined with high tourism and global travel, resulted in the worst outbreak in the nation, the spread was slowed enough to get through the worst of the disease, and the healthcare system was able to effectively handle the surge.

But now, as the peak is passing in some places and slowly approaching in others, petty tyrants around the country are still flexing their nanny muscles and demanding that businesses remain closed, people stay in their homes, and all “non-essential” activities be curtailed. As Americans have been resoundingly successful at slowing the spread and preventing the anticipated spikes in the disease, some of our “leaders” have shifted the goalposts, insisting that tight restrictions must remain in place until – when? Until there is no more threat from the disease at all? Until the curve goes subterranean?

New Mexico is an excellent case study. With a population of only about 2.1 million people, spread over an area of over 121,500 miles, New Mexico is among the least densely populated states in the nation. There are only 17 people per square mile, and a full 40% of the total population resides in Albuquerque and nearby Santa Fe. That leaves a lot of mostly empty territory, and few opportunities for the rapid spread of a virus like COVID-19. But Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham has clamped down on the state in almost as draconian a fashion as her fellow Democrat, Governor Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan.

One of the things that makes Gov. Lujan Grisham stand out though, is her insistence that gun stores and ranges remain closed, except to provide services to police and other state agents, and only by appointment. This in spite the fact that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security declared firearm businesses to be “essential” in their guidance, not to mention that pesky bit of the U.S. Constitution stating that the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed. Even gun-hating governors in California, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania have backed down on orders for gun stores to close, but not Governor Lujan Grisham.

Gun groups and local activists have filed suit against Lujan Grisham, demanding that she add firearm-related businesses and ranges to the “essential businesses” list, but the governor has doubled down, stating that it is a “badge of honor” to be sued by the NRA.

The lessons being offered up by politicians like Lujan Grisham, are numerous and important. First, she’s teaching us that she doesn’t trust the people who elected her. She’s saying that they must be told what to do and how to do it, and that without her instructions – backed up by burly men and women with guns and badges – she believes the people would just blunder around bumping into one another and infecting each other with COVID-19.

Second, she’s teaching us that she, and politicians like her, respects neither the U.S. Constitution nor that of her state. We all know what the U.S. Constitution says, but here’s what the New Mexico Constitution says:

Sec. 6. [Right to bear arms.]


to keep and bear arms. (As amended November 2, 1971 and November 2,

There is no “except in the case of a virus” clause in there.

Third, she’s teaching us that philosophical purity and adherence to party dogma is more important to her than common sense or political sensibility, and that given the opportunity, she and her ilk, would implement the most draconian gun control bills they could think of, as long as they had the votes to get them passed. For example, look up the text of H.R.5717 to see how far they’re willing to go today, and imagine how much farther they would go with a majority in the House and Senate, and control of the White House.

Fourth, Governor Lujan Grisham is teaching us that, either she doesn’t know anything about guns, gun sales, firearms training, and shooting ranges, or she just doesn’t care.

It’s pretty obvious that a lot of people are feeling vulnerable and insecure at the moment, and a whole bunch of them want to acquire firearms to help ensure the personal safety of themselves and their families. They clearly consider this “essential” enough to risk their health to accomplish, though purchasing a firearm or ammunition usually doesn’t involve long lines or crowds, and there are very easy ways to ensure that doing so in the current environment remains safe. It’s also obvious that a whole bunch of people purchased their first firearm in the weeks before the Governor decided to shut down gun stores and ranges. So that leaves us with numerous first-time gun owners who now can’t get training or engage in safe, supervised practice with their newly acquired defensive tools.

It’s also worth pointing out that some governors have grudgingly allowed outdoor ranges to re-open, while keeping indoor ranges closed. This ignores the fact that indoor ranges, thanks to the efforts they go to in mitigating risks of lead exposure, are probably among the safest places a person could be to avoid contact with an airborne pathogen. Not only do indoor ranges have heavy-duty air-handlers that ensure that air is always moving downrange, away from the firing line, most also have physical dividers between shooting stations on the line.

The important take-away is that none of this matters to Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham. She is proud to trace her family lineage back 12 generations in Nuevo Mexico, and her autocratic, classist approach to governance is reminiscent of that of the old Mexico tradition. Lujan Grisham, who most people probably wouldn’t recognize as Hispanic, unless they were told, seems to gravitate to the role of the caring Patrona looking after her poor, clueless peones, whom she considers incapable of making wise decisions and taking care of themselves. While that description might fit some of her core constituents, the rest of the citizens of New Mexico would rather take responsibility for their own lives, including taking precautions against disease as they see fit, and providing for their own, and their family’s security.

Pandemic America 2020: Just Following Orders… VIDEO

Pandemic April 2020. A man is cited for riding a paddle-board off the coast of California. A father is “detained” for playing catch with his daughter in a city park in Colorado. Police in Kentucky record license plates of cars in church parking lots on Easter Sunday. Businesses are ordered closed around the country, and in some places, “non-essential” items (like gardening supplies and child safety seats) in large department stores are cordoned off and forbidden to be sold.

And of course, gun shops and ranges in many areas have been ordered closed and off-limits.

Around the country, governors, mayors, sheriffs, and other officials, have instituted highly restrictive, blatantly unconstitutional orders. In too many cases, those orders are being actively enforced by police, and in some cases, the National Guard.

The Governor of Rhode Island banned visitors from New York and called out the National Guard to help man checkpoints on highways into the state. When New York Governor Andrew Cuomo threatened to sue Rhode Island for targeting New Yorkers, the RI Governor shifted the policy to ban travel from any state. He doubled down by having officers drive through neighborhoods and go door-to-door looking for out-of-state license plates and “foreign” visitors. When discovered, these “aliens” were ordered to either leave the state or go into strict quarantine.

What’s really disturbing about these incidents, is that police and National Guard personnel are not only obeying the orders, they’re doing so enthusiastically, with no sign of doubt or resistance.

In the Colorado case, officers who weren’t wearing face-masks or gloves, first ordered the man and his family to leave the park, saying that the park was closed. The man argued that he and his family were harming no one, was not near any of the other people using the park, and should not be ordered to leave. That appears to be the point that the officers started taking the matter personally, demanding that the man – who happened to be a former State Trooper – present ID [read show us your papers], which he refused to do, and then handcuffing him. Then holding him in the back of a patrol car for about 15 minutes, while they checked with their supervisors.

In Raleigh, North Carolina, the State Capitol Police decided to break-up a protest at the State Capitol. Over 100 people had gathered in the area of the Capitol, primarily in their cars in a parking lot, to protest the Governor’s “stay at home” order. It’s not completely clear who decided that the protesters needed to be dispersed, but we would hope that the chief or the ranking officers, or at least some of the line officers, might have said;

“Wait a minute… The right to protest is a cherished, fundamental right that’s enshrined and protected in both the U.S. Constitution and the North Carolina Constitution, so as long as the protesters are peaceful, orderly, and avoiding coughing on each other or people in the area, we can’t interfere.”

Unfortunately, that wasn’t their take on the situation. They declared that the protesters were violating the Governor’s order – the order they were there protesting – and told the protesters to disperse, threatening arrest for anyone who failed to obey. They then waded into the gathering, issuing more threats and arresting one middle-aged woman, as she shouted, “God Bless America!”

In the aftermath of that, the Raleigh PD came to the defense of the State Capitol Police, by tweeting out a statement that “Protest is not an essential activity.”

The legal repercussions from these incidents and others like them will undoubtedly play out for years to come. Scholars will debate the nuances of arrest or citation for engaging in an activity, in violation of sweeping restrictions, and the legality of those restrictions. There will also be debate over whether the whole pandemic fear was overblown from the get-go, whether it was significantly moderated by government shut-down orders, or whether it was actually moderated by the voluntary actions of individuals. It’s anyone’s guess how all of those arguments might be resolved if they ever are.

What we do know is that cumulative cellphone location data shows that people reacted almost the same in states where the government took early restrictive action and states where the government was slow to take action. In all cases, the data shows people staying home more, limiting travel, and avoiding crowded places, with movement charts and timelines aligning almost perfectly whether the individuals were under government orders or just responding to the news. That’s a very important observation.

Right now, as it looks like the nation might have turned the corner on the disease, with declining numbers in every region and people feeling the pinch of forced unemployment and confinement, there’s a lot more talk about lifting restrictions and getting back to work. Curiously, a lot of that talk is coming from Democratic governors like Andrew Cuomo of New York and Gavin Newsom of California, echoing what President Trump was saying – and being roundly ridiculed for – three weeks ago.

Polling has also flip-flopped on the issue over the past few weeks, going from about 75% of respondents saying they support the continuation of the restrictions, to about 75% now saying that it’s time to start ending the restrictions.

Interestingly, it’s the “liberal,” sector – the folks who are fond of calling conservatives “fascists” and “authoritarians” – that is still clinging to demands that the government tell them what to do. An informal internet poll on the Microsoft News site showed that a full 59% of over 25,300 respondents, agreed that people should be fined or charged for violating government-mandated social-distancing restrictions. Only 39% disagreed with that idea.

In the long-run, America, and the world will be spending a lot of time looking back on the events of the past six months, trying to figure out what was done right, what was done wrong, and how to handle things better next time.

Within that analysis must be the question of how far police will go in following orders from on high. We saw it during the Katrina disaster, and now we’ve seen it widely in response to the COVID-19 scare; police at all levels tend to simply do what they’re told, even when they know, or should know, that what they are doing is wrong.

That’s a serious concern, and it needs some serious discussion and evaluation. I thought the excuse of “just following orders” had been done away with in Nuremberg.

Re-Learning An Old Lesson

An Old Lesson We Keep Re-Learning

I am taking a moment to look back at a couple of relevant excerpts from Neal Knox – The Gun Rights War.  One is a piece written written in in the aftermath of Hurricane Hugo, which raked the East Coast in 1989.  The piece became what Dad used to call an “evergreen” piece that is always current.

The second was written in the middle of the Los Angeles riots of 1992.  This one became especially relevant when Philadelphia announced that arrests for certain low-level crimes would be “delayed” during the current virus outbreak, and in almost the same breath, that firearms purchase checks would not be acted on by police.

It was in the Los Angeles madness that police gave rare acknowledgement to the fact that you, Dear Citizen, own your own security, defense, and survival.  It is not the police department’s job to protect you personally.  It was in those riots that the “Roof Korean” meme embedded itself in gun lore.

I included both pieces in Neal Knox – The Gun Rights War because they both bring such a simple, yet apparently hard-to-learn lesson:  The Second Amendment exists to protect the security of a free state.  To accomplish that end, the individuals who make up that state must be able to individually bear arms in defense of themselves, their family, and ultimately, their nation.  To infringe on the right to arms — especially in a time of imminent threat — infringes on a human’s right to exist.

As I post this, we face a pandemic.  At the moment, we are in a surreal calm before … something.  No one knows how it will turn out.  Our contingency playbooks are mostly geared toward localized, or at most, regional disasters.  The only ones who had really thought about a global pandemic were those crazy preppers.  You can tell them by their smug smiles as they watch the panic buying.

Californians line up outside of Turners Outdoorsman in Torrance, California to buy guns during the 2020 corona virus outbreak.

No one knows how this will play out because no one has been through it.  We are fortunate to have power and communications, and the stores that are open with only spot shortages — for now.  No one I know has gotten sick — yet.  And, while I am doing my part to make sure I don’t get sick, I am less concerned about being sick than I am about people being stupid.

The really big concern for me is what stupid people may do when faced with a serious problem — such as store shelves that stay empty for a couple of weeks.

And that’s why, along with the modest inventory of extra groceries my wife and I have laid in against a contingency, I have also set aside a few extra boxes of ammo and keep a piece of hardware accessible.   I hope you’re doing the same, and I especially hope that if you’ve made the decision to keep and bear arms, that you have also gotten the training to do it safely and effectively.

God bless us all, our nation, and the rest of the world.  We will get through this.  Let’s learn from the experience.

On Civilization and Hurricane Hugo


System Break Down? Fall Back on the Constitution

National Instant Criminal Background Check System NICS
National Instant Criminal Background Check System NICS

When the system and laws break down, Americans must fall back on their State Constitutions and the U.S. Constitution.

The Constitution represents the trunk of the tree of government and laws, with state constitutions, statutes, and regulations branching off of it. If there is ever a fault or failure in these branches, the natural path is to bypass the problem branch and return to the Constitution. In the current Chinese coronavirus scare, we see examples of various “non-essential” government agencies going to skeleton crews or shutting down entirely. Some of these agencies that are cutting back play a role in the convoluted process and many paperwork hoops that lawful firearm purchasers are required to jump through. That’s a problem.

U.S. Code says that if a National Instant Check System (NICS) criminal background check on a gun purchaser turns up some information indicating that the buyer might be a prohibited person, but the system can’t verify the information, then the file is kicked out of the computer to a human to investigate further, and a “Delay” order is sent to the dealer selling the gun. Under the law, NICS has 3 business days to resolve the question, before the dealer may proceed with the transfer. Some dealers refuse to ever do transfers without a green light from NICS, while most automatically complete transfers after 3 business days.

In the midst of the panic and confusion caused by China’s COVID-19, the FBI, which operates NICS, has sent out a directive to gun dealers, warning them that the “3 business days” allotted for investigation of “Delayed” reports, means 3 days during which all of the various repositories of information that a NICS examiner might call upon to clear-up a question, are open. That means that the closures and skeleton crews mentioned above are making it difficult for NICS examiners – if they are even still working – to do their job, and that gun dealers are supposed to refuse to process any transfer until the government gets its act back together and everyone gets back to work.

This is totally unacceptable.

Gun Shop Closed

The 3-day limit was included in the law as a fail-safe, specifically to prevent the government from being able to block firearm sales via bureaucratic inaction or computer glitches. The definition of “3 business days” has always been Monday through Friday, not including federal holidays.

It is outrageous and indefensible for the FBI to be redefining this term now.

At the time the “Instant Check” compromise was worked out between the NRA and Congress, as an alternative to the 5-day waiting period mandated by the Brady Bill, we opposed the whole concept, but if the bill was going to pass, we were pushing for the best deal possible, including a provision that offered more protection to dealers and gun buyers. Our version of this transfer option would have required NICS to automatically send out a “Proceed” notice to a dealer after 3 business days or 5 calendar days, whichever was shorter. There would have been no discretion left to dealers as to whether or not to transfer the firearm and no negative repercussions for dealers doing so. While that’s still not a perfect solution, it would have provided more legal and PR protection for dealers, and a stronger guarantee for people exercising their right to arms.

Of course, our compromise on the compromise wasn’t adopted and instead, we got “Instant-Check” language that provides that a dealer may transfer the firearm after 3 business days, and the FBI’s reinterpretation turns that on its ear, making the “Delay” indefinite.

Similar chicanery is occurring in states that run their own checks, rather than relying on the FBI’s NICS system, and among state and local agencies that issue concealed carry licenses and permits. As with the FBI, processing background checks and license paperwork appears to be a low priority for many of these agencies, and the response from the agencies and the politicians that oversee them has been abysmal. They simply don’t care. They don’t care that it’s a constitutionally protected right. They don’t care that their bureaucratic indifference could cost someone their life. They don’t care that the red tape is unfair, racially-biased, and discriminatory. They just don’t care at all.

Meanwhile, around the country, dozens of petty dictators, in the form of governors and mayors, are issuing “shelter-in-place” orders, requiring “non-essential” businesses, like gun stores, to close their doors, and in some cases, claiming the authority to legally prohibit the sale of guns, ammunition, gasoline, liquor, and other “dangerous” items. So far, no one has offered up any rational explanation for why such restrictions might be needed or how they would assist in preventing the spread of COVID-19.

Some patriot-gun shops in California, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and probably other states, have refused to close their doors, in spite of orders from politicians and police to do so. As of this writing, there have been no serious confrontations, but seeds have been planted and things could easily get ugly in a hurry.

The really frustrating part of all of this is that there is a simple and obvious solution: Obey the Constitution.

Gun owners are constantly being berated by gun control advocates and the media for not being “reasonable” and accepting “minor inconveniences” in the form of additional restrictions on firearm ownership rights. Well, the laws that are currently on the books, which law-abiding gun owners follow every day, are examples of gun owners being reasonable and compromising. And the current blocks, delays, and bans in the name of protecting society from a germ, are examples of why we resist all of these “minor,” “reasonable,” “commonsense” gun control laws that they keep throwing at us. They’re not minor, reasonable, or commonsense. They’re infringements on our rights, and they cause the most harm at the worst times.

Many supporters of “reasonable” gun control laws in California have begun to realize just how unreasonable those laws really are, but they’ll probably reelect the same politicians who gave them those laws, come November.

In our constitutional republic, the default position for any law or regulation is always supposed to be to the benefit of the individual, not the government, and the burden is always supposed to be on the government, not the individual. This is especially true when dealing with enumerated rights. If we allow the government to institute some laws that encroach on our rights, it is the government’s obligation to ensure that they do so in the most limited way, and it is the government’s burden to meet. If they cannot meet their burden, the process must default to the benefit of individual rights, not the convenience or preference of the government.

In Arizona and many other states, the governor has declared that people with drivers licenses that are expiring, will be given a grace period and their licenses will continue to be recognized as valid for a yet-to-be-determined period. The same sort of blanket extension should apply to all concealed carry licenses and permits, and all firearm owner ID cards and purchase permits in states that require them. If government agencies are unable or unwilling to fulfill their responsibilities in processing firearm and ammunition sales, then those restrictions and regulations are null and void. As to any suggestion of forcing gun stores to close, or banning the sale of firearms or ammunition, such notions should be roundly rejected as blatantly unconstitutional, and immediately quashed by the courts.

The Firearms Coalition is in discussions with attorneys and legal scholars to determine the most expedient way to force a stop to this government neglect, overreach, and duplicity.
A right delayed is a right denied. Saying “We don’t have the personnel,” is not an acceptable excuse for withholding fundamental rights.

Ammunition for the grassroots gun rights movement