Archive for the ‘Gun Grabbers’ Category

Perhaps the more accurate title of this post should be ‘When will Leftists protest these civil rights’? FIRE’s Susan Kruth’s article on Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’s revised regulations outlines changes to Obama administration’s anti-due process regulations.

Let’s be clear. The Obama administration’s Education Department was anti-civil rights. When it came to dealing with alleged sexual assault on campus, the Obama administration’s Education Department “encouraged schools to have a single investigator adjudicate sexual misconduct cases through a series of separate meetings with the parties and witnesses.” By contrast, the DeVos-proposed regulations pertaining to alleged sexual assault “requires that schools ‘must provide for a live hearing’ when adjudicating a case.”

In other words, universities must allow a cross-examination of the accuser. Nameless, faceless accusers won’t have their ‘day in court’. Kruth continues with this:

Having a live hearing ensures that all parties can see exactly the same evidence and testimony that the fact-finder is seeing, so that he or she can rebut that evidence and testimony as fully as he or she is able.

The department’s new rules go on to require a typical and critically important feature of live hearings: cross-examination of all witnesses, including the parties. The Supreme Court has called cross-examination the “greatest legal engine ever invented for the discovery of truth,” and it can be especially paramount in cases that hinge on witness testimony, as the Sixth Circuit emphasized just two months ago.

How an administration that swore an oath to uphold the Constitution can deprive people of this basic civil right is startling. Further, it’s time to admit that leftist Democrats are now fascists and/or anarchists. IF you think I’m kidding, check out Eric Swalwell’s proposal:

In a USA Today op-ed entitled “Ban assault weapons, buy them back, go after resisters,” Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., argued Thursday that prior proposals to ban assault weapons “would leave millions of assault weapons in our communities for decades to come.”

Look at the mental gymnastics Rep. Swalwell employs to justify this confiscation:

You’re probably wondering what gun confiscation has to do with due process rights. That’s a fair question. They’re both part of the Constitution’s Bill of Rights. The right to keep and bear arms is a sacred right. I prefer referring to it as the right to protect myself and my family. It’s a natural right. The Supreme Court has called the right to due process and to confront your accuser the “greatest legal engine ever invented for the discovery of truth.”

It isn’t supposition to say that Democrats have opposed the right to protect yourself and your family from burglars and criminals as vigorously as they’ve opposed the right of people to cross-examine their accusers. What other constitutional rights do Democrats want to sacrifice on the altar of political correctness?

Tim Walz just couldn’t resist the opportunity to play politics after the Tree of Life Synagogue shooting. After the shooting, Walz took to Twitter to say “As we learn more about what’s happened in Pittsburgh, my heart goes out to the victims, loved ones, first responders, and Jewish community at large. This is a pain that is all too familiar in America. We can and must take action to reduce gun violence in our communities.”

Does anyone seriously think he cares about the people killed by this gunman? I certainly don’t. This is just another attempt by Walz to curry favor with the gun grabber fringe in the DFL.

As we learn more about what’s happened in Pittsburgh, my heart goes out to the victims, loved ones, first responders, and Jewish community at large. This is a pain that is all too familiar in America. We can and must take action to reduce gun violence in our communities.

— Tim Walz (@Tim_Walz) October 27, 2018

It’s clear that Tim Walz has gone from being a reliable vote for the NRA to being a reliable vote for Michael Bloomberg. He’s no longer a centrist. He’s a leftist. On Nov. 6, it’s time to retire Tim Walz, Tina Smith and Keith Ellison.

I don’t know why I used the question mark in the title but it’s there and I’m too lazy to change it this morning. But I digress. The point of this post is to highlight the DFL’s gubernatorial ticket’s utter hostility towards legal gun owners. This morning, the Gun Owners Caucus issued a fact sheet on the ‘Erin Squared’ ticket vis a vis gun control.

It started by saying “The battle lines couldn’t be more clear. This weekend, at their convention in Rochester, the DFL endorsed the most extreme anti-gun ticket we’ve seen in Minnesota. DFL-endorsed Governor candidate Erin Murphy, an anti-gun State Representative who is proud of her “F” rating from the NRA and the Caucus. She’s been hostile to gun owners from her very first term.”

It went downhill from there, which might lead people to wonder how it can go downhill from an F rating. Here’s how:

DFL-endorsed Lt. Governor candidate Erin Maye Quade, also an anti-gun State Representative who signed onto Linda Slocum’s egregious HF 3022 gun ban bill earlier this year only to later withdrawal calling it a clerical mistake. Her spouse is a former full-time employee at Michael Bloomberg’s anti-gun Everytown activist organization.

Nothing says the DFL hates law-abiding gun owners better than an all-Metro, gun-hating ticket at the top of the ballot.

It still drops off from there:

DFL-endorsed Attorney General candidate Matt Peliken, an anti-gun attorney who has called for complete bans on many semi-automatic firearms under the guise of ‘gun safety’ legislation. He was introduced at the convention by the leader of the state-based anti-gun organization Protect Minnesota, Rev. Nancy Nord Bence.

How do you think these candidates make rural DFL voters feel on gun issues? With this much hostility towards law-abiding gun owners at the top of the DFL ticket, it’s difficult to picture enthusiasm for the DFL ticket.

Finally, check this statement out.

Saying that picking Erin Maye Quade is Erin Murphy’s first unforced mistake isn’t controversial outside the DFL. Since I’m not in the DFL, I’m not that worried what the DFL thinks. Frankly, I’m confident that I’ve got lots of company in thinking that.

Filling out Erin Maye Quade’s identity isn’t difficult. She’s admitted to organizing with Barack Obama in 2007-08. She’s led this year’s anti-gun protest at the Capitol. She’s from Apple Valley. Combining with Erin Murphy is natural since the DFL is the Metrocrat Party. Increasingly, to the DFL, life outside the Twin Cities Metro doesn’t exist. Increasingly, to the Metro DFL, people who want to protect their families are considered weird. If you don’t believe me, ask Lori Swanson how welcoming the DFL is to NRA members. Swanson led Matt Pelikan by 5 points after the first ballot. Shortly thereafter, the DFL endorsed Pelikan. After the first ballot, Pelikan dropped a neutron bomb in the convention center, telling everyone that — gasp! — the NRA had given Swanson an A rating. Within 15 minutes, Swanson withdrew.

Why would we think that an anti-mining, gun-grabbing, pro-single-payer health care ticket from the Twin Cities would attempt to represent rural Minnesota? That being said, I’m praying that this is the DFL ticket this November. Check out the last half of this video:

Quade first admits that she’s a first-term legislator. Next, she virtually admits that parents can’t afford child care. Perhaps, she should’ve told Gov. Dayton not to let several hundred million dollars leave the program as a result of fraud.

Nothing in Ms. Quade’s legislative history suggests that she’s prepared to be governor if, God forbid, Murphy is incapacitated. Then again, I question whether either of these women are interested in representing the people of rural Minnesota. I’m betting they won’t.

This ticket screams identity politics. This ticket doesn’t seem interested in representing all of Minnesota’s 87 counties. In the end, that’s why I think Murphy-Quade will get beat by Walz-Flanagan.

I just got off the phone with Mitch Berg, who told me that Erin Murphy has picked Erin Maye Quade to be the Lt. Gov. candidate on her ticket. I told Mitch that nothing says geographical and ideological balance like a pair of gun-grabbing Metrocrats that hate mining. BTW, you’ll want to read Mitch’s upcoming post to hear his perspective on this. Trust me when I tell you that he’s got a perspective that you won’t hear from the Twin Cities media.

Here’s a little background on EMQ: “Quade first rose to prominence in speaking out on sexual harassment at the State Capitol — a #MeToo movement that ultimately led to the resignation of two prominent state legislators. Quade also led a 24-hour sit-in on the floor of the State Capitol in April, calling for a vote on several gun control bills before the session’s end. Quade is the first openly LGBT candidate for statewide office on a ticket endorsed by a major party. At 32, she would also be one of the youngest people to serve in the office.”

In her first gubernatorial-level decision, Murphy failed miserably. The Lt. Gov. must be able to step in as governor if, God forbid, something happens to the governor. Erin Maye Quade fails that test:

Maye Quade is serving her first term in the House and previously worked for U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison doing constituent services and organizing for DFL campaigns. She is a lifelong resident of Apple Valley, where she lives with her wife, Alyse, who also organizes for the DFL Party.

Basically, she’s a high profile activist. What’s funny is that Murphy doesn’t admit that this ticket won’t be well-received outside the Twin Cities metro:

She’s a powerful leader who serves with integrity and authenticity. Representative @ErinMayeQuade and I are ready to keep growing our coalition in every corner of Minnesota and win in November.#TeamErin #mngov #DFL2018 pic.twitter.com/beOtzfCICU

— Erin Murphy (@epmurphymn) June 3, 2018

Here’s the thing: Erin Murphy hates farmers almost as much as she hates miners, loggers and gun owners. The thought that Murphy and Quade will appeal to more than 12% of rural voters statewide is ridiculous. I’ve got to think that the NRA is chomping at the bit to go after this ticket. In the Eighth, I’m betting that there are tons of DFLers that can’t wait to vote against this ticket. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if they vote for one of the GOP tickets.

Ken Martin won’t admit it but he’s got to be afraid of what this ticket would do to the DFL this November.

Ron Latz isn’t just about criminalizing law-abiding gun owners. He’s also into making 12 to 17 year olds feel like criminals.

Monday, “senators overwhelmingly approved three bills written to help reduce regulations home-based child care providers say could drive them out of business.” Sen. Mary Kiffmeyer “said the No. 1 problem with home-based child care is an existing state rule requiring family members ages 12 to 17 to undergo a criminal background check, including being fingerprinted and photographed. ‘This is frightening for them,’ Kiffmeyer said, and makes the youths feel like criminals. The bill provides for a simpler background check for young people.”

The legislature took up this bill because “94 percent of the home child care providers say they are thinking about closing” and because “in rural Minnesota, the lack of child care has become a crisis”, according to “Sen. Bill Weber, R-Luverne.”

Ron Latz has a different take:

Sen. Ron Latz, D-St. Louis Park, said he is concerned that easing the background checks for youths could allow some dangerous people near children. Kiffmeyer, however, said the Human Services Department considered her bill a good balance between safety and privacy.

That’s BS. Sen. Latz is simply carrying the unions’ water. It isn’t that he’s worried that 12 to 17 year-olds pose a major risk to children. It’s that he’s intent on making life miserable for child care providers who rejected union representation.

It’s apparent, too, that Sen. Latz cares more about unions than he cares about the child care crisis. That’s a sick puppy.

Many of the Parkland people that’ve hogged the spotlight (pun intended) can’t hold a candle to one of the true heroes of that horrific day. At the age of 15, Anthony Borges has done more heroic things than David Hogg and Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel will likely do in their combined lifetimes. All young Mr. Borges did on that fateful day was use his body to protect the lives of 20 other students.

Compare that with disgraced Deputy Scot Peterson, who stayed outside to establish a perimeter while Nikolas Cruz allegedly fired his weapon, killing 14 students and 3 teachers. But I digress.

Borges “was released from the hospital Wednesday after suffering wounds to the lungs, abdomen and legs.” In his statement, which was read by his attorney, Borges said Superintendent Runcie and Sheriff Israel “failed us students, teachers and parents alike on so many levels. I want all of us to move forward to end the environment that allowed people like Nikolas Cruz to fall through the cracks. You knew he was a problem years ago and you did nothing. He should have never been in school with us.”

The FBI and the Broward County Sheriff’s Office have come under intense scrutiny following the shooting. The FBI admitted days after the shooting that they received a call on Jan. 5 from a person close to Cruz expressing concerns about his erratic behavior and disturbing social media posts. The former school resource deputy, Scot Peterson, did not enter the school during the shooting. The former deputy denied wrongdoing and retired from the office before an investigation was launched.

Peterson is the poster child for a disgrace. What he did fits the description of a coward. Rest assured that he’ll be one of the defendants in the Borges’ civil lawsuit.

Technorati: Anthony Borges, Parkland Hero, Shooting Victim, Civil Lawsuit, Robert Runcie, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Scott Israel, Broward County Sheriff’s Office, Nikolas Cruz, David Hogg

If stupidity were money, the writer of this LTE would be wealthy. Early in the LTE, the writer poses a hypothetical situation, saying “Say Matt, 23, dies from an IED in Afghanistan. His rising life is cut short. The anguish is felt by his grandparents, parents, brothers, sisters, in-laws, nephews, nieces — and all their friends and relatives, and Matt’s uncles, aunts, cousins, acquaintances, friends, HS classmates, their parents, college classmates, friends, girlfriends, athletic mates, armed service mates, acquaintances — pain multiplied exponentially compared to an abortion. Pain that goes on forever.”

A few paragraphs later, the writer employs a guilt-trip strategy, writing “Then the same goes for the loved ones and friends of the wounded — physically, emotionally, psychologically. Not to mention the loss of productivity to society. Add massive costs for decades more that you and I foot to aid the wounded warriors. And the conservative reaction to all this carnage? Threats of more wars. And big yawns; hiding behind the skirts of the NRA and a lack of common sense about the second amendment. (Bazookas, grenades and howitzers have been outlawed without ‘taking all our guns.’) If conservatives truly cared about gun deaths, their abortion signs would add, ‘Save our young adults. Outlaw AR-15s.'”

The writer must be physically fit because that’s a hell of a leap. Seriously, outlawing AR-15s won’t come close to putting a dent in mass shooting deaths. Eliminating AR-15s wouldn’t even eliminate 1% of shooting deaths.

Let’s talk about the forever popular with progressives assault weapons ban while we’re at it. The progressives’ definition of an assault weapon is nothing more than a scary-looking semi-automatic rifle. If people want to be consistent, people that want to ban ‘assault weapons’ would have to eliminate all semi-automatic weapons.

Here’s a question that hasn’t been discussed. If these gun grabbers truly wanted to put a significant dent in gun deaths, why aren’t they calling for the elimination of handguns?

Instead of going the gun-grabbing route, we’d be better off if we implemented programs that already have a history of success. Sen. Marco Rubio, the politician accused of having blood on his hands because he’s accepted campaign contributions from the NRA, wrote this op-ed to highlight what Congress has already done:

Just five weeks after the tragedy in Parkland, Congress passed a spending bill that authorizes $1 billion over the next decade to improve the safety of our schools. The STOP School Violence Act is set to immediately provide resources to schools and their communities to prevent violence before it ever begins.

Being proactive is better than efficiently reacting.

The new money would be available to local governments and schools to implement programs like Los Angeles County’s successful School Threat Assessment Response Team, which coordinates the efforts of law enforcement, schools and mental health professionals to make sure nobody slips through the cracks. It will fund anonymous reporting systems like the Safe UT app, and help school districts create and train intervention teams to seek out the troubled students most likely to pose risks like what happened in Parkland.

Rather than listen to the mindless yapping of young activists like David Hogg and Emma Gonzalez, Congress has funded an effective program that seeks to expand from Los Angeles to the entire nation. Here’s why that’s important:

School safety programs that had previously been subject to budget cuts or staff turnover will have additional resources for operations and for investments in improvements. Local government officials, and the parents and families they represent, will be able to use the money for solutions that work best for their communities based on tried and true approaches.

It’s time for the activists to get off the stage. They’ve been discredited because improving school safety doesn’t require trampling people’s civil rights. Cameron Kasky, David Hogg and Emma Gonzalez are poorly-trained actors with a loser’s script:

Once the media hysteria died after the Parkland shooting and people had time to investigate what actually happened, people noticed that Parkland officials made quite a few mistakes. Investigators noticed that Deputy Scot Peterson didn’t rush into the building to save students, instead opting to establish a perimeter from the safety of his car.

Thanks to a timeline published in this article, we know quite a few things about what happened that tragic day. We know that, sometime after 2:23 pm, Deputy Peterson shouted “Get the school locked down, gentlemen!” Potentially, this is a huge point in light of information that we’re now learning about. According to this article, “a threat assessment [was] performed months ahead of the tragedy.”

According to the source, the “threat assessment was done by a retired Secret Service agent, and it was known that he was going to do this assessment by the Safety Committee but that no one else at Stoneman Douglas would be aware of it, including administration except for that one administrator on the committee.” Further, it’s alleged that the “Secret Service agent came in. He parked in the front of the school for 20 minutes. He was never approached by anyone. He gained entry to the campus never being stopped by anyone at any time and put Post-Its on 21 random people.’ Each Post-It note represented a potential casualty.”

If this is verified as true, this is another bombshell. If true, it’s another instance of governmental incompetence. Allegedly, one of the recommendations from the former Secret Service agent was to keep the gates of the school locked. Another alleged recommendation was to not immediately evacuate the classroom in the event of a fire alarm. “Prior to the shooting, Cruz activated a fire alarm, sending students flooding into the hallway where he could target them.”

If I was the parent of one of the 14 students who lost their lives that day, I’d demand to know why these common sense precautions weren’t taken prior to the shooting. In one sense, in fact, it’s irrelevant whether a threat assessment was conducted. It’s irrelevant whether these recommendations were made, too.

These precautions have been implemented across the nation. Why didn’t the school board insist that these precautions be made? Cameron Kasky, David Hogg and Emma Gonzalez might be world-class activists but their credibility is definitely shrinking.

No matter how emphatically they say it, the NRA doesn’t have blood on their hands. The Broward County Sheriff’s Office, aka Broward’s Cowards, have blood on their hands. Ditto with the School Board. Ditto with the people who repeatedly questioned Nikolas Cruz but didn’t institutionalize him.

With all of this information, it’s difficult to picture how the NRA is even slightly to blame for the Parkland Massacre.

For the past 6 weeks, I’ve been inundated with moral-sounding drivel from high school students. While the left-leaning media swooned over these ill-informed activists’ activism, I kept wondering when a true journalist would ask them pertinent questions. After awhile, I stopped expecting the MSM to do something they clearly didn’t want to do. After awhile, I stopped expecting these children to stop acting like ill-informed spoiled brats.

While the MSM praises their activism, people in America’s heartland have moved on. Voters in America’s heartland have tuned these children out, knowing that they’re mostly a creation of the MSM and that the emotions are real. If the MSM won’t ask these children some tough questions, I will.

1. Are you committed to making schools safer? If you are, why are you pushing the thing that doesn’t work?
2. Why is your focus solely on the NRA? Sheriff Israel, Deputy Peterson, the Broward Cowards and the FBI were more to blame than the NRA.
3. To David Hogg and Emma Gonzalez: did you know that an ‘assault weapon’ (as you define it) is nothing more than a scary-looking semi-automatic rifle?
4. Why haven’t you advocated for banning handguns? They kill far more people than so-called assault weapons?
5. Why haven’t you advocated for banning all semi-automatic rifles? They’re just as lethal as assault weapons as defined by you.
6. Isn’t it time for you to admit that you’re just tools of the gun control lobby?
7. Isn’t it time to admit that your ‘solutions’ haven’t worked and can’t work?
8. Finally, isn’t it time you apologized for your ill-informed activism? Yes, you have the right to protest. It’s just that you’d have a better chance of being effective if you knew what you were talking about, which you clearly don’t, and if you were truly interested in solving problems rather than just checking another item off the gun grabbers’ ideological checklist?

Let’s see if anyone responds before the next march:

Student leaders who have organized, marched and pressed for government action to halt gun violence sound as if they’re just getting warmed up. Plans are taking shape for April 20 school walkouts tied to the anniversary of the Columbine High shootings, along with a rally that afternoon at the State Capitol. Next weekend, students in the south metro have called for a town hall meeting, with invites sent to elected officials, hitting again on themes that propelled them to rally and protest: the senselessness of gun violence and the hesitance of some lawmakers to take corrective action. “I think legislators who do nothing on this subject do so at their own peril,” said Joe Campbell, a communications consultant whose GoFundMe campaign sent dozens of Henry Sibley High School students to Washington, D.C., for last weekend’s March for Our Lives. He attended the event, too, and came away thinking, “If I were a politician, and I saw this, I’d be shaking in my boots.”

First, if I was the media director for gun rights advocates, I’d talk about how government failed to protect those students and teachers. I’d highlight that this wasn’t the first time that government failed in protecting its citizens. This article would be highlighted:

A federal database with the names of mentally ill people barred from buying guns still lacks millions of records it needs to be effective. A new report from Mayors Against Illegal Guns points to gaps in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). The problem is that 14 years after NICS was put in place, states still aren’t submitting all the required mental health records.

“I think that those states are doing a disservice to their citizens,” says Lori Haas, whose daughter Emily was injured in the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting. “They’re not doing what they can to protect public safety and to keep firearms out of the hands of potentially dangerous people.”

That article was published in August, 2012. Democrats had a significant majority in the Senate and a Democrat was president. Shouldn’t Democrats take the blame for not fixing NICS?

Since the shooting, Virginia has become a model, submitting more than 170,000 records of people with mental illnesses. But the Mayors Against Illegal Guns report shows 21 other states have reported fewer than 100 records. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) examined why states aren’t submitting records in a July report. Some cited bureaucratic barriers, others technical ones, like switching from paper-based to computer systems. And some states contend it violates their laws to forward mental health records to the federal database. A few states are changing their laws.

“Texas enacted a law in 2009 and was then able to increase the number of records by about 190,000,” says Carol R. Cha, acting director in GAO’s Homeland Security and Justice division. But recent shootings, like the ones in Colorado and Texas, demonstrate that people with mental illnesses are still able to buy guns.

The last I checked, the NRA wasn’t responsible for submitting those records. Government was. Government failed to protect people.
Thank God for people like Ben Shapiro. In this video, Shapiro levels a devastating critique of David Hogg:

To David Hogg, Emma Gonzalez and Cameron Kasky: if you’re truly interested in protecting people from gun violence, which I question at this point, it’s time to get government to do its job. That includes insisting that deputies actually run towards danger instead of hiding behind their vehicles. That includes requiring states to update the NICS system in a timely fashion. That includes pointing the finger of blame at the people who are actually at fault.

Right now, that isn’t happening.

Technorati: Gun Control, March for Our Lives, Emma Gonzalez, Cameron Kasky, David Hogg, National Instant Criminal Background Check System, Virginia Tech, Parkland, Scott Israel, Scot Peterson, Nikolas Cruz, FBI, NRA, Assault Weapons Ban, Activism