Column I wrote for this week’s Highway Shopper:
Science and
Digital Briefs
Oct. 28, 2015
By Shopper Editor Dave Bunting
Washingtonians
Buying More Firearms
Than Ever Before
For the first eight months of 2015, the number of the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) was the second highest on record, at 7.7 million, 365,000 more than last year. This was well behind the 9.3 million tallied during the 2013 surge that followed President Obama’s push for gun control.
However, for the period June through August this year, more than 2.6 million NICS were made nationally, which is 100,000 more than for the same period during the 2013 surge. In the summer June through August period this year, Americans have bought more guns than ever before in that period.
The same is even more true for Washington State citizens. In the period June through September this year, Washington State citizens ordered 143,432 NICS checks, the most ever for that period. In the Obama-scare year 2013, during June through September, Washington citizens ordered 142,283 NICS checks.
This year we ordered even more checks, and no doubt bought even more firearms, after the multi-million dollar attack on our Second Amendment rights by the multi-billionaire Gang of Three who plastered Washington State metropolitan voter concentrations with mis-leading and confusing “astroturf” anti-Second-Amendment propaganda. One of their falsehoods was that Americans are now buying fewer firearms.
The number of NICS checks doesn’t exactly equal the number of firearms purchased, because by law the purchase of a firearm, if any, is prohibited from being reported with the NICS check, to make sure firearm registration can not occur. Some NICS checks may be done by citizens in preparation for a possible future firearm purchase. Also some states exempt persons from redundant checks for multiple firearm purchases within a specified period after a previous check.
https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/nics/reports/nics_firearm_checks_-_month_year.pdf
Info: bit.ly/nicschecks
Astroturf
Political Astroturf Definition for those of you who are as dense as I am:
“An artificially-manufactured political movement designed to give the appearance of grass roots activism. Campaigns & Elections magazine defined astroturf as a “grassroots program that involves the instant manufacturing of public support for a point of view in which either uninformed activists are recruited or means of deception are used to recruit them.” Unlike natural grassroots campaigns which are people-rich and money-poor, an astroturf campaign tends to be the opposiite, well-funded but with little actual support from voters.”
This is exactly how Bloomberg & Co. passed the awful anti-gun I-594 in Washington State that has always before been voted down by the majority of us. They used Bloomberg’s & Gates’ millions of dollars to overwhelm the voters with the propaganda that anti-gun I-594 was a “grassroots” movement. We need to watch out in future for these “political astroturf” propaganda schemes.
Gallup Poll Finds
More Americans
Fear Government
The Bill of Rights in the U.S. Constitution is there for a simple reason: Our Founding Fathers wisely understood that even a national government of supposedly limited powers could overstep its bounds and infringe upon the rights of the people. In the landmark Heller decision, the U.S. Supreme Court recognized that the Founders considered the Second Amendment a failsafe that would provide the people with the means “to oppose an oppressive military force if the constitutional order broke down.” Whatever else can be said about the efficacy or integrity of the government these days, America is fortunate that its people still have ample means to seek peaceful redress of grievances. Yet a new poll shows that the Founders’ concerns about the overreaching tendencies of centralized power remain on the mind of many U.S. citizens. Gallup reported on Monday that the share of Americans saying that the federal government poses “an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens” has risen from 30 percent in 2003 to 49 percent today.
Info: bit.ly/fearfeds
Some Candidates’
Positions on the
Second Amendment
Ben Carson: AGAINST Gun Control: “I would never advocate anything to interfere with Second Amendment rights; however, We have to keep in mind that law-abiding American citizens absolutely should have gun rights.”
Mike Huckabee: AGAINST Gun Control: “My position on the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution is as clear for me as the position held by most journalists toward the 1st Amendment… [I’m] a firm believer in the 2nd Amendment right of Americans to own firearms for self-protection and as a matter of principle.”
Donald Trump: AGAINST Gun Control: “Democrats want to confiscate all guns, which is a dumb idea because only the law-abiding citizens would turn in their guns and the bad guys would be the only ones left armed.”
Jeb Bush: AGAINST Gun Control: He signed into law the Florida no-retreat bill, which says that a person need not retreat from an attack, may “stand his ground” and use deadly force if he reasonably believes he or another person is threatened by death or serious physical injury.
Ted Cruz: AGAINST Gun Control: Ted Cruz authored a brief on behalf of 31 states supporting the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. He argued against unreasonable and burdensome gun restrictions. He was honored by a 2008 resolution passed by the National Board of the NRA, thanking Ted for leading the States before the Supreme Court in the DC gun case, and noting that his “efforts made this victory for the American people possible.”
Marco Rubio: AGAINST Gun Control: “I believe law-abiding people have a fundamental constitutional right to bear arms. And I believe criminals and dangerous people should not have access to guns. There are laws that protect those two things–but many of these [additional] gun laws are ineffective. They don’t do those things. They infringe on the rights of law-abiding people and do nothing to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people. And I’m troubled this debate is about guns. It should be about violence. Violence is the problem.”
Carly Fiorina: AGAINST Gun Control: “We have loads of laws, and most of the time, criminals are breaking those laws and we are curtailing citizens’ lawful rights to carry guns.”
Rand Paul: AGAINST Gun Control: “We are the party that adheres to the Constitution. We will not let the liberals tread on the Second Amendment! We will fight to defend the entire Bill of Rights. We will stand up against excessive government power wherever we see it. We cannot and will not allow any President to act as if he were a king. We will not let any President use executive orders to impinge on the Second Amendment.”
Bobby Jindal: AGAINST Gun Control: “In the face of an administration in Washington that wants to take away the rights of law-abiding gun owners, we are standing up for the Second Amendment and the Constitution of the United States.”
Hillary Clinton: FOR Gun Control: “I respect the Second Amendment. I respect the rights of lawful gun owners to own guns, to use their guns, but I also believe that most lawful gun owners whom I have spoken with for many years across our country also want to be sure that we keep those guns out of the wrong hands.”
Joe Biden: FOR Gun Control: “We believe that weapons of war have no place on our streets.”
Info: bit.ly/cands2damend