Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Not Ordinary People: Criminals Do Not Represent Concealed Carriers

OP fail in their argument in that ordinary people don't stalk and attack innocent people. Anti-gun/anti-rights groups like the Brady Campaign and CSGV jump on tragedies like this to promote a misguided campaign of misinformation in an attempt to pervert public opinion. 

March 14, 2012

"These a**holes always get away."

On February 26th, 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was an invited guest staying with his stepmother in a gated community in Sanford, Florida. During halftime of the NBA all-star game that evening, Martin walked to a local convenience store to get some snacks. Little did he know he was being followed by George Zimmerman, 28, the self-appointed "captain" of the neighborhood watch program.

How does calling out the shooter as white and the victim as black have any bearing? Gun control is historically racist, which supports the need to do away with restrictive policies to disarm minorities and allow rich white men to have a monopoly on the use of force. An armed society is indeed a polite one. 

Zimmerman, who is white, had been tailing the young African-American in his car because he felt Martin was "a suspicious person." At some point, Zimmerman called 911. During this conversation, he mentioned Martin's race and stated that he was going to detain the youth because "these a**holes always get away." The dispatcher told Zimmerman that a unit was being dispatched to the scene and asked Zimmerman to refrain from approaching Martin.

Zimmerman ignored this direction. He got out of his car and pursued Martin between two rows of townhouses. A fistfight broke out. When police arrived on the scene minutes later, they found Martin dying face down in the grass. In his hands were a bag of Skittles and a can of iced tea. He had been shot in the chest by Zimmerman, a concealed handgun permit holder who was armed that night, with a 9mm pistol.

Being a holder of a concealed carry permit does little to tout the danger of the permit system, but does imply that even criminals and unstable individuals can pervert the system that fails to promote public safety. 

If Zimmerman saw anything "suspicious" that night beyond an African-American walking through a gated community in a hooded sweatshirt, he never said. He was detained by the police, but after he claimed he acted in self-defense in killing the unarmed Martin (who he outweighed by 100 pounds), Zimmerman was released without charge. Martin's family and their attorney were told by Sanford Police Chief Bill Lee that Zimmerman avoided arrest because he had a "squeaky clean" criminal record.

Imagine that. He was released. It's alright of you're white!

That statement was fraudulent. It has since been revealed that Zimmerman was arrested in 2005 for resisting arrest with violence and battery on a law enforcement officer. The case was dismissed after Zimmerman attended a pre-trial diversion program and a deal was made with his attorney to get the case dropped. In addition, police have fielded complaints from members of Zimmerman's gated community about his aggressive conduct in the neighborhood. According to Martin family attorney Benjamin Crump, "[The Sanford Police Department] just lied to the family. They just couldn't see why [Zimmerman] would do anything wrong or be violent. But not only do you know the guy killed this kid, because he admitted to it, you knew that he has a propensity for violence because of his past record."

Martin, on the other hand, was squeaky clean. An avid sports fan and horseback rider, he dreamed of attending college and becoming an aviation mechanic. His family still recalls the boy's heroics at age nine, when he dragged his father from a burning kitchen. After the shooting, his father described his son as "a dear friend."

The reluctance of the Sanford Police Department to arrest Zimmerman probably has something to do with Florida's outrageous "Stand Your Ground" law.

The fallacy of this attack on the law is that it really doesn't apply to an act of aggression by Zimmerman. Martin was unarmed, Zimmerman was unprovoked and the aggressor. 

The law removes the duty of individuals to retreat from a confrontation and allows them to use deadly force if they reasonably believe that it is necessary to prevent death or "great bodily harm." "Stand Your Ground" legislation was enacted in 2005 after being championed in the Florida state legislature by National Rifle Association lobbyist Marion Hammer. In support of the law, Hammer said, "Through time, in this country, what I like to call bleeding heart criminal coddlers want you to give a criminal an even break, so that when you're attacked, you're supposed to turn around and run, rather than standing your ground and protecting yourself and your family and your property."

Had Martin been a concealed carrier, the law would have applied to an act of self defense, which the author attempts to twist and lead the reader into a false conclusion. 

But critics in Florida's legal community dubbed it the "Shoot First" law and said that it "encourages people to stand their ground ... when they could just as easily walk away." It has also been pointed out that the law "give[s] citizens more rights to use deadly force than we give police officers, and with less review." A report by the South Florida Sun Sentinel vindicated these complaints, concluding, "several...accused murderers have successfully used [Florida's] 2005 'Stand Your Ground' law to prove they were the real victims."

Citizens should never be considered to have fewer rights than law enforcement. That's a misnomer which should fade away, replaced with a view based on reality. 


Three things are obvious to everyone: 1) Trayvon Martin was not a criminal; 2) George Zimmerman was not protecting either his property or family on the evening of February 26th, and; 3) Not only could Zimmerman have walked away that night; he actively sought out this conflict when told not to do so by law enforcement. No civilian gun-toter has a right to stand above the rule of law and serve as another human being's judge, jury and executioner.

Again, Zimmerman is no more representative of the gun owning community than any criminal, with or without a permit. He was imbalances and aggressive toward others, he should have never been allowed to possess a permit or firearm, which is why the permit system is a failure. 

As of today, George Zimmerman remains a free man, with carte blanche to carry a loaded gun in public. Meanwhile, Trayvon's family continues to mourn. "That was my baby, my youngest son," his mother Sybrina Fulton told ABC News. "He meant a lot to me, I don't think the police department really understands that ... I need justice for my family, I just want justice for my son."

If you'd like to help the Martin family, please do so by signing this online petition that calls on Florida's 18th District State's Attorney to prosecute George Zimmerman for this murder.


Original Page: http://csgv3.blogspot.com/2012/03/these-aholes-always-get-away.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&m=1


Wrongful Death Trial in Tech Killings Goes to Jury - ABC News

Jurors began deliberating Wednesday over a lawsuit filed by the parents of two students slain in the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre claiming school officials botched their response when the first reports came in that a gunman was on campus.

Maybe now the university and public can start to think about the reality of gun-free zones...

Attorneys for the university have countered that there was no way to anticipate the man who committed those first two killings April 16 in a dormitory would carry out the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. Police had initially concluded the first killings were isolated. Jurors will have to decide whether school officials could have reasonably foreseen that more carnage was going to occur.

And the best way to deal with the lack of ability to defend against that which is unable to be anticipated? Enable law-abiding citizens to practice their natural and Constitutional right to self defense. Of the American universities which allow concealed carry, how many have had shootings? None. Zero. 

Robert T. Hall, an attorney for the parents, said they are interested in holding school officials accountable, not money.

Evidence of the magnitude of the error, Hall said, "were the bodies of the young people on the floors of Norris Hall."

I'd rather those students not been denied the ability to defend themselves based on a baseless and emotional argument. They might still be alive today. 

One of the state's attorneys, Peter Messitt, said Tech officials could not be expected to anticipate the killing spree, calling the slaughter unprecedented "in the history of higher education."

This level of loss of life was partly responsible for the resurgence of concealed carry (Luby's Texas massacre), and has also shown the lack of substance in the restrictions of firearms arbitrarily imposed on college campuses. 

If these students are adults in all other regards, what sense does disarming the make? Concealed carry is regulated by states, so it's on the universities to defend the gun-free zones. 

A jury of seven in the civil trial will also consider damages for the families, but they have not been told the award is capped at $100,000 for each family under state law. The state is the lone defendant. Two alternates were dismissed before jurors began deliberations.

[...]

http://abcnews.go.com/m/story?id=15919872

Monday, March 12, 2012

Inside America's gun-carry culture

Leaning against a scrub pine as preschoolers scurry about at his feet, Shane Gazda, father of 3-year-old twins, recalls a conundrum he faced earlier that morning: whether to take his Smith & Wesson .40 caliber handgun to a Groundhog Day celebration in this town's White Deer Park.

After all, what was once against the law in North Carolina – carrying a concealed gun in a town park, square, or greenway – is now, as of Dec. 1, 2011, very much allowed. To Mr. Gazda, who likes to shoot targets in his backyard, an event as innocent as paying homage to a rodent could turn dangerous if the wrong person shows up.

"Part of it is being ready for cataclysm every day," says Gazda, a hospital maintenance engineer. "And to be honest, I started carrying precisely to protect not just myself, but my family, and anyone around me who needs help."

The anti-gun/anti-rights lobby is now fighting an uphill battle, as there is more legislation promoting gun rights introduced and approved than against, nearly three times as much. 

In the end, Gazda left the gun at home. But his internal debate is emblematic of one a growing number of Americans are having almost daily. Thirty years after a powerful gun-control movement swept the country, Americans are embracing the idea of owning and carrying firearms with a zeal rarely seen since the days of muskets and militias.

With now millions of concealed carry permit holders in the States, and more states becoming shall-issue, the gun rights movement represents the idea that liberty is necessary in a free nation, and the natural right to bear arms is a necessary liberty. 

A combination of favorable court rulings, grass-roots activism, traditional fears of crime, and modern anxieties about government has led to what may be a tipping point on an issue that just a few years ago was one of America's most contentious. Gun rights have now expanded to the point where the fundamental question seems not to be "should we be able to carry guns," but instead is "where can't we carry them?"

[...]


Friday, March 9, 2012

CZ P-07 Duty 9MM


CZ Model Duty Model 75 P-07 Action Semi-automatic Type Double Action Size Full Caliber 9MM Barrel Length 3.8 Frame/Material Polymer Finish/Color Black Capacity 16Rd Accessories 2 Mags Sights Fixed Sights...

I really dig the CZ 9mm pistols like this and the SP-01. 


Original Page: http://www.gunsamerica.com/939238842/Guns/Pistols/CZ/CZ_P_07_DUTY_9MM_3_8_BLK_POLY_16RD.htm

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Washington Ceasefire Anti-Gun Bus Ad Full of Fail


Washington Ceasefire Anti-Gun Bus Ad Full of Fail | The Truth About Guns:
Just in case Bruce Krafft decides to deconstruct the 22 percent stat touted by Ceasefire Washington’s new bus ads, I’ll restrict myself to a one-word response: fail. But in a nice way. The gun grabbers usually resort to emotional appeals that short-circuit rational thought. You know: crying mothers, bewildered toddlers. This ad invites debate (which gun control advocates inevitably lose) and encourages indifference. A two-fer! But I do like Ralph Fascitelli’s advice for home owners concerned about self-defense: “Get a baseball bat or get a knife.” Yeah, that’ll resonate. Especially with older people. [h/t to David Brown]

Failure of logic and truth, for starters. On to the peanut gallery!

mikeb302000 says: 
 
22 times likely to use the gun on a family member than on an intruder. Wow, even if that a wild exaggeration, you’d have to be pretty stupid or stubborn to have a gun in the home.

Mike B has no problem acting like everything coming out of the anti-rights/anti-gun lobby is fact. Doesn't seem to consider that any of it may be opinion or misinformation. Screw logic and critical thinking! Think of the children!

How long has he been trolling here anyway? I must have missed him jumping in. I'm more used to the vitriol on the anti sites. It still creeps me out how excited they get when a tragedy comes along. We mourn death, they shoot their wad trying to find a way to justify an illogical position.

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Pro-Hunting Bills Clear Senate Judiciary Committee

Yesterday, the Senate Judiciary Committee passed two NRA-backed pro-hunting bills.  By a 6 to 2 vote, the committee gave "do pass" recommendations to both House Bill 2728, hunting with suppressors legislation, and House Bill 2640, legislation to eliminate magazine capacity restrictions when hunting. 

Both good measures, to be sure, though these restrictions have no real purpose in my mind in the first place. 


Original Page: http://www.nraila.org/legislation/state-legislation/2012/03/arizona-two-pro-hunting-bills-clear-senate-judiciary-committee.aspx

Monday, March 5, 2012