Second Amendment Parsing by the Biased Media

Since Trumps rally in NH yesterday, the media has been having a field day accusing him of suggesting that 2nd amendment advocates might take action into their own hands and commit an act of violence against her. To anyone who actually listened to his speech and listened to it in context to the rest of the few paragraphs before and after, it would be nothing more than it was  --  a suggestion that 2nd amendment advocates are a strong voting block which should band together to vote for him rather than Hillary.

Of course the blathering media chooses not to see it this way and becomes riotous in their condemnation of Trump. They are taking every opportunity to excoriate Trump and anyone on the right side of the isle when they give the leftists a total pass.  How do we know this?  Consider the words of Obama and Hillary themselves of which I was reminded by Gary Bauer...

In 2008, then-candidate Obama urged his supporters to "argue with neighbors, get in their faces," and the media yawned. Obama also said, "If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun." When conservatives suggested such rhetoric might encourage violence, Obama and the media laughed it off. End of story from the fawning media.

Now here's a far more interesting comparison. In May of 2008, at a time when Hillary was losing the Democrat primary to Obama and facing increasing calls to bow out of the race, she was asked why she insisted on staying in. She said, "We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don't understand it."

Was she suggesting that she might benefit from Barack Obama's assassination? Of course not, and the media moved on.

Yet Trump, innocently makes the suggestion that 2nd amendment supporters are a strong voting block and should band together and he gets castigated.  They make no mention of his economic plan which is sound and will greatly help increase the GDP, bring capital back into the country, bring manufacturing back to the US and help return the large block of workers who have left the labor force back into the ranks of the employed.  Hillary on the other hand, actually makes the declarative statement that she is going to raise taxes, not only on the wealthy, but in her own words, "on the middle class".  Hear the media taking her to task for this?  Hear the media hammering her on her outright lie that Director Comey found her to be truthful?  Do we hear anything from the media about how the absolutely wrong statements by Obama and Hillary about how well the economy is doing when we continue to suffer through the worst recession recovery in our lifetimes?  NO, all we hear is the media going on and on about what they perceive Trump to have meant by a single statement.
Do we hear any comparisons from the media between the rally's Trump holds which are not only packed, but place speakers outside the halls so the overflow crowd can listen as well while the Hillary rally's are so poorly populated that many are cancelled?  Not a peep.

I will be the first to admit that this election cycle has sunk to the point that both candidates are completely flawed, but it really burns me as I watch how one side is being so over scrutinized while the other side is getting a total pass by what is supposed to be a "neutral" media.



This is a campaign which will boil down to which flawed candidate has the best interests of America at heart and which of the candidates has the greatest ability to reform and lead the country out of the economic doldrums of the Obama policies.  Regardless of which you think will do the best job, your decision should NOT be based on the parsed editorials of a transparently biased media which believes they can spoon feed their bias to an uneducated public.  Rise up America and do the research so you can think for yourself.

Another act of lawless deception by President Obama...

The President is now using an executive order to attempt a back door method of gun control by banning "green tipped" .223 bullets commonly used in the AR-15 rifles for target practice.  His reasoning is that there have been variations of the AR created recently which are pistol versions of the firearm, that these "pistols" fire the Green tipped bullets which are "armor piercing" and will penetrate police body armor killing cops.  As any AR-15 target shooter knows, the Green tip signifies that the bullet is 62 grains rather than the lower weight 55 grain version.  These bullets are lead filled and not of the solid core, armor piercing variety as claimed by the President.  Further, every high powered handgun or long gun (rifle) is capable of piercing most of the lower grade types of body armor worn by police while on every day patrol.

This is just another example of the most outrageous of lies being fed to the pulp fiction supporters of President Obama. IE...those who are so willing to accept anything he says without another thought that they become zombies to his anti-American agenda.

Let's examine the facts of Obama's claim...Police officer murders. The best method of examining this claim is to review the actual number of police officer murders.  We can then review the actual ability of pretty much any centerfire rifle and even most high powered handguns to shoot through soft body armor generally worn by police. 

The best resource for understanding the threat to police officers is the annual FBI report on Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted. A look that this report shows that in 2013 (the most recent data available), 27 police officers were murdered in the United States with firearms. Of those, the table of types of weapon used shows that ALL RIFLES COMBINED accounted for 5 murders. Eighteen officers were murdered with handguns, and three with shotguns. In the other case the type of firearm was not listed.

Of the five officers murdered with rifles, two were murdered with .223 rifles of any type. 

Table 41 of the report reveals exactly zero deaths occurred in 2013 because the victim's body armor was penetrated. To reiterate, not a single officer died in 2013 from having her/his vest penetrated by any caliber firearm. Regardless of the fact that the vast majority of officers wear Class III or lower grade body armor which won’t stop a bullet fired at close range from a large caliber handgun.

In fact, the same table shows that only 3 officers have been killed since 2004 by any .223 or 5.56x45mm round penetrating any type of vest. One death occurred in 2004, one in 2008, and one in 2011. There is no indication that any of those involved M855 or higher than class III, rifle-resistant armor. During the same period between 2004 and 2013, 7 police were murdered through their vests from hunting caliber rifle shots (.30-30 Winchester, 7mm, .308, or .30-06), 5 were murdered through their vests using 7.62x39mm the caliber used in the AK-47 Russian military rifle, and 385 were murdered with ordinary pistols and revolvers, almost all of which involved hits to unprotected areas of police who were not wearing body armor. 

After actually analyzing the data, it is obvious that the number of annual police officer deaths that would be averted by banning M855 "Green Tipped" ammo is zero. The .223 round is rarely used to murder police officers, and in the rare event it is, it rarely involves vest penetration, ie... where the body armor of any kind is worn.

The consideration is to look at murder in general. The best source for this information is the FBI Uniform Crime Reports, particularly Table 20, Murder by State and Type of Weapon. According to the UCR, there were 12,253 murders reported to the FBI in 2013 across the entire United States. According to Table 20, all rifles combined accounted for 285 of these murders. That is less than 3% of the total number of murders, and it includes all the cops murdered.  It also includes all the murders committed with the AR-15 type rifles as a part of the whole.  So considering that the number of police officers murdered by a rifle is a subset of the 3% of those murdered by rifle and that the AR-15 type rifle is a subset of the number of murders by rifle and that the number of AR-15 rifles firing “green tipped” bullets at during the commission of a police homicide is a subset of the police killed by AR-15 type firearms and we then apply this small subset to Obamas claim of AR-15 pistol conversions being used to kill cops, the odds of a police officer being killed by a “Green Tipped” .223 bullet shot from an AR-15 type firearm converted to a pistol are about as long as that same police officer winning the Powerball lottery.

Bottom line, this is just another case of an outlaw president believing he is above the law and pushing his illegal usurpation of his office to the extreme.  If we, the American people don't push back in the most strenuous terms, he will continue to take our freedom until we have none left.  At least some in the legislature understand this and are standing up for the Patriots, the rule of law and the good of America!

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=884434358246018&fref=nf

MILITARIZATION OF POLICE AND THE USE OF DEADLY FORCE

I think there is ample evidence of the Police getting out of hand.  Especially in light of huge increase in the number of laws, many times contradictory, which are written at all levels of government and the extreme tactics which are being employed to enforce these laws.

Herewith is an article from the Washington Examiner which describes the militarization of our police forces: 
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/aug/23/police-militarizing-without-any-checks-power-exper/?page=all#pagebreak

How many of you live in small communities which have large and extremely fortified police forces?  How many of you even know how fortified your police force actually is?  Have we really reached the tipping point where the idea of justice is a police force which willingly uses force to strip us of our constitutional rights in an attempt to enforce the law?

How many of you remember the response to the Boston Marathon bombing when the police force cordoned off entire blocks of the city and forced the residents out of their homes as they searched their homes without a warrant?  Does anyone think that show of force was justified or constitutional?  Can you imagine what would occur if a home owner refused to willingly leave and allow police complete access to  their PRIVATE residence?  At the least they would be removed by force and charged criminally.  If they were the least resistant, they would be physically assaulted or worse by the officers who are supposed to "Protect and Serve".

Why do we need an NSA gathering spying on every citizen of the US?  why do we need the CIA, FBI, DIA, TSA, Homeland Security on the national level and State, city, local and sherriff departments on the state level?  all in the name of protecting us when in fact, they do not protect, but instead are in many cases a part of the problem?  Why do we need so many distinct forces, all becoming extremely militarized to protect our streets when they are never available when a crime occurs?

What ever happened to the concept of a police force which is there to "protect and serve" the community at large?  Does this protection extend to the killing of citizens without a trial by jury?  Is it right for the police force to in essence become the supreme law of the land wherein they become judge, jury and executioner with impunity?

Most people have heard about the shooting of unarmed Michael Brown by a white policeman in ferguson Missouri and the riots which occurred in response.  How many of you know about the shooting of an unarmed white young man in Utah by a black policeman a week earlier?  Not many, I'll wager and there was certainly no reaction by the president, US Attorney general and the race baiting Sharpton and Jesse Jackson to this incident.  Now assume that the evidence of the Black Utah cop shooting the unarmed white kid proves to be indictable while the White Fergusons cop shooting the young black man is found to have been in self defense and thereby not indictable.  I'm willing to wager that then you will see Jesse, Sharpton, Holder and need I say Obama leading the riots.

But I digress.  Is either incident right or warranted?  Is the use of extreme, ie... deadly force by police because a young man refuses to immediately honor the orders of a police officer acceptable in our country?  

Is it right that in America, where the violent crime rate has declined for the past 5 years we have seen a 3 fold increase in the average number of killings by police during this same period?  Prior to 2006, FBI statistics show the incidents of lethal force to number under ten a year nationwide.  From 2006 to 2009, they increased to an average of 50 per year.  From 2010 to the current they have averaged over 100 per year. This during a time when the incident of violent crime has been decreasing.

Certainly there is reason for the police to use deadly force in the most extreme cases, but why does it seem that the use of extreme force is occurring with more frequency at a time when the incidence of violent crime is decreasing?  Is this a result of the militarization of our police force?  Is it a result of attempts to enforce the plethora of laws which are overburdening our society?  Is it a case of the police becoming too arrogant? Or is it as simple as the police encountering violent criminals more often than in past years?

We will probably n ever be able to answer these questions to any degree of certainty, but we must look at what is happening in our country and how this country based on the ideals of self governance and personal responsibility has become a country wherein almost anything one does on a daily basis can be construed as being illegal in some manner, shape of form and might be met with lethal force for not complying immediately to one of the myriad "officials"ndemands.

Just something to think about.

McDonald vs. Chicago

This case is based upon the 1982 law in which Chicago enacted a handgun ban, along with other firearms regulations, because “the convenient availability of firearms and ammunition has increased firearm related deaths and injuries” and handguns “play a major role in the commission of homicide, aggravated assaults and armed robbery.” Chicago City Council, Journal of Proceedings, Mar. 19, 1982, at 10049. Under Chicago’s ordinance, “[n]o person shall . . . possess . . . any firearm unless such person is the holder of a valid registration certificate for such firearm,” and no person may possess “any firearm which is unregisterable.” Unregisterable firearms include most handguns, but rifles and shotguns that are not sawed-off, short-barreled, or assault weapons are registerable. Registerable firearms must be registered before being possessed in Chicago and registration must be renewed annually. Failure to renew “shall cause the firearm to become unregisterable.”

The case has been narrowed to a question of whether the 14th amendment “privileges and immunities” and “due process” clauses incorporate the 2nd amendment. At it’s core, the issue is whether the states rights overrule the Federal regulations. The Slaughter-house decision of 1873 is very prominent. The point in the Slaughter-house decision is: “the distinction between citizenship of the United States and citizenship of a state is clearly recognized and established” The Petitioners counsel argues “SlaughterHouse’s illegitimacy has long been all-but-universally understood. It deserves to be acknowledged by this Court. Because SlaughterHouse rests on language not actually in the Constitution, contradicts the Fourteenth Amendment’s original textual meaning, defies the Framers’ intent, and supplies a nonsensical definition for Section One’s key protection of civil rights, overruling this error and its progeny remains imperative. No valid reliance interests flow from the wrongful deprivation of constitutional liberties. The reliance interest to be fulfilled remains Americans’ expectation that the constitutional amendment their ancestors ratified to protect their rights from state infringement be given its full effect.”

The Petitioners case is based upon the incorporation of the 2nd amendment into the 14th amendment. They claim that “the right should be deemed a privilege or immunity of national citizenship even under the test set forth in The Slaughter-House Cases. Thus, even if the Court declines to incorporate the Second Amendment through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, it should still incorporate it through the Privileges or Immunities Clause. Their argument is centered upon the rights of the individual as seemingly incorporated across the history of the United States.

Many, myself included, are opposed to giving the Federal government the power to impose regulatory oversight on the States, for the same reasons that I would oppose giving the United Nations the power to impose regulatory standards on the U.S. I believe that states should be able to determine what is best for the individuals living within the state regardless of the desire of the Federal Government. This presents opposition to Gura’s argument based upon the 14th amendment and I would rather see the argument made based upon the merits of the 2nd amendment alone.


The respondents case is focused on the first sentence of the 14th amendment. "All persons born and naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State where they reside" The question is whether the right "to keep and bear arms" is a "privilege" of citizenship or is part of the "liberty" protected by the 14th Amendment. The Respondents claim that “neither the Court’s selective incorporation doctrine under the Due Process Clause nor the Privileges or Immunities Clause provides a basis for imposing the Second Amendment on the States and establishing a national rule limiting arms regulation.” Respondents claim “local differences are to be cherished as elements of liberty rather than extirpated in order to produce a single, nationally applicable rule,” and “[f]ederalism is an older and more deeply rooted tradition than is a right to carry any particular kind of weapon.”

They infer that the terms incorporate severance rather than inclusivity. In other words, the states have the right to infer regulations which are more or less restrictive than Federal regulations. Neither argument, in my opinion, considers the rights of the individual wqhich is the basis for the decision o in DC vs. Heller.

In DC vs. Heller, which only 2 years ago ruled in favor of the 2nd amendment, the question of whether the states have the right to restrict gun ownership was left unanswered. This is the question which McDonald is seeking to answer. Perhaps it will require the incorporation of the 14th amendment to make the case. If so, I hope that the ruling is limited to the priviledges and immunity clause rather than including the due process clause as well. This will identify the right to “keep and bear arms” as a right of the individual and not a right bestowed by the Federal or State government to the people. I worry that expanding the decision to include the “Due Process” clause will open the door to Federal expansion and limit both the rights of the state and of the individual.

The justices were surprisingly animated and seemed skeptical of any attempt to restrict the rights of the individual. They seemed to wonder, based upon their questions, why they should reconsider their finding in DC vs. Heller, that the rights granted in the 2nd amendment flowed to the individual. It will be interesting to see how the opinion comes down, but my guess is that there will probably be another five/four vote to reverse the decision of the Chicago court and affirm the individual right to own firearms without addressing the question of the 14th amendment Due Process and priviledges clauses