Category Archives: Right to keep and bear arms

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Democrisy! The party of more and more gun control are now buying themselves more guns.

We noted, 2½ years ago, that, in the aftermath of its bloodiest year on record — 562 homicides in 2021 — even Philadelphia Magazine’s Victor Fiorillo, who is so dramatically opposed to Fox 29 News Steve Keeley actually reporting on crime, told us about Philadelphians applying for concealed carry permits at a greatly increased rate.

Now it seems that significant numbers of the American left, who have been so vigorous in their demands to infringe upon our rights to keep and bear arms, have decided to keep and bear arms themselves. From The Wall Street Journal:

The Most Surprising New Gun Owners Are U.S. Liberals

After decades of decline, gun ownership is rising among Democrats

by Cameron McWhirter and Zusha Elinson | Thursday, September 19, 2024 | 9:22 PM EDT

Michael Ciemnoczolowski, a lifelong Democrat, supports stricter gun laws and contributes to Sandy Hook Promise, a gun-violence-prevention nonprofit.

But this summer, the liquor store clerk in Iowa City, Iowa, for the first time in his life bought a gun. Apprehension about street crime, armed right-wing extremists, and “whatever else the world could possibly throw at us,” drove his decision.

“Domestic politics have grown increasingly acrimonious,” says Ciemnoczolowski, 43.

This is kind of laughable. “(A)rmed right-wing extremists”? It wasn’t “right-wing extremists” who have tried to assassinate former President Donald Trump recently. It wasn’t “right-wing extremists” who shot up schools in Nashville or other places. And it certainly hasn’t been “right-wing extremists” who have been responsible for the “street crime” we’ve seen in Chicago, Philadelphia, and our other major cities.

American gun culture has long been dominated by conservative, white men. Now, in a marked change, a burgeoning number of liberals are buying firearms, according to surveys and fast-growing gun groups drawing minorities and progressives.

“It’s a group of people who five years ago would never have considered buying a gun,” says Jennifer Hubbert, an anthropology professor at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Ore., who has researched liberal gun owners.

Historically, it wasn’t unusual for Democrats to own guns, with many more of them living in rural areas. Also, hunting was much more popular. But starting in the early ’90s, gun ownership among Democrats dropped significantly. Increasingly divisive political battles over the role of firearms in American society led the Democratic Party to become an advocate for gun regulation. Republicans became the party of gun rights.

Now, today’s Democrats are rediscovering guns.

There follow several paragraphs giving liberals’ reasons for increasing their firearm ownership percentages, up from an all-time low of 22.5% in 2010, to 29.2% in 2022, the last year one which information was available. That’s a 29.78% increase, and since this deals with percentages, it isn’t an increase due to population growth. The number was only 25.4% just the previous year, a 16.14% increase in just one year, the year after the murderous carnage of Joe Biden’s first year in office.

The Democrats interviewed for this article brought up all sorts of reasons, many of them political, which the Journal’s authors diligently reported, but 2021 and 2022 were years of Donald Trump losing voter fraud cases in courts, and the January 6th protesters being tried and jailed. The credentialed media tried drumming up fears about conservatives, but, for the very greatest part, the violence of 2021 and 2022 was perpetrated from the criminal classes in our major cities.

Four decades ago, Democratic gun owners were typically white men, including auto or steel union workers who grew up hunting.

That line is absolutely rotten reporting, something very unusual in the Journal. Four decades ago, Democrats in the South were far more rural than they are now. Four decades ago, Democrats controlled state legislatures and gubernatorial seats in most of the South, rather than being so heavily packed into urban areas as they are today. The Journal’s comparison of those numbers wasn’t even as close as apples and oranges, but more like apples and turnips.

Of course, today’s Democrats in general are not very much like the Democrats of “four decades ago.” The Democrats of forty years ago would have laughed at the notion of homosexual marriage, were pretty much anti-war as a holdover from Vietnam, were complete free speech supporters, and would have hauled off to the insane asylums anyone who held that a guy could simply declare himself to be a girl and compete in women’s sports.  The only Democrats who could have been called #woke forty years ago were the ones who had gotten up with the alarm clock to actually go to work. The urban Democrats of the 1980s who didn’t own firearms were the ones who lived in safer neighborhoods.

The Democrats of forty years ago were seeing the weakening of the Soviet Union, and calling that a good thing, rather than electing socialists. They remembered the ‘Palestinians’ as terrorists who attacked Israelis at the 1972 Olympic games in Munich, rather than as somehow selfless martyrs and resistance fighters in Gaza.

Today we have the same party which has been screaming for more and more gun control buying more and more guns for themselves. They want to be able to defend themselves, not from evil reich-wing gangs, but criminals, criminals created and enabled by the Democrats own policy choices, but they have to mouth silliness about Republicans and conservatives to justify their own hypocrisy

 

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Killadelphia: The Inquirer isn’t fooling anyone by censoring the news

We have previously reported about how the rest of the credentialed media in Philadelphia despise Fox 29 News reporter Steve Keeley. They just don’t like the fact that Fox 29 reports on crime in the City of Brotherly Love, and they publish mugshots, which are public records.

My reaction upon seeing Mr Keeley’s tweet about the story? What a great mugshot! He has an expression on his face that very clearly says, “Oh, what did I do?” Or perhaps, “I am so f(ornicated).” If he’s guilty, Title 18 §2505(b), second-degree murder, Title 18 §1102(b), life in prison.

Too bad Graterford was closed!

Arrest made after Philadelphia store clerk shot, killed during robbery

By FOX 29 Staff | Wednesday, July 17, 2024 | 9:20 AM EDT

PHILADELPHIA – A man is charged with murder after a robbery at Philadelphia convenience store took a deadly turn last week.

Kharee Simmons, 37, is accused of shooting Kenneth Kennedy-McLeod to death inside Frankford Convenience Store on Pratt Street.

The 37-year-old victim was found gunned down behind the counter with several shell casings surrounding his body.

He was pronounced dead minutes later with multiple gunshot wounds to his shoulders.

An open register and several loose bills led police to believe the shooting stemmed from a robbery.

Simmons was arrested Tuesday and charged with Murder, Criminal Conspiracy, Robbery, Theft-Unlawful Taking, and Theft-Receiving Stolen Property.

That’s all there was, six short paragraphs on the robbery and murder.

Though there was a story in The Philadelphia Inquirer on the robbery and murder, published last Friday, the newspaper doesn’t have anything on the arrest of Mr Simmons. If there is a story published later, you can bet euros against eclairs — my version of dollars against doughnuts 🙂 — that Mr Simmons’ mugshot will not be included. [Update: Story published at 2:34 PM EDT. And, no, there was no mugshot published.]

My far too expensive Philadelphia Inquirer subscription. I could use a senior citizen’s discount right about now.

Inquirer publisher Elizabeth ‘Lisa’ Hughes decided, a couple of years ago, that the the newspaper would be an “anti-racist news organization,” and the paper ceased noting the race of suspects and victims, or publishing the mugshots of accused criminals, because mugshots somehow leave the impression that some minority groups are more closely identified with crime, but let’s tell the truth here: simply publishing Kharee Simmons’ name tells the reader that he is black. And the location of the murder, Pratt Street near Frankford Avenue and SEPTA’s Frankford elevated train depot, tells anyone familiar with the city that the suspects would probably be black.

Why, then, should people be paying $285.48 a year for a newspaper that doesn’t report all of the news? It’s not as though the Inky is actually fooling people. I would argue that, by trying — and failing; it’s not as though the Inquirer is the only news source in town — to conceal the news, the newspaper is actually pushing an impression that all criminals are black.

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No Riots: Dexter Reed will not get his George Floyd moment And a gunfight at the Eid al-Fitr Corral.

Councilwoman Jamie Gauthier (D-Philadelphia). Photo from her city biography page and is a public record. Click to enlarge.

When you have a 21-year-old, two 16-year-olds, and two 15-year-olds, carrying guns and opening fire when “two groups of young people started shooting at one another for reasons that remain under investigation,” naturally the response from the local councilwoman is to call for more gun control. Of course, it’s already illegal to carry a firearm in Philadelphia without a license, and it’s already against the law for minors to be carrying guns, yet Jamie Gauthier wants more gun control laws for these fine people to violate:

City Councilmember Jamie Gauthier, who represents parts of West Philadelphia, said in a statement Wednesday that the incident was “heartbreaking” and called on lawmakers in Harrisburg and Washington to pass gun safety laws “that will stem the flow of guns into our neighborhoods.”

Robert Stacy McCain has the story of 26-year-old Dexter Reed, Jr, formerly of Chicago and now a resident of Hell. Mr Reed: Continue reading →

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A junior judge takes a stupid decision

Just in case I couldn’t thing of a good subject on which to write today, my good friend Robert Stacy McCain gave me some direction!

Judge dismisses gun charge against convicted felon; ruled as unconstitutional

by Natalia Martinez | The Ides of March, 2024 | 11:47 AM EDT

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WAVE) – Prohibiting a convicted felon from possessing a gun is unconstitutional, according to a Jefferson County Circuit Court Judge’s ruling.

Judge Melissa Logan Bellows filed the order this week, dismissing the possession charge against a convicted felon and persistent felony offender, Jecory Frazier.

The motion to dismiss was filed by Louisville Attorney Rob Eggert in October on behalf of his client. Eggert claimed the state’s law does not trump the Second Amendment. Bellows agreed, making the first ruling of its kind in Jefferson County.

Trisha Lister, an attorney at Eggert’s office, wrote the motion.

She believes Bellows’ opinion was well-written.

She told WAVE News Troubleshooters the Second Amendment does not single out convicted felons. She said the charge has been not been equally enforced and is used as a way to keep people of color from having guns. Lister stated over 70% of those prosecuted on that standalone charge are minorities.

And there we have it: the attorneys for the defendant were concerned that “over 70% of those prosecuted on that standalone charge are minorities,” so naturally, the lawyers assumed that such a statistic was generated by racism rather than the possibility that “over 70% of those prosecuted on that standalone charge are minorities” because over 70% of the violations of KRS §527.040 were committed by minorities. That statistic is not addressed in Judge Bellows decision.

The .pdf file of Judge Bellows decision is here, and it is fairly brief, only eight pages.

The Judge based her ruling on District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), which established that the Second Amendment’s guarantee of the right to keep and bear arms is an individual right, not one restricted to the militia, and New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, 142 S. Ct. 2111 (2022), which set the standard that restrictions on our Second Amendment rights must have a significant history based on the original understandings of our rights, rather than something novel.

The Court held that “when the Second Amendment’s plain text covers an individual’s conduct, the Constitution presumptively protects that conduct” and the Government must demonstrate that the regulation is consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.

The Judge then launches into an argument I find strained:

In Heller, the Court stated that “nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons . . .” 554 U.S. at 627. The majority opinion in Bruen makes no mention of Heller’s reference to felon in possession laws. Instead, the admonition appeared in a concurring opinion. 142 S. Ct. 2162 (Kavanaugh, J., concurring).

A curious argument, given that Heller specifically stated that felons could be barred from owning weapons, and Bruen did not overturn that part, because Bruen made no mention of that particular part, the Court must not have meant for it to continue. This alone is a point of contention that I suspect the Commonwealth will appeal.

But, to me, the oddest part of the Judge’s argument is that, other than one sentence in which she noted that the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in 1868, she ignores it completely. Perhaps the Commonwealth’s Attorney for Jefferson County did not bring it up, even though it is through the Fourteenth Amendment that the Court ‘incorporated’ the individual right to keep and bear arms to the states, in McDonald v. City of Chicago, 561 U.S. 742 (2010). The Fourteenth Amendment specifically states, in part:

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Emphasis mine.

It’s simple: the Fourteenth Amendment specifically allows the states to deprive a person of his constitutional rights if due process of law is followed, and the felony convictions of Jacory Frazier were obtained through the due process of law.

Let me state clearly here: I am not an attorney!

So, who is Judge Bellows? She was elected Judge of the Kentucky Circuit Court for Circuit 30, division 7, in 2022, in a non-partisan race, to an eight-year term. People unfamiliar with the Bluegrass State’s judicial system might jump to the conclusion that she was appointed by either Governor Andy Beshear (D-KY) or the evil President Trump, but neither is the case.

Defense Attorneys make all kinds of outlandish arguments to try to get their clients off, and in most cases, those arguments don’t work, even though judges do have to take such arguments seriously. In this case, a junior judge took an outlandish argument very seriously, and actually agreed with it.

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In the wake of two shootings when students were boarding SEPTA buses, Jenice Armstrong wants fewer criminals put in prison

My good friend Daniel Pearson — OK, OK, we’ve never actually met, but we’ve interacted on Twitter, so that should count! — tweeted yesterday that he believed “the single most effective way to keep Philadelphia’s children safe would be passing common sense gun control measures.” An editorial writer for The Philadelphia Inquirer, Mr Pearson is a liberal Democrat, but he’s not the far-left whacko type, and you can peacefully and politely interact with him.

Mr Pearson’s tweet follows the news in the City of Brotherly Love as twice this week, as twice bullets rang out at SEPTA stops where students were catching bus rides home from school: the shooting at the “Five Points” intersection of Rising Sun and Cottman Avenues in the Burholme section of Northeast Philly left eight students from Northeast High School wounded, while Dayemen Taylor was killed, and four others injured at another bus stop shooting, this time on Ogontz, also in North Philly.

Naturally, all of the Powers That Be in Philly are upset, appalled, aghast, and spewing a lot of words. Philly’s softer-than-Charmin-on-crime District Attorney, Larry Krasner, said that the Ogontz shooting brought him to tears, and promised “swift justice,” saying, “This is an absolute outrage. It will be solved, and those responsible will be vigorously prosecuted.” Yeah, uh huh, right. Odds are that, when the suspects are identified, it will be determined that they had previous ‘contact’ with the criminal justice system, and they suffered almost no consequences.

For now, police are focused on recovering more evidence and chasing down tips, (Deputy Police Commissioner Frank) Vanore said. Investigators believe the three shooters were likely juveniles, he said, which makes it all the more concerning that they each had a handgun.

In other words, those “common sense gun control laws” that Mr Pearson advocated were already being broken, in that it is already illegal for juveniles to possess and carry handguns in Philly. Given that they used a stolen, blue Hyundai Sonata, which was later abandoned in Olney, as their getaway car, and that they sprayed more than 30 shots into the crowd, it would seem that the malefactors really don’t give a damn about laws.

But today, Inquirer columnist Jenice Armstrong decided to tell us that the city shouldn’t be locking up people for gun crimes!

Philly program keeps gun offenders out of prison. I’m all for it.

Over the years, I’ve become more skeptical that incarceration is the answer to all our crime problems.

by Jenice Armstrong | Thursday, March 7, 2024 | 6:00 AM EST

I love a graduation ceremony, and the one I attended last month was no exception.

But this one was a little different. For starters, it took place inside a courtroom at the Juanita Kidd Stout Center for Criminal Justice in Center City. Also, there was no playing of the quintessential graduation song, “Pomp and Circumstance,” no wearing of caps and gowns. The graduates were dressed in hoodies, jeans, work boots, and other casual attire. There were few family members present, although one graduate carried a small daughter on his hip.

Each had successfully met the requirements for a new diversionary program called the Alternative Felony Disposition program. Created in 2021 by the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office, with input from the Center for Carceral Communities at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Social Work, the program allows people with no prior criminal record who have been arrested on illegal gun charges to avoid jail time. The current crop of graduates, who began the program in July, had been assigned social workers they met with regularly. They also had been expected to attend group sessions with other defendants.

There’s more at the original.

Miss Armstrong has forgotten one obvious thing: those who are locked up, for gun crimes as well as other offenses, are not out on the streets, stealing Kias and Hyundais to use as getaway vehicles from planned shootings.

I also better understand that crime is a complex problem — one that Philly can’t expect to arrest its way out of. I agree with officials who say the city’s focus should be on the long-standing structural and systemic issues that drive people to arm themselves illegally, such as underfunded schools, government neglect of impoverished and broken neighborhoods, and a bloated justice system that targets poor and Black and brown city residents.

Miss Armstrong just can’t seem to understand, or at least admit it if she does understand, that the criminal justice system “targets poor and black and brown city residents” because the majority of crime in Philly is committed by those ‘people of color.’ Perhaps ‘incarceration isn’t the answer to all our crime problems’, but it’s the answer to the vast majority of them.

It’s an interesting set of messages: Mr Pearson wants more “common sense gun control measures” to fight crime, while Miss Armstrong doesn’t want those who violate existing laws to be punished. How does that work?

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It’s just not possible that Jesus Alejandro Rivas-Figueroa committed the crimes of which he has been accused, because gun control laws would have stopped him.

New York state and city have strict gun control laws, even after the Supreme Court’s ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v Bruen 597 U. S. ____ (2022), and there is no way that a 15-year-old illegal immigrant ‘migrant’ could obtain a permit to purchase or license to carry a concealed weapon in the Empire State. Therefore, despite the credentialed media stories and accompanying photographs, there’s just no way that this story could be true!

‘Armed and dangerous’ teen migrant from Venezuela cries after arrest over chaotic Times Square shooting that injured tourist

By Joe Marino, Georgett Roberts, Steven Vago, and Olivia Land | Friday, February 9, 2024 | 7:35 PM EST

A 15-year-old migrant suspected of shooting a tourist and firing at a police officer in a robbery-gone-wrong in Times Square was arrested on Friday, authorities said.

The US Marshals Joint Regional Fugitive Task Force and the NYPD tracked Venezuelan teen Jesus Alejandro Rivas-Figueroa down in Yonkers less than 24 hours after Thursday’s mayhem at the Crossroads of the World.

Photos obtained by The Post showed the young suspect, wearing a dark T-shirt, jeans and a gold necklace, being taken into custody at around 3:30 p.m. at what sources said was the home of a relative on Saratoga Avenue.

“He was crying. When he was apprehended, he was crying… Here he is committing these adult acts, that’s something you don’t expect a child to do, and then when he’s apprehended, he’s brought out in handcuffs crying,” NYPD spokesman Carlos Nieves told reporters.

At least the wannabe gangstas in Philly don’t cry when they get arrested. They do their best to present a tough guy look.

He will most likely be charged as a juvenile with attempted murder of a police officer, Nieves said, noting the case will then either go to criminal or family court.

Here’s where it gets bad: Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is yet another of the liberal prosecutors who don’t believe in seriously prosecuting crimes. This kid needs to be charged as an adult, and locked up for decades, not stuck in the juvenile system, and out by 18. But, whenever he is released, he needs to be immediately deported back to Venezuela, or if Venezuela won’t take him, Antarctica.

Antarctica in shorts and flip flops!

Young Mr Rivas-Figueroa had arrived in September, and housed at a temporary shelter at the Stratford Hotel on West 70th Street. He’s also a suspect in an armed robbery in the Bronx on January 27th, and was involved in shots fired at a park on 45th Street in Midtown two days earlier.

There’s a lot more at the original.

But think about this. Venezuela under the ‘Bolivarian socialist’ Hugh Chavez banned private ownership of firearms in 2012, when this fine young gentleman was just 4 years old. He’s not coming from a culture in which people were able to own guns, and then he becomes a ‘migrant’ in a state in which firearms ownership is as restricted as the Constitution allows . . . if not more. He’s never known a life in which firearms were not restricted, yet he was (allegedly) carrying and using not just any pistol, but a .45. That’s not just falling into a life of crime, but actively planning it.

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An uplifting story in the Lexington Herald-Leader

It seems that a car thief from the greater Cincinnati area helped himself to an early Christmas present: someone else’s car. What he didn’t realize was that he was in f(ornicate) around, find out territory.

Couple tracks stolen car to Kroger and shoots accused thief, Kentucky police say

by Mike Stunson | December 20, 2023 | 9:01 AM EST

The vehicle into which the stolen Ford Focus smashed. It’s just a Chevy, so it couldn’t have been worth much anyway. Screen grab from WKRC.

An accused car thief was shot outside a Kroger when the car owners tracked their vehicle across state lines, Kentucky police say. Continue reading →

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The only way to end protests which stop traffic is to not stop traffic for protesters.

The Editorial Board of The Wall Street Journal came up with an absolutely brilliant idea, but one which will not work:

Tort Law vs. the Anti-Israel Protesters

If DAs won’t prosecute, victims can sue for false imprisonment.

By The Editorial Board | Thursday, December 28, 2023 | 6:49 PM EST

Idiots block traffic near LAX to demand Gaza ceasefire.

Normally we wouldn’t wish trial lawyers on our worst enemy. But as anti-Israel demonstrations grow increasingly lawless, the plaintiffs bar could help. Why not hit protesters who break the law and keep Americans from getting to their destination with a tort liability suit for false imprisonment?

On Wednesday anti-Israel protesters blocked access to JFK and LAX airports in New York and Los Angeles, respectively. The laws of New York and California, like most states, recognize the tort. While there is no precedent applying this tort to road-blocking protesters, it fits the offense. The purpose of these demonstrations is to block the road to keep people from getting to the airport — deliberately and against their will.

Continue reading →

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Israel and the Second Amendment

Armed Israeli police, Via Dolorosa, near the fourth Station of the Cross, November 13, 2022. Photo by D R Pico, may be freely used with proper attribution.

Before the October 7th attacks, Israel had nothing like our Second Amendment. Though not a European nation, Israelis have a very much liberal European attitude toward liberty and social controls, and that includes European attitudes on gun control. The Times of Israel noted:

Gun control in Israel is relatively strict, and firearm licenses are generally only granted to those who can show a need for extra security in their line of work or daily life. Meaning, one of the key criteria for a private citizen to receive permission to own a gun is where they live.

We think of Israel as being a heavily armed nation, replete with images of soldiers carrying automatic weapons, and the near-universal military draft for men and women alike, but that’s not the case. Even in the kibbutz near the border with Gaza, most weapons were kept not in private residences, but central armories, and, hit with a surprise attack, few residents had time to arm themselves, and they were met with torture, rape, and murder. The Times of Israel, just three days after the attack, still put a loosening of gun control laws as a “right-wing” issue: Continue reading →