Gun Control

Opinion/Analysis: Parkland Gun Control Activists Driving Americans Toward 2nd Amendment

As Parkland gun control activists and their surrogates mock the idea of arming teachers, march for gun bans in D.C., and call for new gun controls via Twitter, they risk driving Americans toward the Second Amendment instead of away from it. They run this risk via their in-your-face gun control hubris, especially when that hubris is directed toward docile actors. For example, on Monday Rep. Steve King (R-IA) addressed Parkland students who want to raise the minimum age for gun purchases by asking, “If you are a teenager & believe you won’t be responsible enough to own a gun until 21, why should you vote before 21?” That is a reasonable question when one considers that voting and owning guns are both constitutional rights. Yet the responses to his question varied between things too vulgar to print and pronouncements that his political career is over–that he is a pawn of the NRA and is going to be voted out office. Or consider David Hogg, one of the most frequent spokesmen for Parkland gun control activists. He put out a PSA one week before the student march for gun control and asked, “What if our politicians weren’t the bitch of the NRA?” And it is not just the way he talks about the NRA, although that runs the risk of motivating the group’s five million-plus members to show up and vote. It is also the way he appears to set himself apart from other Americans in general. Take his March 22 Axios interview as an example. In that interview he talked of how his teachers are “very understanding” when he has to skip school for gun control events and appearances. He even talked of how he was recently supposed to take a math test but just said, “Nah.” This gives the appearance of special rules for the philosopher king, rules and opportunities that cannot be enjoyed by others. One cannot be blamed for sensing a similar, conflicting set of rules in gun controllers from Hollywood and D.C. If, by chance, you still do not see the hubris, then look at Parkland gun control activist Cameron Kasky, who spends time rejecting the idea of arming teachers to defend students when he is not making fun of Americans’ abiding conviction that we need to be armed to repel a tyranny. On Tuesday he tweeted: “To all people who think they need an assault rifle: I can not promise this, but I truly do not believe the redcoats will be coming for any of us any time soon.” And we have not even mentioned how the gun control activists treated Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch during the CNN gun control town hall. It was just a few short months ago–October 19, 2017, to be exact–that Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) was urging his colleagues to drop gun control until after the November 2018 election. He worried that the incessant, post-Vegas gun control push was going to hurt Democrats in the midterm elections. Yet the gun control push from Democrats has only escalated since Schumer voiced his concerns, thanks to the Parkland activists and others. Meanwhile, the NRA PAC took in February donations that were three times higher than it received during January. This could mean that people had spent months saving in a coordinated effort to give money to the NRA in February or…it could mean that Schumer was right and all the gun control rhetoric is rallying Americans to the standard once more. And that standard is the Second Amendment.

Agreed..  Author AWR Hawkins has a great point here…one I heard someone echo last night.  Each time there is an overreach for guns by anti-gun, liberal politicians, there is a political backlash against them by we-the-people.  That said..  If you’re thinking about getting a firearm, NOW is the time to do that, and stock up on ammo while you can.  You just never know..  Also, take a minute and join the NRA or renew your membership online.  If we all do it, it’ll send a powerful message to the politicians in D.C.

Rapper Who Performed at Gun Control March Arrested Last Year on Concealed Handgun Charge

Rapper Vic Mensa performed for Saturday’s student march for gun control, coined the March for Our Lives, although he was arrested last year on a concealed handgun charge. Mensa was arrested in Beverly Hills after being found with a concealed handgun without a California concealed carry license. On March 7, 2017, TMZ reported, “[Mensa] was stopped in Beverly Hills … for running a stop sign and having tinted windows … according to law enforcement sources. We’re told he informed cops he had a gun in his car and showed them his concealed carry permit. The problem is … cops say the permit is for another state.” Mensa faced “felony” charges for the incident but was able to plead down to “two years probation.” In addition to performing Saturday, Mensa called out another rapper, Killer Mike, for criticizing march participants who blindly follow the “progressive movement.” Killer Mike warned that gun control ultimately means blacks lose the guns with which they protect their freedom. Mensa responded by challenging him to a debate: Killer Mike responded by saying, “We got the same publicist and u have my phone number. I ain’t dodge’n u”:

Word..

Walkout fallout: School districts hit with backlash over political activism

The gun control movement notched a public relations coup with last week’s massive school walkouts, but now school districts that pitched in to ensure the protest’s success are stuck with the rising political and legal fallout. A week after the March 14 walkout, school officials are grappling with complaints from parents outraged by the specter of their kids engaged in political protesting on school time, as well as reports of criminal mischief committed by teens who treated the event as a get-out-of-class-free card. What’s more, the students get to do it all again next month. A substantially identical event, also called the National School Walkout, is scheduled for April 20, the 19th anniversary of the Columbine High School massacre. Chris Cleveland, chairman of the Chicago Republican Party, said he worried that the walkouts, aimed at pushing for tougher gun restrictions in the wake of the deadly Parkland shooting, have provided the template for advocacy groups eager to co-opt the public schools for progressive activism. “If they get away with this, they’ll be free to engage in any kind of political activity in the schools that they wish,” said Mr. Cleveland, who has a third-grader in the Chicago Public Schools. The party is moving to avert that scenario by preparing a lawsuit against the school system, arguing that the district violated state and federal law as well as its own policies by organizing a political demonstration — and pressuring students to attend — on the taxpayers’ dime. The district has yet to comment, but it has other problems. About 60 students from Simeon Career Academy trashed a Walmart “while they were supposed to be protesting guns,” an incident under investigation by police, according to Fox32 in Chicago. The school system issued a statement saying it was reviewing the incident, but Mr. Cleveland said he has yet to receive a response to a letter from the party’s attorney demanding “that they comply with the law.” “There will always be a few kids who don’t behave,” said Mr. Cleveland. “I’m a lot more concerned about the behavior of the adults.” He is not alone. Connecticut lawyer Deborah G. Stevenson said she has fielded calls from parents and others across the nation, including California, Illinois, Massachusetts and Rhode Island, after reports about her clash with the New Milford Public Schools. She urged the district last week on behalf of several parents to cancel the high school walkout, arguing that the schools had “condoned, facilitated, and supported an event that clearly advocates for students to be part of a partisan political ‘movement,’” but the district refused. Ms. Stevenson said her clients plan to pursue further action before the April 20 walkout. “Parents are very, very upset about this entire situation,” said Ms. Stevenson. “The ones that have contacted us are trying to determine what the proper legal steps would be here. Everybody’s trying to make that determination of how and when and where to take the next step.”

We don’t blame these parents one bit!  For more, click on the text above.

Coulter: Racial Quotas Kill Kids

President Obama did a lot of bad things, but pound for pound, one of the worst was the January 2014 “Dear Colleague” letter sent jointly by his Education and Justice Departments to all public schools threatening lawsuits over racial discrimination in student discipline. The letter came after years of his administration browbeating schools for their failure to discipline every race of student at the same rate. As the Huffington Post put it: “American Schools Are STILL Racist, Government Report Finds.” The evidence? “Five percent of white students were suspended annually, compared with 16 percent of black students, according to the report.” Q.E.D. According to theory, there’s NO WAY blacks and Hispanics are doing things that require more school discipline than whites or Asians. So if more black students are expelled than Asians, well, gentlemen, we have our proof of racism. To comply, schools would have to stop suspending black kids for breaking a teacher’s jaw, but suspend Asians for dropping an eraser. Using the same logic, I could close the achievement gap between blacks and Asians in a single day by going to every principal’s office in the country and burning the transcripts. (Liberals are saying, “You know, that’s not a bad idea.”) The “school-to-prison pipeline” argument for racial quotas in discipline was hatched in education schools and black studies departments. What I want to know is: How did they test the idea? To validate the theory that recording students’ criminal behavior produces students with criminal records, we divided students into two groups. Group A we continued to suspend when they acted up; Group B we would not suspend no matter what — even when they engaged in their little mischief, like cracking heads with crowbars, dropping teachers off buildings, using a switchblade to cut other students’ eyes out. RESULT: At the end of the year, Group B had better records. Were the researchers really in suspense about how the experiment was going to turn out? I could have told them at the beginning that their odds of success were tremendous — unless they forgot halfway through and began accidentally suspending students in Group B. But the Obama administration said: Wow! That’s amazing. Do you think other schools could replicate those results? One of the administration’s models was Broward County, Florida. Which is kind of important, now that we know that it was Broward’s official policy to make it impossible to arrest students like Nikolas Cruz, thus allowing him to amass a cache of firearms, walk into Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and murder 17 people. The “school-to-prison pipeline” nonsense may not be the explanation for every school shooting, but it is absolutely the explanation for THIS school shooting. No matter what Cruz did, no matter how many times his crimes were reported to the sheriff or school officials, there was no way a lad with a name like “Nikolas Cruz” was ever going to leave school with a record. Broward County’s innovative idea of eliminating school discipline captivated Obama’s Department of Education. It was expressly cited by the department’s Civil Rights Division with the notation: “New model for other jurisdictions?” Last October — nearly a year into the Trump administration — Broward Schools Superintendent Robert W. Runcie humbly noted that the district was receiving “invitations from around the country, including from The White House and Federal Office of Civil Rights, to share details about the historic reforms” on school discipline. Either: Liberals truly believe that all races commit crimes at exactly the same level, frequency and intensity; OR they are willing to have people die for their political agenda. Conservatives didn’t pick this school shooting as the test case for gun control. It was liberals who were going to ride the Parkland shooting all the way to the midterms. They thought they had a beautiful story about the evil NRA. Not the mass shooting in Orlando — because of the obvious immigration angle. Not San Bernardino — for the same reason. Not Las Vegas — probably for the same reason, but we’ll never know because law enforcement has issued only lies and nonsense about that shooting. The media did all the hard work of making sure Parkland was the only topic on anyone’s mind, with everyone demanding that we “do something!” And then we got the facts. Cruz’s criminal acts were intentionally ignored by law enforcement on account of Broward’s much-celebrated “school-to-prison pipeline” reforms. Thank God for the internet, or we’d never have known the truth. Admittedly, most of the harm done by the policy that enabled Cruz is not usually a mass shooting. The main damage done by the “school-to-prison pipeline” idiocy is: broken bones, smashed teeth, traumatized students, making it impossible for other students to learn, having a bad influence on marginal students and teachers sinking into depression. Check at your local school for the full results. Thanks to the Obama administration, this crackpot theory is sweeping school districts across the nation! The next time Democrats control Congress and the presidency, we will have racial quotas for prisons, too. When that happens, you better hope the government hasn’t taken your guns.

No kidding!!  As usual, conservative firebrand Ann Coulter nails it.  Excellent!   🙂

NRA Memberships Surge in Wake of Anti-NRA Protests, ‘Media Bias’

National Rifle Association memberships surged in the wake of the anti-NRA protests and “media bias” that followed the February 14 Florida school shooting. The Daily Mail reports that Google searches for “NRA membership” rose “4,900 percent” since the Florida attack. That rise occurred at a time when many Democrats, media personalities, and Hollywood celebrities were denouncing the NRA as causal in the shooting that took 17 lives in a gun-free zone. The Hollywood attitude was epitomized by writer-director Judd Apatow, actress Mia Farrow, and comedian Chelsea Handler, all of whom responded to the Florida school attack by calling out the NRA to drive a wedge between voters and pro-gun legislators. For example, Handler tweeted: “We have to elect candidates that are not funded by the NRA in November. We have an opportunity to elect candidates who won’t allow kids to go to school and get shot. It is disgusting how many times this has happened and Republicans do nothing. You all have blood on your hands.” CNN’s February 21 gun control town hall highlighted the media’s animosity towards the NRA, as it featured survivors from the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting confronting Republicans over NRA affiliation. The Guardian reported that one student spoke to Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), asking, “Can you tell me right now you will not accept a single donation from the NRA?” In addition, more than a dozen companies severed ties with the NRA in the wake of the school attack, ending discounted rates and fares for NRA members. But a large swath of the American populace is equating these various attacks on the NRA with attacks on the Second Amendment, and others see the attacks as proof of “media bias.” The result is an explosion in NRA memberships. The Daily Mail quoted Cleta Mitchell, a former NRA board member and former Oklahoma lawmaker, who said, “There is no one. NO ONE. Who joins the NRA for a discount on a rental car. You can rest assured that the NRA will not lose a single member as a result of this. If anything, it should spur people to join the NRA as a means of demonstrating that we who believe in the Second Amendment will not be bullied by these left wing multi-billion dollar corporations.”

Cornyn: Trump told me he supports my ‘Fix NICS’ background check bill

Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn on Friday said President Trump clarified to him Thursday evening that Mr. Trump supports Mr. Cornyn’s bill aimed at improving the federal instant check system for gun transactions. “He called me last night sort of to clarify his position, at least from a legislative standpoint, that he supported the … bipartisan background check bill that I’ve introduced,” the Texas Republican told reporters in Austin. Mr. Cornyn said Mr. Trump is open to other ideas, like measures to improve school safety and dealing with mental health issues. “I don’t think he’s foreclosing any of those, but I think he realizes that the best way to get a result is to start with a consensus bill like the background check bill that I introduced after Sutherland Springs and then go from there,” he said. Mr. Cornyn spoke after voting early ahead of Tuesday’s primary elections in Texas. The White House has said Mr. Trump supports Mr. Cornyn’s legislation to incentivize states and federal agencies to share more of their records with the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). At a meeting with lawmakers this week, the president had turned some heads when he suggested that a more expansive bill extending the background checks to gun shows and online sales could serve as the basis for a comprehensive gun bill, rather than Mr. Cornyn’s. But White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Friday the president supports the Cornyn bill, and that he wouldn’t necessarily back the broader background check bill written by GOP Sen. Pat Toomey and Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin. Mr. Trump and Vice President Mike Pence also met Thursday with Chris Cox, who heads the National Rifle Association’s legislative-lobbying arm. “I had a great meeting tonight with @realDonaldTrump & @VP. We all want safe schools, mental health reform and to keep guns away from dangerous people. POTUS & VPOTUS support the Second Amendment, support strong due process and don’t want gun control. #NRA #MAGA,” Mr. Cox tweeted Thursday. Mrs. Sanders said Friday that the president only promised to the NRA that he’ll continue to support the Second Amendment. “That’s not something that he’s backed away from,” she said. “The background check system is something that he’s still very much interested in improving.”

Schools safer today than in 1990s, study on shootings says

As President Trump and lawmakers consider ways to make schools safer in the wake of the Florida high school massacre, an academic study is reporting that U.S. schools overall are safer today than they were in the early 1990s, and there is not an epidemic of such shootings. Researchers at Northeastern University say mass school shootings are extremely rare, that shootings involving students have been declining since the 1990s, and four times as many children were killed in schools in the early 1990s than today. “There is not an epidemic of school shootings,” said James Alan Fox, the Lipman Family Professor of Criminology, Law, and Public Policy at Northeastern. He said more children die each year from pool drownings or bicycle accidents. There are around 55 million schoolchildren in the U.S., the study said, and over the past 25 years, about 10 students on average per year were killed by gunfire at school. The researchers used data collected by USA Today, the FBI’s Supplementary Homicide Report, Congressional Research Service, Gun Violence Archive, Stanford Geospatial Center and Stanford Libraries, Mother Jones, Everytown for Gun Safety, and a New York City Police Department report on active shooters. The Everytown group said this month that its own research shows there have been nearly 300 school shootings in America since 2013 — defining a shooting as anytime a firearm discharges a live round inside or into a school building or on a school campus. Since the shooting on Feb. 14 in Parkland, Florida, that killed 17 people and wounded 15 others, policymakers including Mr. Trump have been exploring ways to prevent more school shootings, including proposals to arm more teachers and to raise the age limit for purchasing firearms. Mr. Fox said some policy changes could lead to an overall decrease in gun violence, such as banning “bump stocks” and raising the age of purchase for assault rifles from 18 to 21. But he doesn’t believe such measures will prevent all school shootings. “The thing to remember is that these are extremely rare events, and no matter what you can come up with to prevent it, the shooter will have a workaround,” Mr. Fox said in a report on the university’s website.

Exactly!!  Some good info here that the White House and members of Congress need to read.  So, please forward it on to your member of Congress and both of your U.S. Senators, regardless of party.  Oftentimes it is they who pass laws which restrict our freedoms based on emotion; NOT facts.  To read the rest of the article, click on the text above.