Santa Barbara shooting: Liberals exploit rampage by selectively ignoring crucial facts

Anti-gun liberals wasted no time exploiting the mass murder shooting, stabbing, and attempted vehicular homicide rampage that took place in the Isla Vista area of Santa Barbara. After posting a YouTube video promising a “day of retribution,” a deeply disturbed madman went on a killing spree leaving six dead and 13 injured. Already some are exploiting the deaths for political purposes, using the victims – and selectively ignoring crucial key facts of this incident – to push a policy agenda that will not make anyone safer. Laws don’t prevent crime; they punish it.

The facts:

• The suspect, a 22-year-old student at a college student, had three previous contacts with local law enforcement according to Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown. There are six victims killed, 13 wounded, and the suspect apparently shot himself in the head.
• The murder spree began at the suspect’s residence with a knife. Three males were killed, victims of multiple stab wounds. “It was a pretty horrific crime scene,” Brown told reporters.
• Following the stabbings, the suspect drove to a sorority, where he shot three female UCSB students, killing two and injuring one.
• The suspect then traveled to a nearby deli, where he left his vehicle to shoot 20-year-old Christopher Martinez — another UCSB student.
• All told, there were 10 separate crime scenes before the mass murder came to an end. Brown said deputies exchanged fire with the suspected gunman twice before his vehicle crashed. The suspect apparently took his own life.
• Three semi-automatic handguns were recovered from the suspect’s car, police said. All of the weapons were legally purchased and registered to the suspect.
• Those injured included at least four by the suspect’s car and eight by gunshot wounds. “He aimed his car at our group of friends and gunned it into us,” one victim says.
• The suspect’s parents – whose father was an assistant director on the 2012 film The Hunger Games – had called the police about a month ago to express concerns about his YouTube videos “regarding suicide and the killing of people.” Police officers interviewed him but concluded he posed no danger, stating they had found him to be a “perfectly polite, kind and wonderful human.”

Despite half of the victims murdered with a knife, the media is calling the incident a “shooting.” It is a shooting, and also a stabbing and vehicular assault with attempted vehicular homicide. Already the left is exploiting the tragedy to push their inane agenda. Gun control does not reduce crime. The gun control measures proposed nationally (all of which failed) after the Sandy Hook shooting included restricting magazine capacity limits to 10 rounds, banning so-called “assault rifles,” and imposing universal background checks. These measures were promoted to stop shootings, reduce crime, and increase our safety and the safety “of the children.”

California has some of the toughest gun control laws in the nation. That didn’t do anything to prevent the three knife murders (half of the victims murdered). Gun control advocates want to ban so-called "assault rifles" - the killer used handguns. Gun control advocates want "universal" background checks - the killer's handguns were all purchased legally with a background check and registered to him. That didn't prevent anything. Gun control advocates want to limit magazine capacity to 10 rounds - California law limits magazine capacity to 10 rounds and the killer used 10 round magazines. This stopped nothing. Further, the suspect used his BMW car as a weapon to injure and attempt to take lives. No gun laws would have changed that.

One of the victim’s parents blames the NRA: “Why did Chris die? Chris died because of craven, irresponsible politicians and the NRA,” an emotional Richard Martinez told reporters outside the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office. “They talk about gun rights, what about Chris’ right to live? When will this insanity stop?”

As a parents, we can only imagine the feelings of grief and loss. Perhaps such a time is not one for rash and selfish statements. Half of the victims and their families are dealing with loss of their own that has nothing to do with guns, the NRA or politics. Making the nation's oldest civil rights organization the subject of one’s own personal witch hunt doesn’t solve anything, and ignores the very real grief and loss suffered by others in this incident.

The NRA supports lawful use of firearms, not murder. The answer to “what about Chris’ right to live?” is that his was stolen from him by a deeply disturbed person. We do, in fact, have a law for that – it’s called homicide. What happened was absolutely wrong. We can’t legislate away insanity or evil – if we could have figured out how to make people not do wrong, we would have done so long ago.

But laws don’t prevent crime; they punish it. Laws define guidelines and boundaries, and provide penalties for violating them, but they don’t enforce themselves. That’s why we have law enforcement officers. Further, even if all the gun control advocates’ wish-list of laws had come to pass, this incident still would have happened exactly as it did. Not a single gun control proposal would have affected the outcome even in the slightest.

Yes, guns (and knives, cars, hands, and other instruments) are used by people to injure and kill. What gun control zealots ignore is that guns are used by people to defend, prevent injury and save lives. Many academic studies and the CDC have reported that law-abiding people use guns to defend themselves at least a half-million times a year. Brenner Brief has reported recently real-life stories of people who have done just that, and of law enforcement officials that support the right of the law-abiding to carry guns because they “save people’s lives.” Death is horrific, and mass murder is tragic. The truly sick and disgusting exploit it to push an agenda that makes us more susceptible to further tragedy by attacking our rights and very means to defend ourselves from criminals and the mentally disturbed.

By Matt MacBradaigh. Matt is a Christian, Husband, Father, Patriot, and Conservative from the Pacific Northwest. Matt writes about the Second Amendment, Gun Control, Gun Rights, and Gun Policy issues and is published on The Bell Towers, The Brenner Brief, PolicyMic. TavernKeepers, and Vocativ.

Follow Me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/2AFight  

Follow Me on Facebook:   https://www.facebook.com/2ndAmendmentFight
 

This article also appears on The Brenner Brief. (Original publication May 26, 2014).

Santa Barbara Shooting: Liberals Exploit Rampage, Selectively Ignore Crucial Facts

by Matt MacBradaigh | May 26, 2014 | News | 0 comments

Anti-gun liberals wasted no time exploiting the mass murder shooting, stabbing, and attempted vehicular homicide rampage that took place in the Isla Vista area of Santa Barbara. After posting a YouTube video promising a “day of retribution,” a deeply disturbed madman went on a killing spree leaving six dead and 13 injured. Already some are exploiting the deaths for political purposes, using the victims – and selectively ignoring crucial key facts of this incident – to push a policy agenda that will not make anyone safer. Laws don’t prevent crime; they punish it.

The facts:

• The suspect, a 22-year-old student at a college student, had three previous contacts with local law enforcement according to Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown. There are six victims killed, 13 wounded, and the suspect apparently shot himself in the head.
• The murder spree began at the suspect’s residence with a knife. Three males were killed, victims of multiple stab wounds. “It was a pretty horrific crime scene,” Brown told reporters.
• Following the stabbings, the suspect drove to a sorority, where he shot three female UCSB students, killing two and injuring one.
• The suspect then traveled to a nearby deli, where he left his vehicle to shoot 20-year-old Christopher Martinez — another UCSB student.
• All told, there were 10 separate crime scenes before the mass murder came to an end. Brown said deputies exchanged fire with the suspected gunman twice before his vehicle crashed. The suspect apparently took his own life.
• Three semi-automatic handguns and forty-one (41) 10-round magazines were recovered from the suspect’s car, police said. All of the weapons were legally purchased and registered to the suspect.
• Those injured included at least four by the suspect’s car and eight by gunshot wounds. “He aimed his carat our group of friends and gunned it into us,” one victim says.
• The suspect’s parents – whose father was an assistant director on the 2012 film The Hunger Games – had called the police about a month ago to express concerns about his YouTube videos “regarding suicide and the killing of people.” Police officers interviewed him but concluded he posed no danger, stating they had found him to be a “perfectly polite, kind and wonderful human.”

Despite half of the victims murdered with a knife, the media is calling the incident a “shooting.” It is a shooting, and also a stabbing and vehicular assault with attempted vehicular homicide. Already the left is exploiting the tragedy to push their inane agenda. Gun control does not reduce crime. The gun control measures proposed nationally (all of which failed) after the Sandy Hook shooting included restricting magazine capacity limits to 10 rounds, banning so-called “assault rifles,” and imposing universal background checks. These measures were promoted to stop shootings, reduce crime, and increase our safety and the safety “of the children.”

California has some of the toughest gun control laws in the nation. That didn’t do anything to prevent the three knife murders (half of the victims murdered). Gun control advocates want to ban so-called “assault rifles” – the killer used handguns. Gun control advocates want “universal” background checks – the killer’s handguns were all purchased legally with a background check and registered to him. That didn’t prevent anything. Gun control advocates want to limit magazine capacity to 10 rounds – California law limits magazine capacity to 10 rounds and the killer used 10 round magazines; forty-one 10-round capacity magazines. This stopped nothing. Further, the suspect used his BMW car as a weapon to injure and attempt to take lives. No gun laws would have changed that.

One of the victim’s parents blames the NRA: “Why did Chris die? Chris died because of craven, irresponsible politicians and the NRA,” an emotional Richard Martinez told reporters outside the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office. “They talk about gun rights, what about Chris’ right to live? When will this insanity stop?”

As a parents, we can only imagine the feelings of grief and loss. Perhaps such a time is not one for rash and selfish statements. Half of the victims and their families are dealing with loss of their own that has nothing to do with guns, the NRA or politics. Making the nation’s oldest civil rights organization the subject of one’s own personal witch hunt doesn’t solve anything, and ignores the very real grief and loss suffered by others in this incident.

The NRA supports lawful use of firearms, not murder. The answer to “what about Chris’ right to live?” is that his was stolen from him by a deeply disturbed person. We do, in fact, have a law for that – it’s called homicide. What happened was absolutely wrong. We can’t legislate away insanity or evil – if we could have figured out how to make people not do wrong, we would have done so long ago.

But laws don’t prevent crime; they provide for punishment once caught after breaking the law. Laws define guidelines and boundaries, and provide penalties for violating them, but they don’t enforce themselves. That’s why we have law enforcement officers. Further, even if all the gun control advocates’ wish-list of laws had come to pass, this incident still would have happened exactly as it did. Not a single gun control proposal would have affected the outcome even in the slightest.

Yes, guns (and knives, cars, hands, and other instruments) are used by people to injure and kill. What gun control zealots ignore is that guns are also used by people to defend, prevent injury and save lives. Many academic studies and the CDC have reported that law-abiding people use guns to defend themselves at least a half-million times a year. Brenner Brief has reported recently real-life stories of people who have done just that, and of law enforcement officials that support the right of the law-abiding to carry guns because they “save people’s lives.” Death is horrific, and mass murder is tragic. The truly sick and disgusting exploit it to push an agenda that makes us more susceptible to further tragedy by attacking our rights and very means to defend ourselves from criminals and the mentally disturbed.

This article was originally published on Brenner Brief. Original publish date May 26, 2014. Original author, Matt MacBradaigh.

Last year was an epic year of fail for gun control advocates. The anti-gun bullies

thought they sensed sea change in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting – that sweeping gun control restrictions were all but a done deal. In retrospect, nothing was further from the truth. They relied on lies and deception to sell their case, pushed an agenda in defiance of the people’s desires, and policies that would have done nothing to make the public safer.
Ultimately, liberal, anti-gun zealots lost in nearly every arena in which they attempted to force new restrictions: whether it was a national assaults weapon ban that died in the Senate or gun control measures that stalled in state legislatures.

Gun control advocates made at least five significant mistakes in the gun control debate in 2013:

1 Colorado recall

Though at first, it seemed the anti-gun lobby won in Colorado, they ended up suffering a significant loss in the state. Initially, state Democrats successfully pushed through two gun control measures. But the people of Colorado responded by recalling the two state lawmakers that spearheaded the legislation.  The Colorado recall election garnered attention, money, and input nationally as a broad referendum on gun control. The special elections were widely seen as a test of whether swing-state voters would accept gun restrictions. Particularly noteworthy is that anti-gun organizations outspent pro-gun groups by a margin of 6-to-1 ($3 million by anti-gun activists compared to $540,000 by recall proponents) and still lost the recall. The Colorado Republican Party said the vote sends “a loud and clear message to out-of-touch Democrats across the nation.” The recall results seem to confirm that assessment.

If the recall effort is truly a referendum nationally, then the message is that gun control is a losing policy for liberals. Colorado Democrats arrogantly pushed their own agenda, in defiance of strong opposition from the people they represent, and from the Colorado Sheriff’s association warning that the bill was not enforceable. They paid for their mistake with their seats in the legislature.

2 Throwing a Fit about Good Guys with Guns

The NRA’s response to the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown was to recommend more armed good guys at schools – whether police officers or teachers and other school staff. Liberal politicians, media and school officials went ballistic over the suggestion. The executive director of the Connecticut Association of Schools and the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference, said the NRA comments hit her “like a punch in the stomach.” Talking heads had a heyday, trying to spin the NRA as insensitive monsters ‘out of touch’ with the rest of America. Wasn’t it obvious, they mused, that the last thing we need was more guns near children?

It turns out the NRA’s critics were the ones out of touch.

America already makes ample use of armed good guys in schools. According to the Department of Justice, nearly 17,000 officers from police and sheriff departments serve as School Resource Officers (SRO’s) in roughly half of all schools. Following the tragedy at Columbine High School in 1999, President Clinton signed a bill that provided millions in additional funding through the ‘COPS in Schools’ program to do exactly as the NRA suggested following Sandy Hook.

And it turns out, these armed good guys do in fact stop and minimize harm to our children. In February, a 14 year old student was non-fatally shot in the back of the neck at an Atlanta Middle School. However, “an armed guard disarmed the shooter moments after the shooting,” resulting in zero loss of life. Had there been no armed guard able to respond within moments, the incident could have been very different. Likewise, in December, an armed SRO stopped a school shooting at Arapahoe High School in Centennial, CO, where one student was shot and later died. Arapahoe County Sheriff Grayson Robinson said: “The rampage might have resulted in many more casualties had it not been for the quick response of a deputy sheriff who was working as a school resource officer at the school.” The officer’s quick response meant the incident was over “in less than 80 seconds.” By contrast, the Columbine incident lasted almost an hour. The shooter, a student, clearly intended more harm, bringing a pump-action shotgun, 125 shotgun shells, a machete, and three molotov cocktails with him. It likely would have been much worse without an ‘armed good guy’ to respond.

These real-life stories drive home the point to regular people whose children attend public schools It makes a difference in policy. Following Newtown, some districts have also allowed for school staff to be armed while at school as well. Even Newtown’s school board unanimously voted for more armed security, clearly demonstrating the public believes the anti-gun lobby is on the wrong side of this issue.

3 Background checks falsehoods

President Obama and others falsely claimed “40% of guns were bought without a background check at gun shows”. He was given three Pinocchio’s by the Washington Post Fact Checker, meaning there are “significant factual errors and/or obvious contradictions” The measures, which reportedly enjoyed support of 90% Americans, failed to get out of the Democrat-controlled Senate. They would have surely failed in the Republican-controlled House even if they had passed in the Senate.

The President’s claim rested on falsely citing a 20 year old study of 251 people that was taken from before Federal law even required dealers to run background checks on all sales. Even the study’s authors confirmed the range President Obama cited is false. Department of Justice studies show that less than 1% of criminals obtain guns from gun shows.

Second, it was a myth that 90% of Americans supported “universal” background checks. Multiple articles in the Washington Post cited this as though it were ‘fact’. Given that the public was misled about the truth about the percentage of guns bought at gun shows “without background checks”, this response might have been understandable. But digging into the survey questions revealed that people were only asked if they would support background checks “at gun shows” – not universally. So the surveys didn’t show what they were claimed to show. This was ultimately evident in the failure to get the amendment out of committee in the Senate.

Finally, there are actually no gun show or online gun sale loopholes. According to the ATF, Federal law requires FFL’s to run background checks on all sales, even at gun shows. Online sales are subject to all Federal law requirements as well. Any firearm shipped over state lines must ship to a FFL who must then run a background check. It is pure myth that one can go to “GunsRUs.com” and have a gun shipped to their doorstep.

The fact that anti-gun advocates lost so decisively – even on this issue that was supposedly had almost total public support, shows what a mistake it was to pursue this grossly misguided policy.

4 Obsessing on the “evil” AR-15

Liberal anti-gun organizations, politicians and media love the ‘evil’ AR-15 narrative; that the AR-15 is a “weapon of war”, meant only for soldiers and mass killing. Any news story featuring an AR-15 gets ample airtime; shootings without one quickly fade from headlines. For example, following the Navy Yard shooting, media immediately exploited the supposed role of the AR-15 rifle, prominently displaying images of AR-15 rifles on the front page, and showing computer simulations of how the shooter reportedly “used” an AR-15 – until the FBI confirmed there was no AR-15 used in the shooting.

Anti-gun politicians routinely lie about the AR-15′s capabilities, calling it a a military weapon (it isn’t), designed for close-quarters combat (it’s not), and claiming it can fire “.30 caliber clip in a half-second”, which isn’t even a grammatically – much less technically – accurate sentence. The AR-15 rifle has similar cosmetic appearance to the military M4 rifle. This makes it easy for unscrupulous agenda-pushers to make sound scary to the general public who may be unfamiliar with them.

Appearances aside, the facts reported by the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports show that rifles are used to kill very little in the U.S. – just over 300 out of nearly 13,000 murders in both 2011 and 2012, and so-called “assault rifles” are a subset within that category. Even if these anti-gun bullies were to get their way on this issue, there would be almost no reduction in our murder rate. Handguns, not rifles, are used far more often in homicides, accounting for nearly 70% of murders in 2011 and 2012. Mass murder, though sensational, is responsible for less than 100 out nearly 13,000 annual homicides. Focusing on “evil” rifles may be sensational, drive ratings and sell media advertising, but they aren’t responsible for very much homicide in the U.S. Ultimately, anti-gun politicians and lobbyists lost on their renewed push for a so-called “assault weapons ban”, which didn’t even make it out of committee in Congress.

5 Lying to inflate “gun deaths”

Lying is key to the liberal anti-gun agenda, which including lying about the number of “gun deaths” that occur each year. Mainstream media outlets, politicians, and anti-gun organizations all routinely cite “30,000 annual U.S. gun deaths.” when hyping the dangers of guns and the need for more gun control. The truth is 20,000 of these “gun deaths” are self-inflicted suicides with a gun (approximately half of the 40,000 annual suicides). While gun homicides are less than 9,000 in each of the last 3 years, which represents nearly an all time low in the U.S. murder rate.

Suicide is a genuine public health issue, but it is not related to crime, homicide and gun control policy. Magazine capacity, banning certain models of guns (particularly rifles), gun shows and background checks have no bearing on suicides. Mental health professionals confirm a person determined to die will find a way. A Harvard-published study of 36 developed nations by professors Don Kates and Gary Mauser found that gun availability had no effect on suicide rates. Many nations with low gun availability have higher suicide rates than nations with higher gun availability. Many nations with strict gun control and almost no legal guns available have significantly higher suicide rates than the U.S. Does. In fact, though gun sales are setting records in the U.S., the suicide rate is declining and is lower today than it was in the 1950′s, 60′s, 70′s or 80′s.

Anti-gun zealots conveniently leave out the truth that a full two-thirds of the deaths they cite have nothing to do with murder and crime. More importantly, the gun control legislation they propose does nothing to address suicide deaths. They resort to conflating suicide data with homicide crime data to make the case for gun control seem like it’s a bigger problem than it really is.

So what does this all mean?

These five mistakes share some common factors: they almost all involve lies and deception to sell the problem. In the lone exception – Colorado – they skipped selling it altogether and went straight to instituting policy without popular support. This is the second shared characteristic: they all involve attempts to push policy without broad support from ‘We the People’. Finally, each of the proposed policies do nothing to make people legitimately safer. While outside the scope of this article, they all, in fact, are counter-productive. Professors Kates and Mauser’s study found that gun control was counter-productive to reducing crime, homicide and suicide.

But in short, good guys with guns do stop bad guys, background checks at gun shows might stop less than 1% of criminal purchases at best, AR-15 rifles are rarely used in murder, and our murder rate is near an all-time low. Any public policy must be subject to interest-balancing: is the cost of adopting the policy worth the benefit received from doing so. All of these measures fail this test miserably.

As an added bonus that didn’t make it into the original article:

6. Record Gun Sales in 2013

The effect of the anti-gun Left’s rabbid mouth-frothing is to boost gun sales to record-breaking 23 million NICS checks in 2013. The record was previously set in 2012 in the run-up to the election. Gun dealers reported at least a quarter of the sales were to first-time buyers. Naysayers may note that not all NICS checks pass – meaning a sale may be prohibited. That’s true, but it’s an insignificant percentage. And of note is that more than one firearm may be purchased at the same time and the entire transaction will get one single NICS check. So in all probability, more than 23 million firearms were bought in 2013. Special Thanks to Obama, Feinstein, Jumpin’ Joe Biden, Moms Demand Stupidity, Mayors Who’ve Broken the Law, and others.

By Matt MacBradaigh. Matt is a Christian, Husband, Father, Patriot, and Conservative from the Pacific Northwest. Matt writes about the Second Amendment, Gun Control, Gun Rights, and Gun Policy issues and is published on The Bell Towers, The Brenner Brief, PolicyMic. TavernKeepers, and Vocativ.

Follow Me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/2AFight  

Follow Me on Facebook:   https://www.facebook.com/2ndAmendmentFight
 

This article also appears on The Bell Towers (Original publication March 6, 2014).

Top 5 Gun Control Failures of 2013

by Matt MacBradaigh | Mar 6, 2014 | Gun Control Facts | 0 comments

2013 was an epic year of fail for gun control advocates. The anti-gun bullies thought they sensed sea change in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting – that sweeping gun control restrictions were all but a done deal. In retrospect, nothing was further from the truth. They relied on lies and deception to sell their case, pushed an agenda in defiance of the people’s desires, and policies that would have done nothing to make the public safer.

Ultimately, liberal, anti-gun zealots lost in nearly every arena in which they attempted to force new restrictions: whether it was a national assaults weapon ban that died in the Senate or gun control measures that stalled in state legislatures.

Gun control advocates made at least five significant mistakes in the gun control debate in 2013:

1 Colorado recall

Though at first, it seemed the anti-gun lobby won in Colorado, they ended up suffering a significant loss in the state. Initially, state Democrats successfully pushed through two gun control measures. But the people of Colorado responded by recalling the two state lawmakers that spearheaded the legislation.  The Colorado recall election garnered attention, money, and input nationally as a broad referendum on gun control. The special elections were widely seen as a test of whether swing-state voters would accept gun restrictions. Particularly noteworthy is that anti-gun organizations outspent pro-gun groups by a margin of 6-to-1 ($3 million by anti-gun activists compared to $540,000 by recall proponents) and still lost the recall. The Colorado Republican Party said the vote sends “a loud and clear message to out-of-touch Democrats across the nation.” The recall results seem to confirm that assessment.

If the recall effort is truly a referendum nationally, then the message is that gun control is a losing policy for liberals. Colorado Democrats arrogantly pushed their own agenda, in defiance of strong opposition from the people they represent, and from the Colorado Sheriff’s association warning that the bill was not enforceable. They paid for their mistake with their seats in the legislature.

2 Throwing a Fit about Good Guys with Guns

The NRA’s response to the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown was to recommend more armed good guys at schools – whether police officers or teachers and other school staff. Liberal politicians, media and school officials went ballistic over the suggestion. The executive director of the Connecticut Association of Schools and the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference, said the NRA comments hit her “like a punch in the stomach.” Talking heads had a heyday, trying to spin the NRA as insensitive monsters ‘out of touch’ with the rest of America. Wasn’t it obvious, they mused, that the last thing we need was more guns near children?

It turns out the NRA’s critics were the ones out of touch.

America already makes ample use of armed good guys in schools. According to the Department of Justice, nearly 17,000 officers from police and sheriff departments serve as School Resource Officers (SRO’s) in roughly half of all schools. Following the tragedy at Columbine High School in 1999, President Clinton signed a bill that provided millions in additional funding through the ‘COPS in Schools’ program to do exactly as the NRA suggested following Sandy Hook.

And it turns out, these armed good guys do in fact stop and minimize harm to our children. In February, a 14 year old student was non-fatally shot in the back of the neck at an Atlanta Middle School. However, “an armed guard disarmed the shooter moments after the shooting,” resulting in zero loss of life. Had there been no armed guard able to respond within moments, the incident could have been very different. Likewise, in December, an armed SRO stopped a school shooting at Arapahoe High School in Centennial, CO, where one student was shot and later died. Arapahoe County Sheriff Grayson Robinson said: “The rampage might have resulted in many more casualties had it not been for the quick response of a deputy sheriff who was working as a school resource officer at the school.” The officer’s quick response meant the incident was over “in less than 80 seconds.” By contrast, the Columbine incident lasted almost an hour. The shooter, a student, clearly intended more harm, bringing a pump-action shotgun, 125 shotgun shells, a machete, and three molotov cocktails with him. It likely would have been much worse without an ‘armed good guy’ to respond.

These real-life stories drive home the point to regular people whose children attend public schools It makes a difference in policy. Following Newtown, some districts have also allowed for school staff to be armed while at school as well. Even Newtown’s school board unanimously voted for more armed security, clearly demonstrating the public believes the anti-gun lobby is on the wrong side of this issue.

3 Background checks falsehoods

President Obama and others falsely claimed “40% of guns were bought without a background check at gun shows”. He was given three Pinocchio’s by the Washington Post Fact Checker, meaning there are “significant factual errors and/or obvious contradictions” The measures, which reportedly enjoyed support of 90% Americans, failed to get out of the Democrat-controlled Senate. They would have surely failed in the Republican-controlled House even if they had passed in the Senate.

The President’s claim rested on falsely citing a 20 year old study of 251 people that was taken from before Federal law even required dealers to run background checks on all sales. Even the study’s authors confirmed the range President Obama cited is false. Department of Justice studies show that less than 1% of criminals obtain guns from gun shows.

Second, it was a myth that 90% of Americans supported “universal” background checks. Multiple articles in the Washington Post cited this as though it were ‘fact’. Given that the public was misled about the truth about the percentage of guns bought at gun shows “without background checks”, this response might have been understandable. But digging into the survey questions revealed that people were only asked if they would support background checks “at gun shows” – not universally. So the surveys didn’t show what they were claimed to show. This was ultimately evident in the failure to get the amendment out of committee in the Senate.

Finally, there are actually no gun show or online gun sale loopholes. According to the ATF, Federal law requires FFL’s to run background checks on all sales, even at gun shows. Online sales are subject to all Federal law requirements as well. Any firearm shipped over state lines must ship to a FFL who must then run a background check. It is pure myth that one can go to “GunsRUs.com” and have a gun shipped to their doorstep.

The fact that anti-gun advocates lost so decisively – even on this issue that was supposedly had almost total public support, shows what a mistake it was to pursue this grossly misguided policy.

4 Obsessing on the “evil” AR-15

Liberal anti-gun organizations, politicians and media love the ‘evil’ AR-15 narrative; that the AR-15 is a “weapon of war”, meant only for soldiers and mass killing. Any news story featuring an AR-15 gets ample airtime; shootings without one quickly fade from headlines. For example, following the Navy Yard shooting, media immediately exploited the supposed role of the AR-15 rifle, prominently displaying images of AR-15 rifles on the front page, and showing computer simulations of how the shooter reportedly “used” an AR-15 – until the FBI confirmed there was no AR-15 used in the shooting.

Anti-gun politicians routinely lie about the AR-15′s capabilities, calling it a a military weapon (it isn’t), designed for close-quarters combat (it’s not), and claiming it can fire “.30 caliber clip in a half-second”, which isn’t even a grammatically – much less technically – accurate sentence. The AR-15 rifle has similar cosmetic appearance to the military M4 rifle. This makes it easy for unscrupulous agenda-pushers to make sound scary to the general public who may be unfamiliar with them.

Appearances aside, the facts reported by the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports show that rifles are used to kill very little in the U.S. – just over 300 out of nearly 13,000 murders in both 2011 and 2012, and so-called “assault rifles” are a subset within that category. Even if these anti-gun bullies were to get their way on this issue, there would be almost no reduction in our murder rate. Handguns, not rifles, are used far more often in homicides, accounting for nearly 70% of murders in 2011 and 2012. Mass murder, though sensational, is responsible for less than 100 out nearly 13,000 annual homicides. Focusing on “evil” rifles may be sensational, drive ratings and sell media advertising, but they aren’t responsible for very much homicide in the U.S. Ultimately, anti-gun politicians and lobbyists lost on their renewed push for a so-called “assault weapons ban”, which didn’t even make it out of committee in Congress.

5 Lying to inflate “gun deaths”

Lying is key to the liberal anti-gun agenda, which including lying about the number of “gun deaths” that occur each year. Mainstream media outlets, politicians, and anti-gun organizations all routinely cite “30,000 annual U.S. gun deaths.” when hyping the dangers of guns and the need for more gun control. The truth is 20,000 of these “gun deaths” are self-inflicted suicides with a gun (approximately half of the 40,000 annual suicides). While gun homicides are less than 9,000 in each of the last 3 years, which represents nearly an all time low in the U.S. murder rate.

Suicide is a genuine public health issue, but it is not related to crime, homicide and gun control policy. Magazine capacity, banning certain models of guns (particularly rifles), gun shows and background checks have no bearing on suicides. Mental health professionals confirm a person determined to die will find a way. A Harvard-published study of 36 developed nations by professors Don Kates and Gary Mauser found that gun availability had no effect on suicide rates. Many nations with low gun availability have higher suicide rates than nations with higher gun availability. Many nations with strict gun control and almost no legal guns available have significantly higher suicide rates than the U.S. Does. In fact, though gun sales are setting records in the U.S., the suicide rate is declining and is lower today than it was in the 1950′s, 60′s, 70′s or 80′s.

Anti-gun zealots conveniently leave out the truth that a full two-thirds of the deaths they cite have nothing to do with murder and crime. More importantly, the gun control legislation they propose does nothing to address suicide deaths. They resort to conflating suicide data with homicide crime data to make the case for gun control seem like it’s a bigger problem than it really is.

So what does this all mean?

These five mistakes share some common factors: they almost all involve lies and deception to sell the problem. In the lone exception – Colorado – they skipped selling it altogether and went straight to instituting policy without popular support. This is the second shared characteristic: they all involve attempts to push policy without broad support from ‘We the People’. Finally, each of the proposed policies do nothing to make people legitimately safer. While outside the scope of this article, they all, in fact, are counter-productive. Professors Kates and Mauser’s study found that gun control was counter-productive to reducing crime, homicide and suicide.

But in short, good guys with guns do stop bad guys, background checks at gun shows might stop less than 1% of criminal purchases at best, AR-15 rifles are rarely used in murder, and our murder rate is near an all-time low. Any public policy must be subject to interest-balancing: is the cost of adopting the policy worth the benefit received from doing so. All of these measures fail this test miserably.

An added bonus that didn’t make it into the original article:

6. Record Gun Sales in 2013

The effect of the anti-gun Left’s rabbid mouth-frothing is to boost gun sales to record-breaking 23 million NICS checks in 2013. The record was previously set in 2012 in the run-up to the election. Gun dealers reported at least a quarter of the sales were to first-time buyers. Naysayers may note that not all NICS checks pass – meaning a sale may be prohibited. That’s true, but it’s an insignificant percentage (historically less than 2%). And of note is that more than one firearm may be purchased at the same time and the entire transaction will get one single NICS check. So in all probability, more than 23 million firearms were bought in 2013. Special Thanks to Obama, Feinstein, Jumpin’ Joe Biden, Moms Demand Stupidity, Mayors Who’ve Broken the Law, and others.

This article was originally published on The Bell Towers. Original publish date Mar 6, 2014. Original author, Matt MacBradaigh.

State Magazine Capacity Laws Violate the Second Amendment

State magazine capacity laws violate the Second Amendment. Nearly all state laws were passed prior to recent Supreme Court gun rights cases, but in the light of the rulings they clearly violate the people’s right to keep and bear arms.

Several states have laws restricting the capacity of magazines in firearms. With the exception of Colorado, these laws were passed prior to several recent Supreme Court gun rights cases. However, now the Court has ruled that the Second Amendment: protects the individual’s right to keep and bear arms (D.C. v Heller, 2008); that arms lawfully protected are those “in common use at the time” (U.S. v Miller, 1939; Heller, 2008; McDonald v Chicago, 2010); and the 14th Amendment extends Second Amendment protections to all states (McDonald, 2010). In the light of these Supreme Court rulings, it is clear that magazine capacity restriction laws violate the Second Amendment’s protections to the people’s civil right to keep and bear arms.

The Second Amendment protects the right of the individual to keep and bear arms – not ‘the right to own a single-shot musket’, but “arms”. In Heller, The Supreme Court defines what “arms” means in legal and historical context:

Before addressing the verbs “keep” and “bear,” we interpret their object: “Arms.” The 18th-century meaning is no different from the meaning today…defined “arms” as “weapons of offen[s]e, or armor of defen[s]e.”…Timothy Cunningham’s important 1771 legal dictionary defined “arms” as “any thing that a man wears for his defence, or takes into his hands, or useth in wrath to cast at or strike another” (p.7).

 All firearms constitute arms according the Supreme Court: “The Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding” (p.8). While this doesn’t mean any arms whatsoever, in Heller the Court upheld previous legal restrictions from Miller on “dangerous and unusual” weapons, they also re-affirmed that what is protected are weapons “in common use at the time”. This is further upheld in McDonald.

Rifles with magazines have been in existence for nearly two centuries and are in very common use today. The ATF defines a rifle as “any weapon which will or is designed to or may readily be converted to expel a projectile by the action of an explosive” under Federal law § 921(a)(3)(A). Magazines are a part of the rifle, and all rifles, with the sole exception of single-shot rifles, have them. A magazine is an ammunition storage and feeding device in a firearm. Magazines can be detachable or internal. Without the magazine, rifle function is impaired, or is nonfunctional; some firearms will not fire unless the magazine is attached. Federal law considers magazines to comprise 3 of the 20 parts of a firearm under section § 922(r).

Rifles featuring magazines have been commonplace since the 1800′s. At this time, magazines were internal. The first bolt-action rifle was invented in 1824. Bolt-action and lever-action rifles with magazines became increasingly prevalent throughout the 1800′s: the Spencer repeating rifle utilized a tube magazine, while the M1885 Remington-Lee which featured an internal box magazine. Since the early 1900′s, modern rifles more commonly have detachable magazines. The 1911 Colt handgun, still “in common use” today, features detachable box magazines. The Thompson “Tommy gun” was invented in 1919 and features detachable box and drum magazines. The Remington Model 8 and 81, first developed in 1906 with attached box magazines, were later adapted for detachable box magazines.

Today, detachable box magazines are common in everything from bolt-action rifles, like the Remington 700 to semi-automatic AR-15s, as well as virtually all semi-automatic handguns. Because today’s detachable box magazines are so common, many people think of magazines as separate objects, but they are integral to the function of rifles. So-called “high capacity” or “large capacity” magazines are ‘standard’ every place not prohibited by law.

How common are they? No one has a precise count of magazines, but the numbers easily range from tens of millions to billions. AR-15 variants, for instance, are designed to use a 30 round magazine as standard. NATO countries created the STANAG protocol to standardize magazine features including 30 round capacity. Over 70 countries have produced tens of millions of rifles that accept STANAG magazines with magazine production for these rifles possibly into the billions. Similarly, AK47 variants – with standard 30 round magazines – number an estimated 100 million produced, with magazine production also likely in the billions. It is legal to import these magazines into the U.S. This is just two popular rifles; there are many others, like the Mini-14, FAL, Uzi, H&K 91, and others. Estimates of so-called “high” capacity magazines in the U.S. range from 40 million to 130 million. A 2004 report to the Dept. of Justice (at the close of the ten-year Federal Assault Weapons Ban, which included ban on new production magazines over 10 rounds) estimated nearly 30 million “large capacity” magazines. Millions have been produced and imported every years since the ban was ended. According to the ATF, over 6.5 million firearms were manufactured and over 3.2 million firearms imported in 2011 alone. Major U.S. firearms manufacturers, such as Colt, Ruger, and Mossberg, ship 30 round magazines as standard with their rifles. New production magazines from manufacturers like Magpul, and importers of surplus magazines add to the number annually.

Semi-automatic rifles that utilize detachable box magazines with a standard capacity of 30 rounds have been “overwhelmingly chosen by the American people” for lawful purposes including home and self-defense and hunting. That, according to Heller (pp.55-56) qualifies them as “in common use”, and “as we have explained, that the sorts of weapons protected were those “in common use at the time” (p.55). Therefore laws that restrict their use violate the protections under the Second Amendment. In McDonald, the Court made clear that the 14th Amendment ensures Second Amendment rights cannot be infringed upon by individual states, and the Court struck down Illinois’ unconstitutional gun law. The same must be applied to every state that currently violates the Second Amendment’s protections by restricting magazine capacity.

By Matt MacBradaigh. Matt is a Christian, Husband, Father, Patriot, and Conservative from the Pacific Northwest. Matt writes about the Second Amendment, Gun Control, Gun Rights, and Gun Policy issues and is published on The Bell Towers, The Brenner Brief, PolicyMic. TavernKeepers, and Vocativ.

Follow Me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/2AFight  

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This article also appears on The Brenner Brief. (Original publication November 1, 2013).

State Magazine Capacity Laws Violate the Second Amendment

by Matt MacBradaigh | Nov 1, 2013 | 2nd Amendment Facts | 0 comments

State magazine capacity laws violate the Second Amendment. Nearly all state laws were passed prior to recent Supreme Court gun rights cases, but in the light of the rulings they clearly violate the people’s right to keep and bear arms.

Several states have laws restricting the capacity of magazines in firearms. With the exception of Colorado, these laws were passed prior to several recent Supreme Court gun rights cases. However, now the Court has ruled that the Second Amendment: protects the individual’s right to keep and bear arms (D.C. v Heller, 2008); that arms lawfully protected are those “in common use at the time” (U.S. v Miller, 1939; Heller, 2008; McDonald v Chicago, 2010); and the 14th Amendment extends Second Amendment protections to all states (McDonald, 2010). In the light of these Supreme Court rulings, it is clear that magazine capacity restriction laws violate the Second Amendment’s protections to the people’s civil right to keep and bear arms.

The Second Amendment protects the right of the individual to keep and bear arms – not ‘the right to own a single-shot musket’, but “arms”. In Heller, The Supreme Court defines what “arms” means in legal and historical context:

Before addressing the verbs “keep” and “bear,” we interpret their object: “Arms.” The 18th-century meaning is no different from the meaning today…defined “arms” as “weapons of offen[s]e, or armor of defen[s]e.”…Timothy Cunningham’s important 1771 legal dictionary defined “arms” as “any thing that a man wears for his defence, or takes into his hands, or useth in wrath to cast at or strike another” (p.7).

All firearms constitute arms according the Supreme Court: “The Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding” (p.8). While this doesn’t mean any arms whatsoever, in Heller the Court upheld previous legal restrictions from Miller on “dangerous and unusual” weapons, they also re-affirmed that what is protected are weapons “in common use at the time”. This is further upheld in McDonald.

Rifles with magazines have been in existence for nearly two centuries and are in very common use today. The ATF defines a rifle as “any weapon which will or is designed to or may readily be converted to expel a projectile by the action of an explosive” under Federal law § 921(a)(3)(A). Magazines are a part of the rifle, and all rifles, with the sole exception of single-shot rifles, have them. A magazine is an ammunition storage and feeding device in a firearm. Magazines can be detachable or internal. Without the magazine, rifle function is impaired, or is nonfunctional; some firearms will not fire unless the magazine is attached. Federal law considers magazines to comprise 3 of the 20 parts of a firearm under section § 922(r).

Rifles featuring magazines have been commonplace since the 1800′s. At this time, magazines were internal. The first bolt-action rifle was invented in 1824. Bolt-action and lever-action rifles with magazines became increasingly prevalent throughout the 1800′s: the Spencer repeating rifle utilized a tube magazine, while the M1885 Remington-Lee which featured an internal box magazine. Since the early 1900′s, modern rifles more commonly have detachable magazines. The 1911 Colt handgun, still “in common use” today, features detachable box magazines. The Thompson “Tommy gun” was invented in 1919 and features detachable box and drum magazines. The Remington Model 8 and 81, first developed in 1906 with attached box magazines, were later adapted for detachable box magazines.

Today, detachable box magazines are common in everything from bolt-action rifles, like the Remington 700 to semi-automatic AR-15s, as well as virtually all semi-automatic handguns. Because today’s detachable box magazines are so common, many people think of magazines as separate objects, but they are integral to the function of rifles. So-called “high capacity” or “large capacity” magazines are ‘standard’ every place not prohibited by law.

How common are they? No one has a precise count of magazines, but the numbers easily range from tens of millions to billions. AR-15 variants, for instance, are designed to use a 30 round magazine as standard. NATO countries created the STANAG protocol to standardize magazine features including 30 round capacity. Over 70 countries have produced tens of millions of rifles that accept STANAG magazines with magazine production for these rifles possibly into the billions. Similarly, AK47 variants – with standard 30 round magazines – number an estimated 100 million produced, with magazine production also likely in the billions. It is legal to import these magazines into the U.S. This is just two popular rifles; there are many others, like the Mini-14, FAL, Uzi, H&K 91, and others. Estimates of so-called “high” capacity magazines in the U.S. range from 40 million to 130 million. A 2004 report to the Dept. of Justice (at the close of the ten-year Federal Assault Weapons Ban, which included ban on new production magazines over 10 rounds) estimated nearly 30 million “large capacity” magazines. Millions have been produced and imported every years since the ban was ended. According to the ATF, over 6.5 million firearms were manufactured and over 3.2 million firearms imported in 2011 alone. Major U.S. firearms manufacturers, such as Colt, Ruger, and Mossberg, ship 30 round magazines as standard with their rifles. New production magazines from manufacturers like Magpul, and importers of surplus magazines add to the number annually.

Semi-automatic rifles that utilize detachable box magazines with a standard capacity of 30 rounds have been “overwhelmingly chosen by the American people” for lawful purposes including home and self-defense and hunting. That, according to Heller (pp.55-56) qualifies them as “in common use”, and “as we have explained, that the sorts of weapons protected were those “in common use at the time” (p.55). Therefore laws that restrict their use violate the protections under the Second Amendment. In McDonald, the Court made clear that the 14th Amendment ensures Second Amendment rights cannot be infringed upon by individual states, and the Court struck down Illinois’ unconstitutional gun law. The same must be applied to every state that currently violates the Second Amendment’s protections by restricting magazine capacity.

This article was originally published on Brenner Brief. Original publish date Nov 1, 2013. Original author, Matt MacBradaigh.