Found: One Troll

It has taken me a few days to decide whether to write this entry. I read TJIC’s original post the day he posted it and I thought it was in very poor taste. When I got the news that his Massachusetts gun permit was suspended, I still could not defend what he said. I’ve asked myself a number of times over the last few days: do I want to associate myself with speech with which I disagree? I decided that it doesn’t matter if I agree with TJIC because ultimately I still believe:

1. TJIC had the right to say what he said.
2. TJIC’s constitutional rights have been violated by the Arlington Police Department and the State of Massachusetts.

For those reasons, I am TJIC.

(Image credit: Borepatch)

I’ve been trying to explain the second point on the xkcd forums for the last few days. The thrust of it is the same thing Borepatch (and everyone else) has been saying; basically, that if he hasn’t even been charged with a crime then due process for denying an individual his constitutionally protected rights has not been served. As I wrote there:

Would you be cool with it if all the government had to do to limit your freedom of speech was suspend a license? A license they don’t even have to grant you in the first place, the issuance of which is entirely up to the policies of your local chief of police or sheriff? Maybe it’ll be a graduated license. It’ll be easy to get one if all you want to do is talk about sports, but if you want to talk about politics or religion you need to get a Class A License to Offend, for which you need to show cause and take an anger management class. And even then you can’t use hate speech or any words that aren’t on the Massachusetts Approved Diction Roster. You can get one without trouble in the suburbs, but in Boston you had better be a professional journalist or, well, I guess you won’t be talking about politics because the Chief of Police there is a hardass who thinks only the Right People need the freedom of speech. If you get caught spouting off about the Governor without a license that’s a felony. Does that sound like an individual right with constitutional protection to you?

I fail to see how TJIC’s First, Second, and Fourth Amendment rights were not violated by confiscating his property without due process. I hope that something good can come of this, namely that we can get a judgment against the Arlington PD and the State of Massachusetts stating in no uncertain terms that their restrictions on constitutionally guaranteed rights are Not Okay. Perhaps a measure of freedom will be restored to its birthplace. I am cautiously optimistic, but I think it is more likely that the governmental bodies involved will try to sweep this incident under the rug as it enters the judicial system and settle the case without conceding anything.

Article in the local puppy trainer.

It’s official, now. Arizona will be the third state in the US to allow the carry of concealed weapons without a permit.

Effect gun rights reform through the legislative process! Here’s the latest from AZCDL.

SB 1108, the Constitutional Carry bill, passed the House Third Read on April 8th by a vote of 36-19 with 5 Representatives not voting.  This was the final vote for this bill in the Legislature.  We made history today, and none of this would have been possible without YOUR involvement.  To see the final vote tally for the bill, check here:

http://tinyurl.com/y9yx264
SB 1108 eliminates the prohibition and penalties for law-abiding adults who carry a concealed weapon without a permit.  The bill has been sent back to the Senate and from there will be transmitted to the Governor for her consideration.  A letter to the Governor, urging her to sign SB 1108, has been prepared and is waiting for you at AzCDL’s Action Center:
http://azcdl.capwiz.com/azcdl/issues/alert/?alertid=14907736

The Governor has 5 days (not counting Sunday) to make a determination on the fate of any bill sent to her desk.  She can sign it, let it pass without her signature, or veto it.  Any bill she does not veto will become law 90 days after “Sine Die,” the official adjournment of the Legislature. We encourage you to contact her and request that she sign this historic legislation, and ask your fellow freedom lovers to do so as well.

Stay tuned!  When critical legislation moves, we will notify you via these Alerts.

If you want to get legislative news as it happens, follow AzCDL on Twitter:
http://twitter.com/AzCDL_Alerts .
AzCDL “tweets” from the Capitol with committee votes and breaking news as it happens.

You can also follow AzCDL on Facebook: http://tinyurl.com/FacebookAzCDL .

AzCDL’s Political Action Committee (PAC) is also on Facebook:
http://tinyurl.com/FacebookAzCDLPAC .

These alerts are a project of the Arizona Citizens Defense League (AzCDL), an all volunteer, non-profit, non-partisan grassroots organization.  Join today!
http://www.azcdl.org/html/join_us_.html .

AzCDL – Protecting Your Freedom
http://www.azcdl.org/html/accomplishments.html .

Copyright © 2010 Arizona Citizens Defense League, Inc., all rights reserved.

I had been planning to be at the NRA Annual Meeting in Charlotte, NC this year. Unfortunately, due to a conflict with my work schedule, it looks like I’ll be sitting this one out. If the NRA Convention sticks with PA as its location for next year I will probably be there, as I have family in the area that keep begging me to visit them.

Last week Sebastian got word from a reader that Insight Firearms Training, a shooting school in Prescott, AZ, is opposing the current push for Constitutional Carry in Arizona. I fired off the following comment on their website to let them know that as an Arizonan and a gun owner I think their attitude is not OK:

Subject: Disappointed

Message Body:
I am frankly disgusted by the e-mail you sent to your alumni encouraging them to contact their state representatives about HB2347 and SB1108. I would never have expected such a self-serving, anti-Second Amendment attitude from a respected firearms training school. Training is absolutely important and a responsibility of anyone who chooses to carry a firearm, but it is not and should not be a requirement for exercising one’s right to self defense.

I will certainly not be seeking training from your school. Gunsite is just up the road and is very pro-2A.

Sincerely,
Eseell
NRA Benefactor Member
Arizona Citizens Defense League Life Member

Today I got a response from Insight Firearms Training, which I will print here:

Dear Responder,

Please accept our apology for not responding sooner to your response to our
email. We are out of state on a training seminar and have been in session
daily for long hours. Today was our first opportunity.

We’re sorry if we offended you. Protecting our rights is also a concern of
ours. We just have a different opinion as to why our rights are at stake to
begin with and how to protect them.

We train in many areas, from Civilian, Military, Law Enforcement, Security
and NRA (Instructor Level), as well as develop curriculum for all types of
firearms training, not just the CCW.  Therefore our income is not dependent
solely on the CCW Training we provide, nor is our business dependent on the
actions of the government either way.

We are supporters of the Second Amendment and are not against people
exercising that right. We also believe that every Right has a corresponding
Duty. We believe training may very well be a key factor in retaining or
losing the very right our Second Amendment provides.  We applaud those who
have willingly sought out training on their own to become educated on gun
ownership.

That being said, as firearms instructors we see many students come into our
courses for training who have no clue or idea what the laws (both State
Statutes and case law) are in regards to owning or using a firearm in self
defense or any other purpose, let alone how to safely and properly handle or
store their firearms. We feel that it is the informed and knowledge gun
owners who will play an important role in allowing us to protect our Second
Amendment Rights, not those who choose to remain ignorant of the
responsibilities that come with that right.  It¹s sad to say, but there are
many in our society who will not seek appropriate training on their own.
It¹s those who choose not to get training, act negligently and make stupid
careless mistakes, who are the greatest threat to protecting our Second
Amendment Rights. Mandated training is not the enemy, yet, it could play a
very important role in saving our rights in the long run. Therefore in order
to protect our rights we will support mandated training whenever it is
available. Just because we have rights doesn’t mean it always makes sense to
exercise those rights without more thought in the process. Additionally,
though AZ is an Open Carry State, we do not support “Open Carry” That is
like putting a target on your forehead or back and inviting trouble!

Additionally, our forefathers didn¹t have to worry about the negative
effects that every form of media has on our newer generations and the
reality it has provided. Many of the current beliefs associated with guns
come from this medium and it has severely impacted the reality people have
today.  If you have not done so please read Col. Grossmans book On Killing
or On Combat. We work closely with numerous police and prosecutors and have
been told that close to 90% of gun cases are related directly to people’s
ignorance of the law or gun safety responsibilities. This type of behavior
is what jeopardizes our Second Amendments Rights. Mandated Training is a
solid solution to people who don¹t understand the importance of their
responsibilities with regards to gun ownership and a potential way to
protect our rights. With every Right comes a Corresponding DUTY and most do
not accept that DUTY willingly. There are many other additional factors that
need to be considered, aside from the right itself.

We hear on a consistent basis from our students that they had no idea the
responsibilities and liabilities they faced while exercising their Second
Amendment Rights until after taking this course, including post law
enforcement, military retirees and life long gun owners. Over 90% tell us
after completing the training that if they knew before, what they learned in
class, they would have had the knowledge to be much more responsible gun
owners. They also tell us they couldn¹t imagine carrying a gun without the
new knowledge they gained in our class. The majority also support not only
our efforts to train and enlighten those who have been in the dark for so
long, but continued mandated training.

Our training is significantly different in numerous aspects. The teaching
process we use allows our students to actually retain the information they
receive unlike other training programs. If you are really concerned about
our position on mandated training, and have not done so previously, please
attend our class and allow us to introduce you to the un-informed CCW
applicants who come to us for training. Maybe if you see things from their
perspective before and after our class you will understand why we are so
committed to this program and assuring mandated training continues.

We also realize there are those who use Alaska and Vermont as an example of
why this law should pass, since they have not had any issues. That may be
so, yet they are not comparing apples to apples. Example, those states are
very different from other states. They are extremely rural in nature, have a
different population number from other states and most brought up in those
areas are raised with guns from early on. There is a big difference in that
and those from urban or metropolitan areas. We know because we see it on a
daily basis.

Please understand that though we respect your beliefs we do not hold them as
our own, hopefully you will do the same. It will be up to each individual in
our society to voice their own opinion to their legislators and fight for
their rights in the way that seems appropriate for them. I’m sure there will
be many who stand on both sides of support for this issue.

Sincerely,
Sherrie & Matt Seibert

I believe that the Sieberts honestly think they are doing the best thing for our rights, but I disagree with them. I don’t believe that anyone benefits when we fight the expansion (some would say restoration) of our rights. Training is absolutely a responsibility of anyone who chooses to carry a weapon, but one’s right to self-defense is not predicated on one having received any sort of training.

Just got this alert from AZCDL. It looks like things are going our way this season.

On Friday, March 5th at 10 AM, the Senate Appropriations Committee will debate and vote on SB 1108.  The sponsor of SB 1108, Committee Chairman Senator Russell Pearce, has proposed a “strike everything” amendment that replaces SB 1108, in its entirety, with the intended language from SB 1102 (Constitutional Carry).

SB 1102, which was headed for a Senate floor vote, was derailed last week after the attachment of the Cheuvront amendment during the Senate Committee of the Whole (COW), creating a Class 4 Felony for private sellers of firearms who fail to verify a buyer’s citizenship when the sale is conducted at a gun show: http://www.azcdl.org/html/news.html#CheuvrontAmendment .

Now that we have a second bite at the apple, it’s critical we remind the Senate Appropriations Committee members to support the amended SB 1108.  A letter has been prepared and is waiting for you at our Action Center:
http://capwiz.com/azcdl/issues/alert/?alertid=14750316 .

We have more good news.  Representative Frank Antenori (http://azcdl.capwiz.com/bio/id/51325), who sponsored the House version of Constitutional Carry (HB 2347), has been appointed to replace Senator Jonathon Paton who vacated his seat to run for the U.S. House of Representatives.  Senator Antenori is expected to be present when SB 1108 moves to the Senate floor for debate and vote.

Meanwhile, Senator Antenori’s House version of Constitutional Carry, HB 2347, passed out of the MAPS Committee on February 3, 2010 and is awaiting a review by the House Rules Committee before heading to a floor debate in the House COW.

In other news, we are expecting SB 1168, the Senate version of the firearms preemption bill, to be scheduled for a Senate COW debate, hopefully this week.  When the calendar is posted, we will let you know via an Alert.

Stay tuned!  When critical legislation moves, we will notify you via these Alerts.

If you want to get legislative news as it happens, follow AzCDL on Twitter: http://twitter.com/AzCDL_Alerts .
AzCDL “tweets” from the Capitol with committee votes and breaking news as it happens.

You can also follow AzCDL on Facebook: http://tinyurl.com/FacebookAzCDL .

AzCDL’s Political Action Committee (PAC) is also on Facebook: http://tinyurl.com/FacebookAzCDLPAC .

These alerts are a project of the Arizona Citizens Defense League (AzCDL), an all volunteer, non-profit, non-partisan grassroots organization.  Renew your membership today!  http://www.azcdl.org/html/join_us_.html .

AzCDL – Protecting Your Freedom
http://www.azcdl.org/html/accomplishments.html .

Copyright © 2010 Arizona Citizens Defense League, Inc., all rights reserved.

Occasionally this blog is about guns. This is one of those occasions. This quote is from the transcript of this morning’s Supreme Court hearings on the McDonald v. Chicago case, AKA the Chicago Gun Case. James A. Feldman, Esq. represented the City of Chicago.

JUSTICE KENNEDY: Without repeating that and just so I understand your position, how could some member of the Court write the — this opinion to say that this right is not fundamental, but that Heller was correct?

MR. FELDMAN: I — the Court would just say that what Heller held was if you look at the meanings that the words in the Second Amendment had, the common meaning — as the Court said in the Heller opinion -the common meanings that the word had in 1791, it imposed limitation on the State. It took a preexisting right that had not been — was not codified in the Constitution, and it said, this self-defense right we need in the Constitution in order — in order to protect the militia against being disarmed by the Federal Government.

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: That sounds an awful lot to me like the argument we heard in Heller on the losing side.

RTWT.

. . . [N]o-one of any sense has ever bet against the scorn and resourcefulness of young men.

Jerry “Tycho” Holkins, A Cyclical Argument With A Literal Strawman

Holkins was writing about Ubisoft’s ridiculous new digital rights management scheme, but this principle is just as valid when applied to prohibition of any kind.

This happened at work this week:

Co-worker: Hey, Eseell, I hear you like guns.

Me: Definitely!

Co-worker: Do you have your CCL?

Me: Yep.

Co-worker: Oh. Some of us are getting a CCL class together. We have an instructor who’s willing to run it at Ben Avery for us.

Me: Well, I’ve got mine but [other co-workers] have expressed an interest in getting their CCW permits. You should go hit them up.

Co-worker: Thanks!

Via E-mail, I just learned that Owen “Buz” Mills, owner of the Gunsite Academy in Paulden, Arizona, will be running for governor this year and has invested more than $2 million dollars of his own money in his campaign.^[1]

The Outdoor Wire writes:

Former ironworker, Marine, and cable mogul turned shooting school owner Owen “Buz” Mills has filed the necessary paperwork to run for governor. Sources tell us Mills has been making the rounds with Republican leaders for some time and decided it was “time to step forward and do something” about the mess Arizona is in.

I like this guy already. It’s too soon to say, “I’m voting for him,” but he certainly looks like a promising candidate.

1. Sorry about the login required there. It’s the only source I had. [↩]