gun control

Anatomy of a Shooting

Featured image “We do have three persons detained and under investigation for today’s incident,” Kansas City Police Chief Stacey Graves told reporters Wednesday. According to Graves, “bad actors” had caused the shooting at the Kansas City Chiefs’ rally, and unidentified “officials” said they did not believe the motive was terrorism. (Word starting to dribble out today that the shooting may have been “a personal matter,” which is a euphemism for “gang-related.”) Fox »

Gibbon, Guns and Government

Featured image In the course of writing Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Edward Gibbon encountered Mohammed, who pursued the Jews with “implacable hatred” to the end of his life. The historian also called out Theodoric the Great, the Ostrogoth king who invaded Italy in 488 AD and “condescended to disarm the unwarlike natives of Italy, interdicting all weapons of offence, and excepting only a small knife for domestic use.” Call »

Grisham’s law

Featured image While we’ve had our guard up against the return of the Branch Covidians, New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham has shown us a new frontier in the malign uses of public health “emergencies.” Grisham has suspended laws that allow open and concealed carry of firearms in Albuquerque for 30 days after declaring a public health emergency (I’m borrowing the formulation of Jonathan Turley, who explains what it’s all about in »

Man Bites Dog: Gavin Newsom Betrays Progressives!

Featured image There’s long been reason to believe Gov. Gavin Newsom is nearly as dumb as his “frenemy” Kamala Harris, but this week gives some of the best proof yet: he has departed from Progressive orthodoxy in the dumbest way possible. You may have heard that he has proposed a constitutional amendment to allow for “common sense” gun control, such as background checks, bans on so-called “assault weapons,” and waiting periods for »

Include us out

Featured image I wrote about the use the Biden White House has found in the expulsion of two Democrats from the Tennessee House in “Number 1 fan of the men from TN.” How many ways could they get their hustle on? That was the question. Herewith a footnote. Politico Playbook purports to take us behind the scenes of Vice President Harris’s hop on the Nashville bandwagon last week. The Playbook reporters are »

Number 1 fan of the men from TN

Featured image One of the key offenses charged by the government in the January 6 cases is obstruction of an official proceeding in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2). It is the offense to which Jacob Chansley (a/k/a the QAnon Shaman) pleaded guilty in his deal with the prosecutors. I wrote about the case in “It had to be Q.” The federal statute provides a penalty of imprisonment up to 20 years »

Mending Walz [With Comment by John]

Featured image Minnesota Governor Tim Walz means to get in on the gun control action with bills incorporating “extended background checks” and “red flag” provisions. Democrats control the political branches. What’s the problem? In the video below Walz aims his fire at Republicans in the Minnesota Senate, where Democrats hold a one-vote advantage. Some translation is required here. I take it from Walz’s rant that one or two Democrats haven’t yet fallen »

Sorry, Liberals, Audrey Hale Is Not the Victim

Featured image One New Year’s Eve in the 1990s, I was seated on a train out of Manhattan when a huge man dressed as a woman took the facing seat directly across from me. Although he had caused quite a stir as he moved through the car, he seemed oblivious to the eye rolls from my fellow passengers. With his bare midriff, I remember thinking he must be cold given the freezing temperatures »

Here We Go Again

Featured image In the wake of Audrey Hale’s murderous spree, we are hearing the familiar calls for more gun control legislation. Left unexplained is how adding one more to the hundreds of gun control statutes and regulations that already exist will magically stop murders (or some categories of murders) from taking place. As usual, the default left-wing policy is a ban on “assault weapons.” Never mind that such a ban was implemented »

Jamaal Bowman explains

Featured image Do not get within spitting distance of Dem Rep. Jamaal Bowman when he is instructing the press (“ask them every day — what are they going to do about gun violence?”), expounding on the need for “gun control” (“Why the hell won’t you do anything to save America’s children?”), and condemning colleagues who who disagree with him (“they’re all cowards,” “they’re freaking cowards,” “they’re gutless,” etc.). You are highly likely »

After Joe hit his mark

Featured image John noted President Biden’s apparent need for adult guidance when he hit the ground in Durham, North Carolina yesterday. Biden’s remarks on the ground in Durham were at least equally notable. The White House has posted the transcript here. Nick Arama has posted excerpts and accompanying video here at RedState. Biden omitted his usual tribute to chocolate chip ice cream and skipped to exploitation of the tragic murder of students »

Joltin’ Joe should leave and go away

Featured image President Biden turned up in the briefing room with a few remarks about the devastating mass murder in Nashville yesterday. The White House has posted the transcript of Biden’s remarks here. Biden added remarks on the Nashville tragedy to his prepared text, but he found it an appropriate moment to perform his usual shtick. There was never anything remotely good about this shtick, but under the circumstances it was indecent. »

How About If We Enforce the Laws We Already Have?

Featured image Democrats think the perennial battle over gun control has now swung in their favor. They are vowing to enact new gun control measures, allegedly in response to recent high-profile mass shooting incidents. Of course, we already have hundreds of statutes and regulations on the books relating to firearms. When someone engages in a mass shooting (or any shooting) he violates multiple statutes of the most serious kind. An obvious question »

Semi-moronic

Featured image The White House thinks they have struck gold with their attack on “MAGA Republicans” as “semi-fascist” and all the rest. President Biden’s minders in the daycare operation at the White House are wheeling him out for a primetime campaign speech addressing “the soul of the nation” tomorrow night. The speech is to take place outside Independence Hall in Philadelphia. I am following Politico’s story on the speech here. My working »

There’s something about Clarence

Featured image The great Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has set off the lunatic left that powers the throbbing heart of the Democratic Party and its media adjunct. He has set the left off ever since his nomination to the Court by President Bush in 1991. I’m so old I recall Joe Biden’s idiotic performance as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee in the confirmation hearing (and Biden’s descent from 1991 has »

Alito alights on Bruen dissent

Featured image The day before the Supreme Court turned the world upside down and overruled Roe last week, it it held that the Second Amendment protects the right of law-abiding people to carry a gun outside the home for self-defense and that New York’s Sullivan law, which makes that virtually impossible for anyone but VIPs, was therefore unconstitutional. Justice Thomas wrote the opinion for the Court in New York State Rifle & »

Thomas’s Moment

Featured image Justice Clarence Thomas’s moment has arrived. His majority opinion in Bruen (the gun rights case), and his concurrence in Dobbs, are drawing considerable attention, and rightly so. Among many other virtues, his opinions have managed the dual feat of laying out serious legal and constitutional arguments while trolling the left at the same time. This may be my favorite passage in his Bruen majority opinion: After all, the Second Amendment »