Free Republic

I have recently started using the term "disarmenter".   It was derived from a combination of disarm and demented. Tomkat, on freerepublic, suggested that the term disarmist was less clumsy and easier to use.   Which  do you think would be the better term? dis·arm·en·ter (ds-ärmn-tr)  alt.  dis·arm·ist     (ds-ärmst) n. 1. A political operative who works to disarm political opposition through the use of irrational and/or emotional arguments. 2. A person who believes that disarming citizens will reduce crime or unjustified violence, in spite of contrary evidence or facts. 3. A person who wishes to disarm others because they do...

Link to source of the KKK picture The Ku Klux Klan in a parade in Anaheim, California, in 1924, the same year California's CCW law passed, with the purpose of disarming Latino and Chinese legal residents. California's CCW system is still regulated under this law. The following article appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle on July 15th, 1923, page 3, column 1. It mentions that California's CCW (Concealed Carry Weapon) law was passed specifically to prevent Chinese, Latinos and legal immigrants (non-naturalized permanent residents) from being armed. Note that this was from a time in California in which Hispanics...

Spyderco UK Pen Knife was at the center of the false arrest by NYPD KnifeRights.org Gilbert, AZ --(Ammoland.com)- The City of New York has agreed to pay $7,500 to a falsely arrested knife owner in a Knife Rights supported case.The embarrassing settlement shows that the city would rather pay than try to justify its illegal conduct after police declared his knife an illegal “gravity knife” even though the blade did not lock open.The knife owner (a sculptor who uses a knife for his work) was arrested, handcuffed, booked, and placed in a holding cell like a common criminal. “New York...

These Arizona Rangers were gathered together in 1903.  The rifles that I can identify are all 1895 Winchesters.   In 1903 the total ranger force was 26 men.   I count 25 in this picture.   The Ranger Act of 1901 required that every ranger carry an 1895 Winchester and a Colt Single Action Army in .45 Colt.  One Ranger, Private Lonnie McDonald,  had been wounded in February of 1903, and he may not have yet recovered.  I see a few possible gunbelts, but the angle is precisely wrong to see any holstered Colts.   Picture from historynet.com. ©2014 by Dean Weingarten: Permission...

A recent report on how judges sentence felons who are convicted of gun crimes in Minnesota reveals some information that is not obvious.    KSTP spent weeks analysing more than 1,800 cases involving crimes with guns and felons in possession of guns in Minnesota.   They found that in many of the situations, no jail time was added because of the gun offense.   One case is presented, which one might assume, would be one of the most egregious.   The suspect, August Fleming, was charged with second degree assault and with being a felon in possession of a firearm.    It is clear...

Guns Hidden from the Government and Confiscated in Wales The exemplar for restrictive firearms regulation in the United States has been England and Wales.   Some have argued that it was NAZI Germany, but though the 1968 Gun Control Act borrowed heavily from NAZI law, the country and laws that most have referred to has been England.  Wales shares the same laws and Supreme Court as England.   Interestingly, before the British passed their own restrictive firearms laws, the most restrictive law in the Anglosphere was the one passed in New York City, the infamous Sullivan law of 1911.   The first...

A jury in Ashville, North Carolina has found a man not guilty of taking a bear out of season, and of discharging a firearm in city limits, by reason of self defense.   Ernest James Page had always  claimed that he shot the 150-175 pound bear in self defense.  The jury discussed the issue for over two hours, but unanimously agree with Page.  It is significant that Page went to a jury trial, using a court appointed public defender, and won.  The District Attorney justified charging Page with these remarks: Moore said he has dismissed some cases in the past...

The AP used to be a reliable disarmenter organization.  John Lott documented how an AP editor edited out of the story, armed students who helped subdue a university shooter, at the Appalachian Law School.    But this has been changing as the gun culture media has been able to document and challenge AP stories and procedures.   AP has been feeling the heat.  It was with interest that I read this AP story, just before the election.   It starts with a usual disarmenter passive construction:     The latest U.S. school shooting claimed the lives of two students and the teenage...

For those of you who do not know Gary Marbut, I can tell you about him.  He is an activist who believes in the what he is doing, and he believes in restoring limits on government power.   He is smart, dedicated, and a visionary.    I wish that we had a hundred or a thousand of him running in Arizona.  Maybe there are in the rest of the country. I know of him as a second amendment activist.   He is personally responsible for most of the reform that has been done in Montana firearms law.   He virtually created the Montana...

In Michigan, following the kidnap and murder of an Arkansas real estate agent, a number of women real estate agents are studying how to effectively control their guns in a deadly force situation.   The person who is encouraging them is the petite, attractive, Shelley Gottschling, pictured above. There is nothing particularly unusual about this.   Firearm instructors have long noted the ability of women to become excellent shots, and the fact that women do not bring the macho baggage to the range that some men do.   Shelley's mentor, however, notes that she is exceptional.  From mlive.com: "I haven't seen too...

Victims of the Rwandan Genocide were mostly killed with Machetes I was reading an unsigned disarmenter editorial in the yorkdispatch.com.   As is common when a disarmenter does not have a real argument, I could not find a way to comment at the site.   The editorial had some telling statements: Gun laws tend to bring out the fanatic in some people. These are smart folks who can be perfectly reasonable about other issues. But mention common-sense legislation to curb gun violence, and they start frothing at the mouth. They'll tell you about their "cold, dead fingers" and how "only the...

No doubt it was merely a mental slip, but it is hard to make a gun law tougher than an outright ban, which is the current state of the law in the Northern Mariana Islands.   From radionz.co.nz: Lawmakers in the Northern Marianas are looking at enacting legislation that will make it tougher for individuals to own handguns, in the event a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the Weapons Control Act prevails. The current law in the Northern Mariana Islands is a complete ban on the ownership of handguns.   The ban is being challenged, in part, because of the...

This is an interesting case.   Jeremy Sweet is not a rookie.   He is 51 years old, close to retirement.  He has been working at the Phoenix Police Department since July of 2007.  He was transporting prisoners at the time of the incident, driving an unmarked police vehicle.    Not only are the prisoners that he was transporting willing to testify to his actions, but at least one bystander called 911.  There may be surveillance video as well.   From azfamily.com: "He did not get on his police radio," Crump continued. "He did not ask for assistance. He did not document this...

The above chart was created from UNODC data. Many comparisons have been made between the homicide rates of the the United States and various European countries.  They have been made between members of the G-8, or among "developed" or "advanced" countries, or "economically developed" countries, though all of these comparisons suffer from various unstated assumptions, typically that "economic" development is the prime predictor of homicide rates., which clearly is not correct. Here is a comparison of homicide rates among new world countries where the official language is English.   This creates an interesting set of common characteristics.   All of these...

Legal Carry in D.C., for a Brief Period In July, Judge Frederick Scullin Jr.  ruled that the District of Columbia's ban on the carry of weapons outside the home for self defense was unconstitutional under the second amendment.  For a brief few days, the second amendment was respected in the District of Columbia.   The judge granted a stay until 22 October, for the  D.C. government to pass a new law that would meet constitutional requirements. The D.C. government passed a new law, one of the most restrictive in the nation, that Alan Gura, counsel for the plaintiff's, characterized...

On CNN, "progressive" operative Paul Begala reiterates a question asked by leftist Ed. Kilgore: The Washington Monthly blogger Ed Kilgore has asked the right question -- the one any Iowa voter should be putting to Ms. Ernst: "Since you brought it up, exactly what circumstances would justify you shooting a police officer or a soldier in the head?" If he wanted the standard political answer for these questions, it is found in the Declaration of Independence.  The actual shooting started when the British crown attempted to confiscate arms and military stores from local governments. But we do not need...

2nd Lt. Joshua Nelson was off duty when he intervened in a situation where a disturbed young man with a knife was threatening his mother.   The officer used his concealed carry firearm to defuse the situation, and talk the man out of hurting anyone.   Lt. Nelson said that he just used his military training.  From laughlinaf.mil: According to police reports, the young man was mad at his mother, who he had a knife to, because she wouldn't buy him a gun.  Nelson told his wife Brittany to go alert the store manager and call the police. Nelson, who has...

The federal judge who dismissed lawsuits by Tea Party groups against the Internal Revenue Service was nominated by President George W. Bush. The media is making sure everyone knows that. Judge Reggie Walton was “a Republican-appointed federal judge,” Politico tells us. “Walton [was] a President George W. Bush-appointee.” “Walton was nominated as a federal judge in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, by President George W. Bush in 2001,” USA Today chimed in. That background was also noted in stories appearing in “conservative” sites, creating the impression that, even if the decision may be unpopular in some...

Makeshift Barricade inside Canadian Parliament In the recent terror attack on the Canadian Parliament,  Members of Parliament (MP)s fashioned crude spears out of flagpoles.   If such an event happened at the American Capitol, it is likely that members of Congress would have more effective weapons. Members of Congress are restricted from bringing loaded guns into the Capitol, but they can have guns and ammunition in their offices.   In a strange way, the bizarre gun laws of the District of Columbia make it difficult for members to transport the firearms into and out of the building.  From rollcall.com:...

Author with Bike and Gun Moms Demand Action (MDA) disarmenters have threatened to make false 911 calls to police,and encouraged others to do so.   In at least one case, perhaps more, an innocent man was killed by police as a direct response to false allegations in 911 calls.  Last week, in Virginia, an open carrier was falsely accused of robbing a 7-11, in a 911 call.   Fortunately, he was not harmed. Here is his account, from Robert Dickens, as related to the Virginia Citizens Defense League, recounted at opencarry.org:  (PVC stands for  Philip Van Cleave, president of the Virginia...