castledoom.com

[JuntaJoe]

I'm sure that everyone has seen the tv reports about the rabid gun and ammo buying since Obama took office. Can't say as I blame people either given what the Obama administration has been doing in the two months since he's been in office.

Did you know that he tried to order the DoD to quit selling used military rifle brass? A prime source of brass for the reloading market these brass shell casings have very small recyclable metals value given they are actually alloys that vary in content. The government proposed that the casings be destroyed before selling them. That means the buyer would have to destroy them at their own expense before taking official reciept. Selling for only a couple pennies apiece for scrap that would make them actually a negative value product that no one would buy. Reloaders buy them simply because the bulk buyers put them through machines to refurbish them a bit cheaper than buying new brass casings. All the money is in the process, not the metal.

Did you know that the government has been shuffling the import rules on imported ammo so much that importers cannot keep track of regs from one day to the next, much less during usual shipping transit times, and that there is tons and tons of new import ammo parked in US customs houses corroding in the salt air. By the time the importers get their paperwork good enough for inspection the ammo is deemed too dangerous to import due to corrosion and is quietly seized and transferred to government contractors for resales to armies we support, like Iraq and Afghanistan. There would be no ammo shortage if the government quit playing games in the customs houses and people would buy enough to let the market relax enough for prices to drop back to normal levels.

The two above actions have created an artificial shortage the government is promoting to keep prices high and hope eventually buyers will stop buying. Scarcity through artificial market controls.

Then they are hoping to microstamp the ammo soon so they can trace it. This will be labeled as a feature to aid law enforcement with gun violence cases, but it will be of poor value for that due to deformation, while prosecutors will still rely on the more valid rifling ballistics tests instead. But the micro stamping has two features the government wants. It will boost ammo prices again and aid the ATF in determining the flow of ammo around the country. Another way for Big Brother to watch what you are buying.

Then we get to the the biggest ploy by the government lately. The supposed hysteria over our guns going to Mexico for the drug wars. Note how the networks love to show images of M16's as proof we are arming the cartels. It's a blatant lie.

Below is a long story on the truth.

The Myth of 90 Percent: Only a Small Fraction of Guns in Mexico Come From U.S.

While 90 percent of the guns traced to the U.S. actually originated in the United States, the percent traced to the U.S. is only about 17 percent of the total number of guns reaching Mexico.

You've heard this shocking "fact" before -- on TV and radio, in newspapers, on the Internet and from the highest politicians in the land: 90 percent of the weapons used to commit crimes in Mexico come from the United States.

-- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said it to reporters on a flight to Mexico City.

-- CBS newsman Bob Schieffer referred to it while interviewing President Obama.

-- California Sen. Dianne Feinstein said at a Senate hearing: "It is unacceptable to have 90 percent of the guns that are picked up in Mexico and used to shoot judges, police officers and mayors ... come from the United States."

-- William Hoover, assistant director for field operations at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, testified in the House of Representatives that "there is more than enough evidence to indicate that over 90 percent of the firearms that have either been recovered in, or interdicted in transport to Mexico, originated from various sources within the United States."

There's just one problem with the 90 percent "statistic" and it's a big one:

It's just not true.

In fact, it's not even close. By all accounts, it's probably around 17 percent.

What's true, an ATF spokeswoman told FOXNews.com, in a clarification of the statistic used by her own agency's assistant director, "is that over 90 percent of the traced firearms originate from the U.S."

But a large percentage of the guns recovered in Mexico do not get sent back to the U.S. for tracing, because it is obvious from their markings that they do not come from the U.S.

"Not every weapon seized in Mexico has a serial number on it that would make it traceable, and the U.S. effort to trace weapons really only extends to weapons that have been in the U.S. market," Matt Allen, special agent of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), told FOX News.

A Look at the Numbers

In 2007-2008, according to ATF Special Agent William Newell, Mexico submitted 11,000 guns to the ATF for tracing. Close to 6,000 were successfully traced -- and of those, 90 percent -- 5,114 to be exact, according to testimony in Congress by William Hoover -- were found to have come from the U.S.

But in those same two years, according to the Mexican government, 29,000 guns were recovered at crime scenes.

In other words, 68 percent of the guns that were recovered were never submitted for tracing. And when you weed out the roughly 6,000 guns that could not be traced from the remaining 32 percent, it means 83 percent of the guns found at crime scenes in Mexico could not be traced to the U.S.

So, if not from the U.S., where do they come from? There are a variety of sources:

-- The Black Market. Mexico is a virtual arms bazaar, with fragmentation grenades from South Korea, AK-47s from China, and shoulder-fired rocket launchers from Spain, Israel and former Soviet bloc manufacturers.

-- Russian crime organizations. Interpol says Russian Mafia groups such as Poldolskaya and Moscow-based Solntsevskaya are actively trafficking drugs and arms in Mexico.

- South America. During the late 1990s, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) established a clandestine arms smuggling and drug trafficking partnership with the Tijuana cartel, according to the Federal Research Division report from the Library of Congress.

-- Asia. According to a 2006 Amnesty International Report, China has provided arms to countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Chinese assault weapons and Korean explosives have been recovered in Mexico.

-- The Mexican Army. More than 150,000 soldiers deserted in the last six years, according to Mexican Congressman Robert Badillo. Many took their weapons with them, including the standard issue M-16 assault rifle made in Belgium.

-- Guatemala. U.S. intelligence agencies say traffickers move immigrants, stolen cars, guns and drugs, including most of America's cocaine, along the porous Mexican-Guatemalan border. On March 27, La Hora, a Guatemalan newspaper, reported that police seized 500 grenades and a load of AK-47s on the border. Police say the cache was transported by a Mexican drug cartel operating out of Ixcan, a border town.

'These Don't Come From El Paso'

Ed Head, a firearms instructor in Arizona who spent 24 years with the U.S. Border Patrol, recently displayed an array of weapons considered "assault rifles" that are similar to those recovered in Mexico, but are unavailable for sale in the U.S.

"These kinds of guns -- the auto versions of these guns -- they are not coming from El Paso," he said. "They are coming from other sources. They are brought in from Guatemala. They are brought in from places like China. They are being diverted from the military. But you don't get these guns from the U.S."

Some guns, he said, "are legitimately shipped to the government of Mexico, by Colt, for example, in the United States. They are approved by the U.S. government for use by the Mexican military service. The guns end up in Mexico that way -- the fully auto versions -- they are not smuggled in across the river."

Many of the fully automatic weapons that have been seized in Mexico cannot be found in the U.S., but they are not uncommon in the Third World.

The Mexican government said it has seized 2,239 grenades in the last two years -- but those grenades and the rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) are unavailable in U.S. gun shops. The ones used in an attack on the U.S. Consulate in Monterrey in October and a TV station in January were made in South Korea. Almost 70 similar grenades were seized in February in the bottom of a truck entering Mexico from Guatemala.

"Most of these weapons are being smuggled from Central American countries or by sea, eluding U.S. and Mexican monitors who are focused on the smuggling of semi-automatic and conventional weapons purchased from dealers in the U.S. border states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California," according to a report in the Los Angeles Times.

Boatloads of Weapons

So why would the Mexican drug cartels, which last year grossed between $17 billion and $38 billion, bother buying single-shot rifles, and force thousands of unknown "straw" buyers in the U.S. through a government background check, when they can buy boatloads of fully automatic M-16s and assault rifles from China, Israel or South Africa?

Alberto Islas, a security consultant who advises the Mexican government, says the drug cartels are using the Guatemalan border to move black market weapons. Some are left over from the Central American wars the United States helped fight; others, like the grenades and launchers, are South Korean, Israeli and Spanish. Some were legally supplied to the Mexican government; others were sold by corrupt military officers or officials.

The exaggeration of United States "responsibility" for the lawlessness in Mexico extends even beyond the "90-percent" falsehood -- and some Second Amendment activists believe it's designed to promote more restrictive gun-control laws in the U.S.

In a remarkable claim, Auturo Sarukhan, the Mexican ambassador to the U.S., said Mexico seizes 2,000 guns a day from the United States -- 730,000 a year. That's a far cry from the official statistic from the Mexican attorney general's office, which says Mexico seized 29,000 weapons in all of 2007 and 2008.

Chris Cox, spokesman for the National Rifle Association, blames the media and anti-gun politicians in the U.S. for misrepresenting where Mexican weapons come from.

"Reporter after politician after news anchor just disregards the truth on this," Cox said. "The numbers are intentionally used to weaken the Second Amendment."

"The predominant source of guns in Mexico is Central and South America. You also have Russian, Chinese and Israeli guns. It's estimated that over 100,000 soldiers deserted the army to work for the drug cartels, and that ignores all the police. How many of them took their weapons with them?"

© 2008 FOX News

[s_stabeler]

i highly doubt they will go too far in regulating guns.

honestly, I thank gun control should be simple:

1) criminal records check for violent crime/assault w/deadly weapon/firearms offences. if you fail the check ( violent crimes defined as murder/sexual offences/you get the idea)
2) mental health check, to check if you have any mental health issues. if so, no gun.
3) for SOME guns, restrictions on where you can own them. I'm thinking things like no hunting rifles in DC. why? well, exactly what would you hunt in DC? however, it would ahve to be proved to be IMPOSSIBLE to need said gun in the location for it to be banned. burden of proof on the legislature. ( in other words, of you can't hunt there, you can't own hunting rifle there, but CAN elsewhere. for example, you could live in DC and store yuor hunting rifles
somewhere else where there are things to hunt other than people)
4)ammunition. if it's in a gun shop, then no restrictions other than a requirement for it to be in good condition, and for the clerk too make reasonable efforts to verify the person actually has a legal gun. ( maybe a database of those barred?) otherwise, a full check on if they are allowed to own a gun if ammunition is ordered via the internet or a catalogue/something like that, since then you have time to check.
5) no automatic guns. sorry, but I can't see why a semi-auto isn't good enough. unless you are Military, surely you only need one shot per trigger pull?

[JuntaJoe]

To some degree those are already the laws here.

Any felony conviction is a permanent bar to gun ownership, unless you are pardoned or have the conviction overturned on appeal.

Mental health problems of a certain level are also a bar.

These are investigated when you buy a gun with the Insta-check system. Like all things government run it is not perfect, but it isn't particularly burdensome.

Also the National Firearms Act of 1936 states that rifle and shotgun barrels must be at least 16 inches, you cannot use silencers, you may not own military or home made grenades and bombs, and you cannot own a machine gun. Licensed collectors can have these, but the rules are extremely onerous and intrusive, unlike regular gun ownership.


The DC idea you have is illogical. You store your weapons at home. You can hunt in many places within 100 miles of DC in Virginia and Maryland. Driving 2 hours to a hunting site is common and normal here. Paying to store them elsewhere puts financial strain on the owner unnecessarily, puts the weapon at risk from a number of reasons, and is totally unnecessary if the owner properly stores his rifle.

Other than product reliability laws I see no reason at all to regulate ammunition. Taxing it, other than standard sales tax, is a punitive burden designed solely as a means to subvert the 2nd Amendment.


All these moves are designed with one goal. To restrict guns without being seen as gun control that might incur backlash at election time. Piecemeal tricks of regulatory sleight of hand that allow them to avoid a dedicated bill in the legislature that would rally opponents and label individuals as anti-gun at election time.

[s_stabeler]

the checks with ammunition is to stop people who shouldn't have guns buying ammunition for any illegal guns they have.

ok, the DC thing, I thought there wasn't anywhere to hunt nearby, which would give only one logical thing to use a rifle for...

[Batchman]

Granted, you can't expect the current gooberment stooges to be willing to look at it that way, but remember ... the second amendment doesn't guarantee the right to bear arms for the sake of hunting. It guarantees the right to bear arms so that the citizenry can take out the government when it gets too corrupt.

I don't know why they even worry about it, though ... if we haven't taken out the government yet, we aren't ever likely to do so.

[JuntaJoe]

Laws on ammo sales are ludicrous for control, Sstabeler. All it does is hike the price for law abiding citizens. Like regular people, criminals can reload ammo. They can also steal it like guns. Gun and ammo controls only work on law abiding citizens. Punitive gun and ammo grabs by government only ensure that criminals have the guns.

As for hunters here, any major city dweller is no more and a hundred miles from prime hunting land. My city is the second largest land-wise and I'm less than a half hour drive to rural areas.

Actually, if not for city laws prohibiting weapon discharges for recreational purposes I could hunt small game right next to my city dwelling. The storm drain bayous are quite alive with small game. Plenty of large birds, edible size frogs and turtles, raccoons, nutria, opossums, copperhead and cottonmouth snakes, etc. I could definitely stock my freezer with game meat I could shoot from my second story window. Make a little hobby income from skins and pelts too. Sure, no big game, but my small .22 rifle or a pellet air gun would have no trouble reducing my basic sustenance needs.

[s_stabeler]

yeah, but then you'll get people shooting humans and claiming they were aiming for small game.

ok, so ammo restrictions out. I still say gun restrictions should be fairly tough. as for the Second Amendment, that actually says " a well-regulated miltia being nessecary ...free state"

the intervening words are unnecessary. well-regulated being the key. you say it is designed for overthrowing the government. actually, in those days, there was no standing army (unless you count the marines). so the militia was used to defend the nation. THAT is what the Second Amendment is for, it was so, if the USA was attacked, then they didn't have to waste time issuing weapons when they gather the militia together. like in Saxon times, when everyone of fighting age kept weapons in the house and kept trained in their use. it is an artefact of much more barbaric times, and is actually not strictly necessary nowadays.

in summary:

the second amendment was designed to allow for the defence of the USA, not for the overthrow of the government
the militia is no longer necessary for the defence of the US, so stricter gun restrictions would be justified
shooting game in cities could easily lead to criminals using that as an excuse for shooting people.


I do think that hunting rifles should be allowed, but only if you actually go out to hunt with them reasonably regularly, aka, if you only go out once a year, surely some sort of hiring of the gun would be better?

[JuntaJoe]

You conveniently missed a comma there. You are looking at two distinct thoughts. The right to bear arms shall not be infringed is a stand alone segment.

As one of the drafters of the Constitution I think Thomas Jefferson would be a good source of enlightenment on the original concept.


"The constitutions of most of our States assert that all power is inherent in the people; that... it is their right and duty to be at all times armed."
--Thomas Jefferson to John Cartwright, 1824.

"One loves to possess arms, though they hope never to have occasion for them."
--Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, 1796. ME 9:341

"A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives a moderate exercise to the Body, it gives boldness, enterprise, and independence to the mind . . . Let your gun therefore be the constant companion of your walks."
--Thomas Jefferson, Letter to his nephew Peter Carr, August 19, 1785.

"No freeman shall be debarred the use of arms (within his own lands or tenements)."
--Thomas Jefferson: Draft Virginia Constitution with (his note added), 1776. Papers, 1:353

"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms . . . disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes . . . Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man."
--Thomas Jefferson, quoting Cesare Beccaria in On Crimes and Punishment (1764).



Clearly, the man who helped pen the 2nd Amendment doesn't agree with your take on that concept.

[s_stabeler]

and I repeat, this was a time when there was no standing army or police. therefore, having a weapon of some sort ( NOT necessarily a gun, though it is probable that is what they were thinking of) was nessecary.

my interpretation is that the intention of the clause was something like this:

A Well-Regulated militia is necessary to the functioning of a free state and so to allow the implementation of that, the right to bear arms shall not be infringed

the question is ultimately academic anyway, since it would take nothing short of a constitutional amendment to remove, and IMHO, it doesn't need to be removed.

[JuntaJoe]

A repeal would never get out of the gate. The Amendments are actually in two categories. Those part of the Bill of Rights and the others that came later. Touching the BoR would cause complete national political breakdown and likely succession threats by states.

While there was no national standing army, the idea we had no police is laughable. We definitely had police. Sure, there were fewer in rural areas, but that is true even today. Plenty of places in the US with only one or two enforcement officers in an entire county. Our counties can get pretty big too.

Sure, they were and still are local based police. That's for good reason. The same reason we believe in armed citizenry. To avoid control by a national police state. The Founders were extremely strong believers in giving internal power to disbursed societies to counter centralized power.

We keep our guns because we want the government to fear us!

From day one until today the unsaid right to revolution lingers in hordes of us from the gutters of the slums to the penthouses of the privileged. We are not loyal to some central control because we believe that WE are the control. We don't bow down to crowns and make mean sport of our politicians. Mayors and governors garner more respect than distant legislators.


As for your interpretation, that idea of trying to interpret is part of the problem. We expect the courts to interpret the way our Founders designed. Washington, Franklin, Adams, Madison, and Jefferson were all quite clear in their writings about the sovereignty of the individual and his rights and right to defend those rights, even in the face of orders to submit. We expect the courts and legislators to based their decisions in as close a manner to the Founder's intent as humanly possible. All of those men were men of letters. Their intents were not mysterious or obscure. They prolifically wrote their viewpoints for widespread dissemination. They wanted their word spread far and wide. There is no need to ponder cryptic script long buried from view. They plastered their word far and wide with the intent it should be remembered.

There's no need to wonder at the phrasing. They were more than happy to expound and expand on all the rights at every opportunity.

They wanted every man armed and wanted it to remain that way.

Anyone who says different is hoping you ignore history and don't chase the Founders' writings. They are banking on the encouragement of ignorance to further their agenda. That agenda is clear. The government that they control shall reign supreme over any dissension and is the final arbiter of our lives and livelihood.

[CharlieBrown]

Do you think abortions and gay marriages increase everytime a Republican is elected?

[Batchman]

Um ... I missed the connection to gun control and the second amendment.

[JuntaJoe]

Or how abortions and gay marriage have their own spot chiseled on the Bill of Rights?

[s_stabeler]

erm, last time I checked, neither abortions or gay marriage were in the Bill of Rights. not saying I'm against either of them, but IIRC abortion is allowed via Roe v Wade, and gya marriage was state-by-state

[broomdalf]

Therein lies the problem: Roe v Wade was done by the judicial branch. This means that they interpreted the constitution as providing the "right" to abortion, through the right to privacy (or something BS like that). NOT the legislative branch.

Similarly, in places like Iowa and formerly Kalifornia, the judicial branch overrode the legislative branches, which had banned it. Only Vermont has legally allowed gay marriages.

Checks and Balances have been insulted in these cases (except Vermont. You're okay), as they have in the gun control case.

In the gun control case, the legislative branch is taking powers that the judicial branch is meant to keep them from having. "Shall not be infringed" means... "shall not be infringed"

The problem here is that our government branches are bad at doing what they are supposed to.

[JuntaJoe]

There's always been an easy cure for judicial/legislative deadlocks.

Popular vote.

[s_stabeler]

not in cases where the judicial branch is appointed for life *cough* supreme court *cough*

[JuntaJoe]

Hey, you don't have to tell that to a Texan. We elect every state judge, including those on the Texas Supreme Court.

We do politics and law quite differently down here.

But let's not point that finger only at America. How many Euro judges are elected?

They get appointed too.


But if they were appointed then I do favor life appointments. Otherwise they get beholden to legislative bodies and are simply enforcement pawns for the current crop in office. Either elect them directly by the voters or give them a permanent job.

[s_stabeler]

I was talking about the US supreme court, actually.

and I believe over here, they are appointed by the crown, on the advice of the PM. appointment is for life, i believe. tends to reduce judges ruling whatever is better for the government. ( however, the head judge, the Lord Chancellor, is appointed by the government)

[JuntaJoe]

I knew that you were talking about the US Supreme Court.

Didn't think I needed to point that out given you had already inferred it.

I also know about a lot of the various Euro court practices as well. The question was rhetorical.

I was moving on to point out a better way. The Texas way!


Keep up, will you? Run faster! :P