This just in…(about the new buy-back)

(an addendum to the post below…)

Phoenix police plan to destroy guns from buyback

PHOENIX — Three months before a new state law goes into effect requiring police to sell any weapon they receive, Phoenix officials plan to destroy as many guns as residents bring them.

Those efforts begin Saturday with a gun buyback at three churches in the city, and two more events are scheduled later this month.

After that, gun buybacks coordinated with Phoenix police will likely cease.

(The Arizona Republic)

Sounds like previous post commenters had a good idea – offer the City some healthy competition across the street!

I used to know a guy…

…who was a friend, a mentor, a good guy.  A gun guy, Gunsite graduate.  A libertarian.  Sadly, we are no longer in touch.

He used to say he’d not know how he’d react if things got so bad in this country, that if he was stopped and asked, “Papiere, bitte!” “PAPERS, PLEASE!”, what he might do?

I’m sorry to say, Bud, that day has come.

Here’s hoping none of us loses their cool if asked.

h/t/ wirecutter, John

“So, aside from THAT, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?”

Part of my morning routine, after doing my blog post thing, is to peruse other blogs on my blogroll, The Gun Blog Black List, and elsewhere.  And I read the ‘news’ (such as it is.)  To search for blogfodder, jokes, and to see the state of the World.

I truly hope the following is another April Fool’s joke, like I fell for the other day.  If NOT, well…SIGH.

Monday, April 8, 2013

NY Gun Confiscation Underway – Citizens Told to Turn in Pistol Owner ID & Firearms

Via Steven Peter Yevchak, Sr.

 

Manasquan, NJ --(Ammoland.com)- Remember all those who denied that firearms confiscation as a result of New York’s new gun laws was too “insane” to even consider?

That it was strictly in the realm of paranoid conspiracy theorists and the “it cant happen here crowd”?

Those were and remain some of the standard replies to anyone who even thought about the possibility, let alone gave voice to it, despite the fact that Gov Cuomo and numerous other officials made public comments about such a plan, as I discussed in my article “Feinstein & Cuomo Admit Planning Australian Style Government Gun Buy Back” .

Elected Officials, the media, various Gun Control Groups and their zealous forced disarmament supporters, even some firearms owners themselves all insisted it was to crazy to even consider.

There’s just one huge problem it is happening now in New York State!

It seems those that tried desperately to warn of such an insidious plot had hit the bullseye with their warnings after all. News came from multiple NY State based firearms enthusiast websites late Friday that confiscations of Pistol Owner ID Cards, as well as firearms and accessories has commenced in NY under the provisions of the horribly flawed, draconian and blatantly unconstitutional NY SAFE Act.

Those folks having their weapons and FID cards confiscated  have been discovered to have been prescribed multiple different types of psychotropic drugs, such as those for Depression or Anxiety.

These are known as SSRI ( Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors) class drugs and have the potential to cause serious and adverse side effects, something I wrote about extensively last week in an article that went viral in days and caused multiple Anti Gun and Progressive News Groups to initiate a concentrated denial of service hacker attack against Ammoland Shooting Sports News (see Daily KOS ” Keeping Track Of The RKBA Crowd” http://tiny.cc/ug67uw),  in an effort to keep the information from the public.
From NY http://tiny.cc/nyfirearms

“John Doe, an upstanding professional with no outstanding criminal convictions and no history of violent action received a letter from the Pistol Permit Department informing him that his license was immediately revoked upon information that he was seeing a therapist for anxiety and had been prescribed an anxiety drug. He was never suicidal, never violent, and has no criminal history. The New York State Department of Health is apparently conducting a search of medical records to determine who is being treated for anxiety drugs and using this as a basis for handgun license revocation.

Those are the facts. Nothing more, nothing less.”

 More @ Ammoland

We’re in for a truly bumpy ride, folks!

h/t Brock Townsend

Veggie Farmers Home Breached in Drug Sweep

My Daily Kona shares with us the tale of a couple retired CIA employees (not agents), whose home was raided in a two State drug sweep, because they had the audacity to purchase hydroponic gardening equipment to raise an indoor veggie garden.

Is this EVER going to stop?

Obviously going after real criminal marijuana farmers (who are growing an illegal drug for profit) could be dangerous.  Let’s go after a retired couple; they’re less likely to shoot back!

Kinda like going after an uber-conservative religious type after brow beating him into cutting 1/2″ off a couple of shotgun barrels (Randy Weaver).  Or going after a major guitar company for using hardwood illegal in some foreign country (Gibson Guitars).  Or making folks sign their life away to buy a decongestant in personal use quantities (most folks in most States).

Or…

That’s enough, rant over.

Personally, I think marijuana should be legalized.  Just think, then the jack-booted-thugs would have to go after real criminals.  Assuming they could find any.

CONTROL YOUR FIREARMS AND PRISONERS, PEOPLE!

Fight to the Death Inside a Moving Elevator

ALL HAIL Puritanical America!

The Ultimate Answer to Kings brings to us a discussion regarding what many of us thought was a non-issue:  different genders (or the gender-confused) using the wrong public toilet.

Raise your hand if you never drowsily wandered into the wrong bathroom in a public building. Personally I consider the embarrassment to be punishment enough, but some politicians don’t agree.

SB 1432 would make it illegal to enter a bathroom if signage indicates it is exclusively for the opposite sex. Authorities could charge violators with a Class 1 misdemeanor, punishable by a $2,500 fine and up to six months in jail.

Of course I’m misstating the purpose of this bill, which has nothing to do with criminalizing a lack of situational awareness and everything to do with making, er, gender mismanagement a matter of public concern.

I personally don’t think it’s the government’s business.  If a crime is involved (lewdness, rape, assault, child molestation) then certainly it becomes the government’s business.  Otherwise, they’ve enough to contend with.  And they’re already in our computers, cell phones, automobiles, bodies and bedrooms.  I’m drawing the line at JBTs getting a warrant to check my underwear!  (Although they already do it warrantless at the airport – sigh).

Many of my liberal friends cheered when the Phoenix City Council recently passed an ordinance guaranteeing non-interference with transgender and other folks who utilize the public restroom labeled with the gender they most identify.  An anonymous commenter on Joel’s blog succinctly addresses the actual issue of Puritanical-Victorian America with the statement below:

There are lots of first and second world countries that have unisex public restrooms. They don’t seem to suffer for it.

Amen.  Perhaps we Americans need to simply grow up.

+1 on Mr (or Ms.) Anonymous

Guns & Ammo Brings It!

(click to embiggen)

I am SO GLAD to reside in the Free State of Arizona! – Guffaw

h/t Facebook

Not exactly a glimmer…

…but all is not, yet, lost…

Judge rules secret FBI letters unconstitutional

 SAN FRANCISCO — They’re called national security letters and the FBI issues thousands of them a year to banks, phone companies and other businesses demanding customer information. They’re sent without judicial review and recipients are barred from disclosing them.

On Friday, a federal judge in San Francisco declared the letters unconstitutional, saying the secretive demands for customer data violate the First Amendment.

The government has failed to show that the letters and the blanket non-disclosure policy “serve the compelling need of national security,” and the gag order creates “too large a danger that speech is being unnecessarily restricted,” U.S. District Judge Susan Illston wrote.

She ordered the FBI to stop issuing the letters, but put that order on hold for 90 days so the U.S. Department of Justice can pursue an appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The DOJ said it is reviewing the decision.

FBI counter-terrorism agents began issuing the letters after Congress passed the USA Patriot Act in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

More at the above link.  Apparently, not everyone in government supports the push toward totalitarianism.

Funny how the congress keeps passing more legislation ‘to protect us’, and instead constrains us.

The Eye Cannot Trespass. WAIT! Yes it can!

With the ubiquitous-ness of digital cameras (usually attached to cellular telephones) it’s only logical that the civilian populus would film any actions taken by the constabulary in public.  Think of Rodney King – squared.

One would think this is only fair, as most populated areas are now replete with cameras either filming the public willy-nilly, or those privately-owned that may be accessed, like ATM cameras.  AND, police dash cams.  And it would make sense to keep such actions free, as open government is a desirable thing.

Not to mention cases such as Kyllo v. United States and Boyd v. United States, which reaffirmed the English Common Law which said the eye cannot trespass.

Well, forget all that…

As more and more of the public are photographing and filming police activity, more States are acting to suppress the right of a free people to record such actions.  Why is that, if the government is acting within the law?

Asking permission to engage in free behavior in an open society?  And out-and-out prosecution in certain jurisdictions?

Outrageous and disgusting.  Expect more of this coming to your town down the road.  Because governments  never  rarely* expand to promote individual freedom.

h/t Miss Lisa, wirecutter

I LOVE the L.A.P.D. !

Or more correctly, all police.

I was raised in a police-loving,respecting family.  My Dad’s Dad had been a railroad cop, as was my Dad for a short time.  He went to the Rhode Island State Police Academy, but washed-out due to health reasons.

And I went to community college majoring in Administration of Justice.  That’s what they changed to from Police Science.  And I ate it up.  Graduated with high distinction.

BUT, I was disabled, and in the mid-70s environment of inflation and job problems, there were many more physically-capable folks in the line at police personnel.  No cop job for Guffaw.

I was taught the purpose of the police was not only to enforce the law, but to make certain the individual’s rights were protected.  THIS is what separated us from banana republics.  And made their job much more difficult.

But, according to the media, it appears there is police incompetence and corruption everywhere.  Websites and news stories abound with tales of bribery, malfeasance and crime by sworn officers.

And then we have the L.A.P.D.  Lauded in song and story.  Well, story, anyway.   (In)famous Chief Parker decided after the war that there was simply too much graft, corruption and mob influence in his department.  He established ‘The Hat Squad’ to get the mobsters out of town, and worked with film and TV producers to make the image of the department better.  TV shows like Dragnet and Adam-12 were the result.

I grew up on this stuff.  They further reinforced my already sainted image of police, and did so in other major cities as well.  Naked City, The Detectives, and M-Squad were among the other shows.  Federal law enforcement was not left out.  The Untouchables and The FBI come to mind.

But the twenty-four hour news cycle has evolved into the instant Internet news cycle.  And now we hear about this recently-fired L.A.P.D. officer killing other officers and firing on them.

And the panicked police were firing willy-nilly on anyone who might be a suspect.  And other folks.

These folks were injured, and were promised a new truck for their trouble.  I sense a lawsuit in their future.  Rightfully so.

The latest news stories indicate this maroon has died in a fire, saving the taxpayers the cost of a trial.  And a professor on CNN praised the cop-killer!

I truly believe most police departments consist of good folks trying to do an ever-more-difficult job.  But, that doesn’t excuse this kind of behavior.  We have a sheriff here locally who has done some remarkably positive things, like having inmates staff county animal shelters, saving many tax dollars.  Of course, the many costly lawsuits against the county for prisoner abuse and ‘accidental’ or ‘negligent’ death of inmates cost many tax dollars, also.  I’d like to see comparison spreadsheets, just for fun.

We need to support the police.  They are the blue line between the criminal and the citizen.  But we need to make certain they are properly trained and policed themselves, to keep aberrant behavior to an absolute minimum.  They are, after all, the in-your-face, on-the-street representatives of government and it’s power.  Let’s hope it’s not gone to their head.

And that government needs to recognize we have the right to also defend ourselves.  That sometimes, the best they can do is to draw the chalk line and write the report.

h/t Weasel Zippers