Armed With Children?

Everytown Moms for Illegal Mayors decided to hold a little protest at a San Antonio, Texas Target store. Jamie Addams, the San Antonio regional ambassador for the gun control group, said "they were armed with clipboards and children" but were still asked to leave.




Armed with children? Isn't that what warlords in sub-Saharan Africa have been accused of doing with their child soldiers? Hasn't this become an issue for UNICEF?

Rebels in Mozambique started the use of children in the early 1980s. As the New York Times notes in a story about child soldiers, they are the perfect weapon. Children are "easily manipulated, intensely loyal, fearless and, most important, in endless supply." Could that be the reason Everytown Moms uses children as "arms"?

The real story here isn't that the Target store manager told the Everytown Moms to move along which was nice. Rather it is the comments of the Everytown Mom's "regional ambassador" regarding the organization's use of children as tools in their war on civil rights. Children should not be used as tools or props or weapons.


UPDATE: The picture below is from an Everytown Moms for Illegal Mayors protest outside a Target store in Pennsylvania. I count four "child warriors" in the picture with (what appears to be) a fifth on the way. Tell me that any of those kids is old enough to articulately explain why they are there and why they are protesting Target's policy of abiding by local laws. While the Catholic Church may consider the "age of reason" to be 6 or 7, I doubt you could extrapolate that to protesting for gun control.

If I had to guess, the woman who is standing second from left is the leader of this little group. I wonder if she is being paid with Bloomberg money. Does anyone know who she is?

I Can Recommend These

Blogger and writer Marko Kloos (pronounced "close") has two of his books featured as part of Amazon's Kindle Daily Deals. They are Terms of Enlistment and Lines of Departure. The books are part of his Frontline series. They are $1.99 today. You can see them here.

I will admit that I'm not the biggest fan of sci-fi fiction preferring to read history and period mysteries. That said, I enjoyed reading both of these books and would highly recommend them. They feature a dystopian world where the North American Commonwealth has had to colonize space due to over-population and pollution on Earth.

If the name Marko Kloos doesn't ring a bell, perhaps you might recognize the mythical "Major L. Caudill, USMC (Ret)" who penned the essay "Why The Gun Is Civilization". They are one and the same. The essay itself has over 200,000 hits on Google. It even has a well-done dramatic reading on YouTube.

We're Number One!

According to the Defence IQ Press, the United States is still the number one exporter of military arms.

As much as things change, they still stay the same. US versus Soviet Union; US versus Russia. Cold War; post-Cold War. Business is business and money is to be made. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

Cool infographic.

Something I Missed Last Week

A couple of weeks ago, the North Carolina General Assembly voted unanimously to overturn Durham County's gun registration requirement. It was the only county in the state to have this requirement and it had been in place long before state preemption.

I missed it when it came out. Fortunately, Mississippi Rebel did not.

You can read his post on the overturning of this Jim Crow-era law here.

For Those Who Don't The .380 Auto Isn't Powerful Enough

If you don't think the .380 Auto aka 9mm Browning isn't a powerful round, show me another pistol cartridge that was used to start a world war. For it was with a FN Model 1910 chambered in .380 Auto (or 9mm Browning to be more precise) that Gavrilo Princip assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg 100 years ago today in Sarajevo.

Princip did it in the name of Yugoslav nationalism. He was a Bosnian Serb. As a result of the assassination, the Austro-Hungarian Empire declared war on Serbia a month to the day after the Archduke was assassinated. A few days later Germany which had declared support for Austria then declared war on Russia and the rush to war spiraled out of control. Barbara Tuchman describes this spiraling out of control in her book The Guns of August.

Princip's FN Model 1910 is now a part of the permanent display at the Museum of Military History in Vienna, Austria. How it got there is a story unto itself.

So while the cartridge debate rages on as to which cartridge has enough power, none save the .380 Auto can say they helped start a war, let alone the War to End All Wars.

The Second Amendment Foundation Returns To North Carolina

The first case brought after the win in McDonald v. Chicago extended the Second Amendment to the states was in North Carolina. Bateman v. Perdue challenged the state's law that restricted possession of firearms and ammunition outside the home during a state of emergency. Bateman was brought by the Second Amendment Foundation (among others) and was ultimately a win. Citizens of North Carolina are now allowed to protect themselves during states of emergency.

The Second Amendment Foundation has now returned to North Carolina to challenge the state's restriction of  Concealed Handgun Permits to US citizens. Felicity Todd Veasey is an Australian citizen and legal permanent resident living in Butner who is married to a US citizen. Mrs. Veasey has lived in North Carolina for the last 10 years and wishes to obtain a Concealed Handgun Permit. Named as the defendant in the case is Sheriff Brindell Wilkins, Jr. in his official capacity as sheriff of Granville County. North Carolina Concealed Handgun Permits are issued by the sheriffs of the respective counties.

This case follows on the heels of winning cases challenging state restrictions of firearm permits and concealed carry permits to only citizens. Alienage is a suspect class under Constitutional precedent and the state must show a compelling governmental interest in restrictions concerning citizenship. The Second Amendment Foundation has won similar cases in Nebraska, New Mexico, Massachusetts, and elsewhere while the ACLU has brought similar winning cases in South Dakota and Kentucky.

Veasey v. Wilkins seeks a preliminary and permanent injunction against this provision as well as a declaratory judgment stating that it is unconstitutional. The case is being brought on the grounds that the provision violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment and that it violates Mrs. Veasey's rights to keep and bear arms under the 2nd and 14th Amendments. The lead attorney in the case is David Sigale of Illinois who has served as lead attorney in a number of similar cases.

You can read the Second Amendment Foundation's release on the case here. As Alan Gottlieb of SAF notes in the release, "we seem (to)keep finding such laws on the books and we have to challenge them."

The full complaint is located here.

UPDATE: As Sean's comments indicate, the North Carolina General Assembly was urged to change the citizenship requirement but blew it off. Now it is going to cost the state time, effort, and money to correct their error. If they were smart, they'd fold immediately, pay SAF a reasonable amount for legal fees, and change the law.

I Sure Wish Gabby Giffords Would Come To North Carolina

Thom Tillis, Speaker of the North Carolina House and GOP nominee for Senate, ought to extend a personal  invitation to Gabby Giffords and her space cowboy husband to come visit North Carolina to push their gun control agenda. The invitation would expire at midnight on Monday, November 3rd.

So why in the world should a NRA A-rated Republican want a couple of out-of-state gun banners trying to spread their gospel in the Tar Heel State?

Because of who doesn't want them here:  Senator Kay Hagan (D-NC).

It seems that Hagan and some other Democrats in pro-gun states don't want the voters thinking about gun rights.

From the Washington Times:

When the gun control advocacy group led by the former congresswoman from Arizona threw its support behind several endangered Senate Democrats in Western and Southern states, the candidates carefully moved to distance themselves from the affable Ms. Giffords and boasted about their strident defense of Second Amendment rights.

The message was clear: Thanks, but no thanks.

The candidates — Sen. Mark Udall in Colorado, Sen. Mary L. Landrieu in Louisiana, Sen. Kay R. Hagan in North Carolina and Rep. Bruce L. Braley, vying for Iowa’s open Senate seat — have tried to avoid the gun debate in key races that will determine whether their party keeps its majority in the U.S. Senate.

 I'm guessing that Sen. Hagan doesn't want voters reminded that she voted for the gun controls contained in Manchin-Toomey which had the support of Giffords and her Americans for Responsible Solutions.

The Hagan-Tillis race is one of the seven Senate races that Americans for Responsible Solutions intends to be involved with according to their website. Among the mega-donors to the Giffords-Kelly group is none other than former Mayor Michael Bloomberg who made a donation of $250,000 to the group in 2013.

If the race gets close towards the end, I wonder if Bloomberg will kick in the big bucks like he has for Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS) who faces a run-off in the Mississippi GOP primary today with St. Sen. Chris McDaniel.




H/T Sebastian

Another Bill That Chris Christie Needs To Veto

The list of ridiculous bills that the New Jersey Legislature has passed and that Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) needs to veto has grown again. In addition to the magazine ban bill this is sitting on his desk, there is now a bill that totally bans ivory or "ivory products". This ban extends to 10,000 year old ivory from mammoth tusks.

Ivory products are more than carved elephant tusks. They would include things like the keys on older Steinway concert pianos, 150-year old whale scrimshaw, slabs and handles from knives, old billiard balls, and the grips on George Patton's revolvers. Banning the transfer of ivory or ivory products at the state level does nothing to stop elephant poaching in Africa.

Knife Rights has issued a strongly worded alert on this bill. Reading through the bill myself, I agree that it is all encompassing and permits no real exceptions. It is a bill that ought to be vetoed.

In a move that caught just about everyone by surprise, last week the New Jersey legislature quietly passed S.2012/A.3128, a draconian total ivory ban bill with no exemptions for existing legal ivory and that even bans 10,000-year-old mammoth ivory. This poorly drafted bill even opens the door to outright confiscation of ivory-handled knives and arrest of knife owners!  

 

Knife Rights unequivocally supports legitimate efforts to stop the illegal slaughter of elephants in Africa , but this bill will not save a single elephant . Unfortunately, instead of going after poachers, smugglers and traders of illicit ivory, the New Jersey legislature has decided to launch an all-out attack on innocent New Jerseyans by passing an absurd TOTAL Ivory Ban that will not save a single living elephant .

Knife Rights has asked Gov. Christie to veto this irrational and very destructive bill.  If you are a New Jersey resident or do business in New Jersey, WRITE or CALL the Governor TODAY and ask him to VETO S.2012/A.3128.  

The NJ Ivory Ban Bill outlaws ALL ivory from ANY ANIMAL (elephant, hippo, mammoth, narwhal, walrus, whale, etc.). It makes it illegal to to import, sell, offer for sale, purchase, barter or possess with intent to sell (a intentionally vague term of law subject to abusive interpretation that could lead to knife confiscations and arrests) any ivory or ivory product with no exceptions for antique or heretofore legal ivory imported decades ago prior to the existing 24-year-old U.S. ban on ivory imports.

This ban would irreparably harm owners of ivory-handled and fossil ivory-handled knives, antiques, musical instruments and any items containing ivory legally imported into this country decades ago by stripping their value - a taking of millions of dollars from law-abiding New Jerseyans. The ban would criminalize legitimate business owners and cause immediate ruinous financial loss for them. It will cost the state millions of dollars in tax revenue and not save a single living elephant! 

 

This bill will not save a single elephant because study after study have shown no connection between the legal ivory market in decades-old ivory in the U.S. and poaching in Africa. International and U.S. studies document that virtually all the ivory poached in Africa goes to China where it is valued at 6 times the price of decades-old legal ivory in the U.S. Moreover, it is already a federal crime to import ivory into the U.S. and a crime to possess or sell illegally imported ivory.    

  

This outrageous and draconian bill also represents an unconstitutional "taking" of protected private property, violating both the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and Article 1, #1 and #20 of the N.J. Constitution. While lawsuits challenging this law, if signed, wend their way though the courts, untold hundreds or thousands of ivory owners will be arrested and prosecuted under this absurd law.

  

NOTHING IN THIS ABSURD BILL WILL SAVE A SINGLE ELEPHANT!
This is "feel good - do bad" legislation at its worst! 

 

New Jersey residents and all who do business in New Jersey should WRITE or CALL the Governor TODAY and ask him to VETO S.2012/A.3128.

Email Governor Christie at: Constituent.Relations@gov.state.nj.us  

Call the Governor at: 609-292-6000

When you call or write, all you need to do is ask the Governor to VETO S.2012/A.3128, the ivory Ban Bill. If you'd like to write more, click here for Knife Rights' NJ Ivory Ban Model Letter to Gov. Christie.