On Kokesh’s Carry March

I hate giving Adam Kokesh any time or publicity. Frankly, Kokesh is all about Kokesh and the publicity for his stunts. Kokesh is not about freedom; he’s just an attention whore – a self aggrandizing assclown, who got booted out of the Marines for engaging in political activity in uniform, something that is verboten in the armed forces, and so easily understood, that a retarded chihuahua could get it.  But whatever… We have the freedom to be opportunistic, self-promoters in this country.

When I heard about this planned march in Washington DC the other day, I had to kind of wonder what the point of it is.  The plan is to get 1,000 people to march in Washington DC with rifles on Independence Day.

On the morning of July 4, 2013, Independence Day, we will muster at the National Cemetery & at noon we will step off to march across the Memorial Bridge, down Independence Avenue, around the Capitol, the Supreme Court, & the White House, then peacefully return to Virginia across the Memorial Bridge. This is an act of civil disobedience, not a permitted event. We will march with rifles loaded & slung across our backs to put the government on notice that we will not be intimidated & cower in submission to tyranny. We are marching to mark the high water mark of government & to turn the tide.

Now, I’m all about civil disobedience. I think that sometimes, it’s the only way to draw attention to unconstitutional laws and government abuses. I support the idea in spirit, but I can see some problems in this poorly-planned attempt to garner attention.  Especially the following line in the protest’s Facebook page: This will be a non-violent event, unless the government chooses to make it violent.

Goodness! This only sounds vaguely threatening, doesn’t it?

Kokesh claims that if met with physical force, they will peacefully turn back and go back to Virginia. Like anyone wants him and his retarded posse here in the Old Dominion.

Arlington National Cemetery prohibits firearms unless you’re part of an official funeral and the firearm is part of your full dress uniform or you’re a LEO.

Firearms are prohibited on federal property, unless it’s part of your job.

I don’t agree with these policies, and I don’t like them. I would choose to work to change them through legal channels.

Kokesh is trying to gather together a bunch of goobers to intentionally violate the law – to somehow show that peaceable armed citizens aren’t welcome in DC. Well NO SHIT SHERLOCK! We didn’t know this before?

It’s not like Kokesh thinks his little tard march is going to change federal policies! His specific purpose is to show “that free people are not welcome in Washington, & returning with the resolve that the politicians, bureaucrats, & enforcers of the federal government will not be welcome in the land of the free.” Um, yeah. OK. You going to stop them? Doubt it.

Acts of civil disobedience are non-violent resistance to tyranny. They don’t include threats of violence if the government turns violent on the protest. They are many times intended to provoke arrests and physical violence against the protesters. This is an act to show what we already know. Stupid and pretty much pointless. And it could turn ugly.

But whatever…

I have a real problem with the current Dominatrix-in-Chief of the DC Police. This is the same woman whose police force didn’t even bother investigating media maggot David Gregory for intentionally and with full knowledge committing a firearms violation in DC, while studiously destroying the life of a military veteran for inadvertently doing the same.

This is the same woman whose department allowed the filthy, foul, criminal Occutards to smell up and soil our capital city with not so much as a slap on the wrist.

But now she’s promising that her posse will meet Kokesh’s protesters should they choose to violate DC’s firearms laws and march into the city.

What’s even more amusing is that this petty, tyrannical bureaucrat really doesn’t understand the whole point of civil disobedience.

[Cathy] Lanier said there’s a difference between civil disobedience and violation of the law. It is legal for D.C. residents to have registered firearms in their homes, but they may not carry them in public.

“Passing into the district with loaded firearms is a violation of the law and it will be treated as such,” Lanier said during an interview with NewsChannel 8.

Ummm…. what?

The very definition of civil disobedience is the active, professed refusal to obey certain laws. That is the whole point! But apparently, in Lanier’s eyes, it only applies to Occutards, whom she actively refused to eject even when their protest permits expired and they basically squatted in McPherson Square, along with their garbage, excrement and other trash.

Apparently, that’s OK. But a bunch of ostensibly peaceful protesters – no matter how misguided – will be arrested.

Yeah, Kokesh is nothing more than an agent provocateur, intent on escaping his own irrelevance.

But Lanier and crew… they’re petty, authoritarian swine, who obviously don’t think the law should apply equally to those with whose political agenda they disagree. And that makes them a lot more foul in my book.

Gun Crime Down; Americans Ignorant

Well, apparently despite the expiration of the “assault” weapons ban in 2004 and a number of states passing concealed carry laws, the hoplophobes’ predictions of blood in the streets have fallen flat. Crimes committed with firearms have plunged, including murders, assaults and robberies.

In less than two decades, the gun murder rate has been nearly cut in half. Other gun crimes fell even more sharply, paralleling a broader drop in violent crimes committed with or without guns. Violent crime dropped steeply during the 1990s and has fallen less dramatically since the turn of the millennium.

This is great news, not that anyone would know it, because Americans still think that we’re in the midst of an epidemic of violence!

A newly-released survey by the Pew Research Center reveals that more than half of Americans believe that gun crimes are on the increase.

Now why would that be?

The LA Times article I cited above says it’s not clear whether the media shapes these perceptions, but I think their own article is telling.

The number of gun killings dropped 39% between 1993 and 2011, the Bureau of Justice Statistics reported in a separate report released Tuesday. Gun crimes that weren’t fatal fell by 69%. However, guns still remain the most common murder weapon in the United States, the report noted. Between 1993 and 2011, more than two out of three murders in the U.S. were carried out with guns, the Bureau of Justice Statistics found. [emphasis mine]

This type of focus on firearms and the media’s insistence on sensationalizing every shooting, while studiously ignoring instances of self defense is instructive.

When I Google “Sandy Hook shooting,” I get nearly 38 million results.

However, when I search for this story about a gas station manager recently defending himself against two armed suspects, I get…

Two relevant stories.

When I search for “Aurora Colorado Shooting,” I get 3.15 million Google hits.

When I try to search for news about Philly homeowner Lee Heng, who defended his children from two home invaders last month, I get…

2,400 stories.

As a journalist, you know the “If it bleeds, it leads” meme pretty well. Obviously, these two stories weren’t dramatic. They weren’t exciting. There was no drama. There was no blood. And no one knows how many lives were saved by putting an end to the armed thugs. Many instances of self defense go unreported, because ultimately, the gun isn’t brandished, and no crime is committed.

Self defense generally doesn’t bleed, so it won’t lead.

But the mainstream media will certainly take sensationalism to new lows with headlines such as this one in USA Today a few weeks ago – Epidemic: Guns kill twice as many kids as cancer does!

Nationally, guns still kill twice as many children and young people than cancer, five times as many than heart disease and 15 times more than infection, according to the New England Journal of Medicine.

“We see guns as much of a threat in their life as we used to see bacteria and viruses,” said Dr. Judith S. Palfrey, a past president of the American Academy of Pediatrics and the co-author of the New England journal report. “If you look at what’s actually killing children and disabling children, guns is one of the major things.”

Accidental firearms injuries have been on the decline nationwide. In 2001, 5,091 children ages 19 and under were injured by a firearm. Those numbers steadily decreased through 2009, when 3,587 children under 19 were reported injured by a firearm, according to the defense fund.

Interesting statistics from the American Academy of Pediatrics, which couldn’t in any way be described as political, could it?

All of a sudden young adults and legal adults ages 15-19 are considered “children” and counted as “killed” by guns. I guess the APA isn’t aware that this is the prime age for gang activity. Apparently 25 percent of gang members are aged 15-17. But I don’t suppose that would have anything to do with these statistics, would it?

According to the Centers for Disease Control, some of the leading causes of death for actual children between the ages of 0 and 14 are unintentional injury, congenital anomalies, malignant neoplasms, heart disease and homicides.

Unintentional injury statistics don’t support Palfrey’s analysis in the New England Journal of Medicine either.

Two percent of unintentional injuries that resulted in the deaths of children in 2010 were due to firearms. Motor vehicle accidents and drowning were responsible for more than 60 percent of these deaths.

And yet, the media screeches about a gun violence “epidemic,” and takes every opportunity to publish questionable research from obviously biased sources.

Is it any wonder that Americans are ignorant about significant declines in gun crime?

The politicians screech about stemming gun violence every time a lunatic or criminal goes on an armed rampage.

Gun grabbing advocacy groups exploit every tragedy to further their political agenda.

The media focuses on carnage, but not on positive stories involving firearms.

And groups such as the American Academy of Pediatrics, which is supposed to be apolitical, features biased political hacks such as Dr. Judith S. Palfrey, who push a political agenda while hiding behind their medical degrees to promote dangerous policies.

So crime committed with firearms decreases dramatically, despite the gun banners’ most dire predictions, despite the availability of high-capacity magazines and “assault” rifles, and despite the passage of concealed carry laws in numerous states.

And the majority of Americans don’t even know it.

What does that say about them?

Reports of Its Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

For those of you who thought you were safe from the politicians trying to relieve you of your Second Amendment rights, I have one thing to say:  not so fast, Sparky!

First, according to Uncle Joe, they have to tongue bathe the collective anuses of the illegal aliens prior to the 2014 Congressional elections, so they will force “immigration reform” (read: amnesty and a road to citizenship for millions of illegals whose first act in a country they claim to love and respect was to violate said country’s immigration laws) down our collective throats first, then regroup, and then continue their assault on the Bill of Rights.

The vice president’s words mark the first time the White House has revealed a timeline that has been widely discussed among gun control advocates and senior aides to senators who are pushing background checks.

“He doesn’t think it will come back before they’ve made some pretty good steps on immigration,” said Sister Marjorie Clark, a lobbyist for Network, the Catholic social justice organization. “He said, ‘I don’t think it will happen before immigration but it will come back.’”

The timeline adds to Biden’s Thursday revelation that he plans to travel the country to push the White House gun control agenda. Then, in a meeting with representatives of law enforcement organizations, Biden said he planned extensive travel to states where senators voted against background checks and said he would take an active role in tweaking the legislation to win more votes.

Here’s the problem I have with this immigration reform. Several, actually.

1. Amnesty has been tried before and was a miserable fail.
2. I have a problem with rewarding lawbreakers.
3. It’s not fair to the folks who have been waiting patiently to enter this nation legally.
4. We need highly educated, skilled workers. That’s not who is going to be given amnesty, for the most part.
5. Security. Security. Security.
6. And also… imagine this scenario:  We allow anyone who wants to stay to remain here and legalize them.  These are generally people who work for low wages, but whose salaries are way higher than what they would have ever gotten back home, which is part of the reason why they all came here to begin with. All of a sudden, they’re legally here, and the politicians now have more ammo to raise the minimum wage, increase benefits, etc. “Why just look at these poor people! They’re working for practically nothing! Their salaries are soooooooo low! We must raise their standards of living! Vote for us, recently legalized immigrants, and we’ll make sure you get even higher salaries! There are way too many impoverished immigrants in this country. We need to do something to raise their pay.”   Sorry, but that’s a no-go for me.  Libertarians will get exactly what they ask for when they advocate just allowing these people to stay – a whole new voting base to vote themselves benefits out of the public coffers. No thanks!

But anyway – back to my original point…

Gun control isn’t dead. Not even close.

Expect the “90 percent of Americans support background checks” lie to get resurrected. Expect more pressure brought on by Bloomberg money on legislators who actually respect the Constitution. Expect more assaults on your rights. Are you ready?

Shots Fired!

The first 3D-printed gun has fired its first shots.

All 16 parts of the controversial gun, called the Liberator, are made from a tough, heat-resistant plastic used in products such as musical instruments, kitchen appliances and vehicle bumper bars.

Fifteen of those are made with a 3D printer while one is a non-functional metal part which can be picked up by metal detectors, making it legal under U.S. law. The firing pin is also not made of plastic, though it is easily crafted from a metal nail.

This thing is phenomenally goofy looking.  It reminds me of the nozzle of a garden hose. Nothing I’d ever actually buy except as a goofy novelty.

Plus, according to the Guardian, it’s inaccurate and jams, and appears to be a general pain in the ass.

And yes, it’s detectable by a metal detector, owing mostly to the fact that IT HAS METAL IN IT, so stop panicking!

Screeching, hysterical efforts to ban coming down from DC in 3…2…1…

Looks Like Negative Publicity Works

This is an update on yesterday’s story about Cole Withrow, who was expelled and charged with a felony for inadvertently leaving his shotgun in his truck when he went to school on Monday morning.

WRAL reports that Cole will graduate with his class, and will return to school to finish his education.

Kim Boykin, a family friend speaking on behalf of Withrow’s family, said he tried to get permission from school administrators to take home the weapon but instead, was arrested and expelled.

But Jimmy Lawrence, an attorney for the Johnston County Schools Board of Education, said in a statement Thursday afternoon that Withrow has not been expelled and that the school system superintendent “has made provisions” that will allow him to continue his education and to receive his high school diploma if he meets graduation requirements.

A spokeswoman for Johnston County Schools said she could not speak specifically about disciplinary measures against Withrow but said that, generally, students bringing weapons to school are suspended for 10 days with a recommendation to be suspended for a full calendar year – the mandate according to state law.

“The Legislature has mandated what actions law enforcement, school principals and school superintendents must do upon finding a violation of this law,” Lawrence said. “It was enacted for the purpose of ‘deterring students and others from bringing any type of guns onto school grounds because of the increased necessity for safety in our schools.’ This has never been more true, based on recent events that have occurred at schools in the United States in the last few years.”

Yeah, I’m sure it’s the Legislature’s fault that there’s no common sense involved in this situation. It’s the legislature’s fault that an administrator, whose error was far more egregious and potentially damaging, was not punished, while this honor student’s future was threatened.

And, of course… NEWTOWN!!! SANDY HOOK!!!  YOU MUST WANT TO KILL CHILDREN IF YOU DISAGREE WITH THE ADMINISTRATORS’ ACTIONS IN THIS CASE, SO SHUT UP!