Texas/Ohio/United States –-(Ammoland.com)- There are times when defending the Second Amendment is going to require a cold, hard look at reality. We may be hitting one such point in the wake of the horrific acts of evil done in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio. To protect our rights, we need to have solutions. We’re already behind the eight-ball on this.
Second Amendment supporters are always wrongly blamed as being complicit in mass shootings. As evidenced during CNN’s nationally-televised Second Amendment shaming event after the Parkland shooting, those who defend our rights are accused of standing shoulder to shoulder with the wicked murderers. It’s a blood libel, and we should not let ourselves be shamed into silence for defending ourselves from an unjust and wrongful deprivation of liberty by that blood libel.
We have stood between millions of Americans who have not shot up a Walmart, bar, school, concert, or other public venue and the politicians who would impose the cruel injustices we see being enacted in New Zealand and which already have hit Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom. For that, we are defamed as child killers and domestic terrorists. It’s not fair, it’s wrong, but the vast majority of today’s mass media doesn’t stand for truth. They’re too busy joining the mob and spreading the lies.
So, we need to come up with solutions. Whether the Second Amendment grants a right or codifies one that exists (for the record, the latter is the case) is an irrelevant theoretical discussion. The soccer mom scared half to death about her child’s school being the site of the next mass shooting doesn’t give a damn either way – if she is scared enough, she’ll back a Bloomberg stooge in an instant. So just screaming “Second Amendment” at those calls, while viscerally satisfying, and which will earn plaudits in a comment section, is actually counter-productive. That soccer mom will then happily sign on to the Bloomberg agenda – fully buying into their lies about us in the process.
Right now, to protect the Second Amendment, we need to have something concrete to address these issues. For instance, Ted Cruz has been working to come up with a “red flag” law that protects due process. Now, this is not a case of “Negotiating Rights Away,” not by a long shot. It’s actually tactical and strategic competence – the type of thing Second Amendment supporters should be insisting on from those who claim to be protecting our rights.
Given the present realities, the best bet is to put up a version of a “red flag” law that has due process protections (including penalties for maliciously false reports and requirements for the guns to be stored securely) and treatment for those who are suffering from acute mental health crises. For a bonus, include some fixes to the National Instant Check System, while also having it override any state or local waiting period or licensing scheme. What will happen?
In the best-case scenario, the less onerous red flag law (with the NICS fixes and the overriding of licensing schemes and waiting periods) passes the Senate or is killed by a filibuster led by Charles Schumer and other anti-Second Amendment extremists, while Nancy Pelosi refuses to bring such bill up for a vote in the House. If the House passes a more onerous version, the Senate can always put the less onerous version in as an amendment, and there are enough pro-Second Amendment senators to filibuster the more onerous version, especially when they can point to an alternative they support that addressing things that the bad bill doesn’t.
If the less onerous version passes and is enacted into law, while there would be some infringement, it would also see an end to waiting periods and licensing schemes across the country. Not an ideal outcome, but better than having a Bloomberg-written version that would have no due process protections, no mental health treatment, and which could even allow the cops who take the guns to store them in a manner that leaves them wrecked, and the gun owner no recourse to be compensated for the damage. We took a hit, but the damage is not so bad, and other infringements were taken out in the process.
Either way, after the successful defense that exposes the refusal of anti-Second Amendment extremists to address mental heath or to protect due process, then the counter-attack can come on two fronts. The first is education about the facts surrounding Second Amendment issues, including where our rights come from, and what Heller really means.
The second part is to fully pierce the phony cloak of compassion that anti-Second Amendment extremist wrap themselves in. This is what was done successfully after the 1999 Columbine shooting. Once anti-Second Amendment extremists killed a gun show bill that was not onerous enough, the NRA launched the counter-offensive, highlighted by Wayne LaPierre’s harsh and accurate description of Bill Clinton’s attitude.
How did that turn out? Well, Al Gore pushed gun control and lost the 2000 presidential election and two of the five justices that made up the majority in the Heller and McDonald decisions that struck down handgun bans while reaffirming the Second Amendment protected the right to keep and bear arms were confirmed to the Supreme Court. But let’s remember how the first part of that fight was won.
About Harold Hutchison
Writer Harold Hutchison has more than a dozen years of experience covering military affairs, international events, U.S. politics and Second Amendment issues. Harold was consulting senior editor at Soldier of Fortune magazine and is the author of the novel Strike Group Reagan. He has also written for the Daily Caller, National Review, Patriot Post, Strategypage.com, and other national websites.
Essentially, the author’s position is that we’re back to deciding which finger we’re going to allow the leftists to cut off next. This has become a pointless discussion. With mass surveillance and censorship becoming the norm, and half the population having been successfully socially engineered into stupidity, the Left has burned the ballot box and pulled the nails out of the jury box. A full blown Socialist/Communist revolution is going off in our country right now, with Technocrats/Eugenisists/Trans-humanists throwing in with them. We only have two “solutions” left. Continue to allow our nation to die the death of a thousand… Read more »
I think there’s very few who would be willing to actually go out and confiscate. And some of us voted Libertarian for the last two elections while others danced and fidgeted refusing to vote that way because “they can’t win”. Of course not as long as those three words are the mantra. Get the next one on the debate stage and let’s see what happens. I live in a state (WA) where our gun and property rights are decided by the cities. They do not give a royal shit about the people actually affected by their ignorance and malice.
GUN FREE ZONE, nothing more than a Gun Free Killing Zone. RED FLAG GUN LAW, More Harassment, You Are GUILTY until Proven INNOCENT. WTF happened to You’re INNOCENT until Proven GUILTY. If this is the New Demonrat Solution I’m not Liking it.
I already have a solution, twit. We go for them they minute they announce they are coming for us. Simple and effective.
@Quatermain, If “they” announce it, “they” will lose the element of surprise. So “they” won’t announce anything. What ever tactics and strategy gets employed, it will be in the shadows.
if they don’t announce then it is clearly not going to be “legal” or even “lawful”. As such it will engender a response in and of itself. If it is not announced it cannot even be “confiscation” Far too many people to hit at once, so the element of surprise will be gone on day one. By day two the game will be clear and civil war will commence.
@Q, I agree, neither legal nor moral. Whatever form the planned coup against the people will take, I think it will happen in the cities first because they are worthy targets. I think that the confiscators can deny a city’s population the clean water, electricity, and regular food deliveries that the people need. Then we people in the country will have time to organize, figure out logistics, write our own target list, plan, and execute those plans.
Now, is the time to identify the list, think about asymmetrical methods, and dwell on the matter of logistics.
I don’t think anyone will come for the guns, unless useful idiots like Cortez somehow end up calling the shots. It isn’t necessary. If possession of arms, or a class of arms, can be made illegal, those arms then become useless to their owners for lawful purposes, and risky to possess. With mass surveillance and a back door version of China’s social credit score being put into place here, it will become too dangerous to attempt to pass skill at arms on to our children. Attrition does the rest.
@John Dunlap Dunlap What you are writing assumes that gun owners will get rid of those “Risky and now illegal to possess” firearms. Furthermore, it also shows that you are unware of non range training that is available today that could be used relatively in secret. A radio station I listen to regularly advertises I Target Pro, including using the system for AR pattern rifles. No gunshots, but it does give a whole lot of trigger time and trains muscles for proper aiming and control. Got news for you, most of us will not comply, and also will have no… Read more »
In regards to the electric grid,a movie that made an impact on me as a young teenager was “Shadow On The Land.” It was a made for TV movie that had a strong message. It still holds up well today. I recommend it and it can be seen on You-Tube.
There won’t be any announcement of a mass confiscation about to occur. They will simple state the effective date of the law, then they will slowly and surely pick us off one or two at a time. Before I retired from the police dept. several of us “old timers” talked about getting orders to confiscate guns and arrest owners. We were of the belief (still are) that we would NOT obey such orders, and would stand WITH the people against the department and our government if it came to that. Sadly, I fear that a lot of the new young… Read more »
for 22,000 times now the anti’s have told us people will be safer if we pass this law..Chicago should be an extremely safe place to live, total gun control, but just the opposite, every weekend is a slaughter house!..this past weekend 24 people shot with 7 dead, Theres your paradise democrats! innocent people are sitting ducks so wake up already and let people defend them selves!
@Tionico: How true your statement is, it does take some kind of effort to be a parent, I tried my best with my 3 Divorce, and job put a crimp in it, but I didn’t give up and all 3 turned out OK, we had our fall outs, but worked through them, they all have families of their own now and the feed back from them is that they all understood what I tried steer them right. A thankless job being a parent, but when your child comes to you later in life and says that, it does make it… Read more »
Harold, JUST QUIT. WE WON’T DRINK YOUR KOOLAID OR SNIVEL BEFORE THE GUN-GRABBERS.
ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ!! WE WON’T COMPLY. WE WON’T DISARM!
The comment section is more informative than the article.
“If the less onerous version passes and is enacted into law, while there would be some infringement, it would also see an end to waiting periods and licensing schemes across the country. Not an ideal outcome…..We took a hit, but the damage is not so bad, and other infringements were taken out in the process.” Harold you sir are an ass hat and a coward, so willing to surrender MY RIGHTS in true NRA fashion rather than put up a fight. Your the kind of guy that would hand his daughter over to a bunch of thugs to abuse as… Read more »
Agreed. Harold, you often say some extremely insightful things. However, the idea of how it won’t be so entirely bad if we just lose a little here, a little there, is simply disappointing. We have been doing exactly that during this whole past 85 years, and it simply is not okay. You and the NRA both need to realize that. Finding real answers that will stop the criminal violence is highly desirable. I hope there are some answers, somewhere. But forever eroding the rights of patriotic citizens (I won’t propose law-abiding, the way things are going – there is no… Read more »
I would ask, in every one of these mass shootings, why none of those in the victim pool never fired a shot at their attacker(s)? Answer: They lacked the primary means to shoot back. They had no guns. The supreme court has ruled numerous times that police have no duty to protect citizen’s property or lives. Why has this not been a signal to those of us who reject “sheeple” status to arm ourselves to protect ourselves and those who cannot? Why do we allow political figures and bombastic billionaires to whip up emotion and abuse facts in order to… Read more »
In the past few years I’ve become aware of perhaps half a dozen shootings in or at a WalMart. I rarely go there, partly because I do not respect some aspects of their business model, and partly because I am “less comfortable” in the company of the typical demongraphic of folks who shop there. Then there is the issue of the quaity and selection of goods sold there. In only one of those WalMart incidents did anyone ever shoot back. That one happened in the parking lot, and a man who was leaving the building headed toward his car was… Read more »
I carry. I have no sense that I am safer at Costco or wherever else than at Walmart, whatever a store’s business model and selection of products might have to do with it. Of course, if you met me at Walmart, you still wouldn’t be aware of anyone else carrying there — that is kind of what concealed carry is about.
Sometimes a 9 other times a 45.very rarely a 380.but i always carry at walmart and if some dirtball comes strolling in with a rifle exposed he will have a second to drop it or ill light him up.
I hope you all behave in a similar way.its our duty
Are you serious? What a coward and back stabbing article. Due process doesn’t mean anything at all when there was never a crime in the first place. It’s a joke. Republicans talking points are ridiculous about “strong due process”. No crime, no probable cause, no charge and no right to take firearms away from a law abiding citizen just because some one FEELS UNCOMFORTABLE that some one in their family or neighborhood have guns. Not to mention, you have no right to counsel in many of these laws.. You have to pay a lawyer yourself in may of these laws,… Read more »
Compromise means incremental surrender.
socialists have learned to employ the same strategy used to eat an elephant: One bite at a time.
@Irontiger T, Yes, there has to be the commission of a crime and a reasonable suspicion that an individual was involved. Now, soccer moms want the government to be guards. Libtards want the government to intervene before a crime has occurred. I don’t know where they get those ideas.
The democrat socialists want to use these misinformed people, incorrect concepts to grab power, and tear the republic down.
@UT, The police state that libtards cry out for to guard them, will not defend them … but it will rob them. The police state will will decide that there is a lot of things that you don’t need … so that they can have more.
“… while there would be some infringement…” WTF? ANY infringement is NOT acceptable when we’re discussing ANY of the Constitutional Amendments and INALIENABLE rights! Harold, you’re not only a LaPierre apologist (ass kisser), but a damn fool if you believe some of the crap you write. Compromise is FAILURE! You suggest we allow infringements and then wind up giving LaPierre another B.J. in print. You have no credibility.
Trump has raised his true flag, and it has Democrat all over it. I’m looking for a good Libertarian to run for office… “Better the Enemy you know, than the one that stabs you in the Back” I’m done with Trump!! RH
That is exactly what the left is hoping. How many of us voted libertarian after Bush I broke the no new taxes pledge? What did we get? Slick Willie and the semi-auto ban. You are playing right into their hands.
@Albbac2, I agree, the democrat party’s only chance in the coming elections is splitting our vote. Trump is just a modern person with little knowledge of Constitutional Civil Rights, and who gets lots of bad advice. It is up to us to educate him. I sent him ” a No Second Amendment, no second term.” email this morning.
I also stated that so called Red Flag laws violated the fourth and sixth amendments, too.
Then I sent the same email to my senators, and my congressional rep. Some time today, I am going to send them hard copy letters.
@ Wild Bill
Don’t know if you saw any coverage of this past weekends DSA National Convention 2019,it’s sad and cringe worthy at the same time.This is the future of the Democrat/Commiecrat party
Oh BTW this is the takeaway from the Convention.
The DSA will not endorse another 2020 Dem candidate (cough Warren cough) if Sanders loses the primary.
https://legalinsurrection.com/2019/08/democratic-socialists-of-america-will-not-endorse-a-presidential-candidate-if-bernie-doesnt-get-dem-nomination/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=a30b095f-8614-4c61-b426-9b8edf8cdccb
Best Moments of DSA National Convention 2019
@ wild Bill I concur with what you said and I am thinking that a red flag law, such as the one Ted Cruz is writing, is something we need to keep the petty red flag laws off our back. As I understand it, Cruz is writing in due process and penalties for faulty reporting. That sounds more Constitutional to me
@Tcat, Crap, I may have been too hard on him in my communique and letter! It seem that I may have been precipitous. I wonder if my very rural mail carrier has been here, yet!
@Wild Bill
That’s why I was waiting first to see what he would write before passing judgement. He has a habit of doing things under name, but end up gutting everything the left originally tries to do.
If what he does however is take the Marco Rubio route, he’ll have officially murdered his Constitutional credentials.
@Alan1810, Why yes, that sounds exactly like me and many friends after “Read my lips”. They already have us cornered, now to simply distract us from the one true agenda, and their doing a great job, by the way. The NRA is pretty much a benign cluster of F—KS, so there’s that, and now we need to divide and see who the “true conservatives” are. Our President, intelligent fellow that he is, is fighting to survive everyday, and still needs instruction from folks of varying backgrounds on matters of survival, humanity wise and politically wise. Splitting our forces on the… Read more »
Part of my personal plan is to put together another AR pistol. For posterity and historical purposes of course. And I appeal to my fellow gun owners to not abandon the NRA. Sure it’s a mess but as a wise man once said ‘ If we don’t hang together, we shall surely hang separately.’ Our country is more crazy now than any time since the Vietnam war, maybe even worse. I advise us all to decide which side you’re on and start acting like we’re on the same team.
If every single person, that loves the Second Amendment , doesn’t become more activist, vocal and boisterous about protecting the Second Amendment , WE ARE GOING TO LOSE OUR GUN RIGHTS FOREVER!!… Right now a more vocal and radical minority is kicking our asses… they have the radical mainstream media on their side and get way more press time then we will ever get.. The media arms them with fake polls and massive amounts of free airtime …They are very vocal, boisterous and far more vicious than we are, too.. YOU ALL need to join a group like the Gun… Read more »
last election when the BloomingIdiotBurg “assault weapon ban/21 to purchase/registry law got passed by some 60% of the votes, a frightening little statistic was made known: in that election in Washington State, ONLY TWENTY THREE PERCENT OF GUN OWNERS VOTED AT ALL. Yes, 23%. Had half of the rest of them voted, the law would have gone down the four inch vertical black pipe where it belongs.
I don’t wonder any more why we’re struggling to retain our rights.
No, no, no Harold! We have solutions. Solutions that would work. We have proposed them for years. Appeasement of the anti-gun groups would be Chamberlain suggests is like trying to appease Hitler before WWII. The more we give, the more they will take. Our solutions, the only ones that would work AND protect our rights are: > Elimination of gun free zones so people don’t have to be helpless and shooters think twice. > Expansion and greater use of civil commitment laws for dangerous people. Unlike red flag, these laws, which are already on the books, provide due process, institutionalization… Read more »
Sorry, my 5th sentence is messed up, but you get the idea.
@JFZ, Isn’t it amazing that police numbers, police budgets, and police equipment are more prolific than ever but police are less effective? And do some really dumb things, occasionally. I think that it is because we “process” people now. People are moved through the educational process and given a piece of paper. Job well done. In one room schools, that teacher knew each kid and what their deficiencies were. And higher education weeded people out rather than just moving them along as long as they can pay. Both parents are too busy to know their kids and prepare them for… Read more »
NO!!!
The jey is found in the bible’s book f Deuteronomy. Here it is:
FATHERS teach your children.
Yeah, Get up OFF THE COUCH, put down your swill beer, forget about the gayme, and spend quality time with YOUR CHILDREN and TEACH them what they need to know to live a life of purpose. But first, most of them will have to learn what a life of purpose IS, and how to LIVE one. Because most don’t, being content to play the role of sperm donor and call it good enough.
the KEY.
Mods, WHEN will we get an edit button?
If they are smart Mods, never..
Edit buttons mean people can go back and cover up lies, delete things they said that they want people to forget about so they can cover up the truth. A second editing post is honest enough
Folks, Point of order here. We actually do have “Red Flag Laws” on the books in most states. In Florida it is called the Baker Act. In California, it is called Welfare and Institutions Code Section 5150. These laws allow a person to be apprehended, taken to a mental health facility, analyzed and then presented before a court for determination. That process is adversarial and the subject gets counsel. Orders resulting can include restraining orders, orders of commitment and also specific restrictions on your ability to keep and bear arms, knives, spears, bags of excrement or Nerf bats or whatever… Read more »
@nrr, I like that denunciation decree language. Rather than letting the socialists drive the debate with posititive sounding terminology, this time. Maybe we should write to our pres. and congress using the terms denunciation laws and denunciation decree.
Even worse, the defendant in these “red flag” actions must prove himself innocent at his own expense. Appearing without a competent lawyer would be even worse than facing any other charge with a court appointed lawyer.
I admit to being a pacifist. I carry a gun because I can’t win a “fair” fight due to age and accumulated injuries.
“In this difficult time in our country, let us take measures to make us safer and freer. This is not achieved by restricting guns, but by restoring firearm freedoms protected under the Second Amendment.”
Erich Pratt
Senior Vice President
Gun Owners of America
https://gunowners.org/
Reading the headline again, the NRA leadership called us “Bloomberg Stooges” before when we questioned their mismanagement and corruption.
At this point I’m for no compromise whatsoever and think the most productive thing we can do is organize militia’s. Trump doesn’t have the spine to push back so we should just wait for “them” to try to take our guns away.
It’s bad enough that we’re leaving our children and grandchildren a country deep in debt due to our our of control, profligate government spending. It would be much worse to leave them a nation beset with rebellion, insurgency and civil unrest. If there’s even the smallest chance that we can work out an equitable solution to the problems created by gun grabbers and the enemies of freedom and liberty, it is morally imperative that we do so.
@AH, Well, waiting to be overrun is one tactic, of course … but I think that we need to be smarter. I am going to email the whitehouse.gov/contact and point out that Denunciation Laws and Denunciation Decrees are what the communists do! Then I am going to email my senators and house of reps members. That ought to annoy the hell out of them.
History has proven that “compromise” with socialists on any subject is incremental surrender, and they proudly admit it.
Did you also notice this…..
Harold Hutchison waited for a tragedy to occur before he came back to ammoland, a tragedy he could exploit to explain why Second Amendment defenders need to accept more infringements against our rights.
@ Will
Trust me, I know exactly what he is. I’ve been writing against him since last year, and he still to this day doesn’t have the balls to address me directly.
No red flag laws ever! I hope Ted Cruz does not promote such dangerous ideas.
Will, you are right, he would be done. He was my first choice for President in 2016.
Same here ras52.. Why I didn’t vote after the Primary, and switched to the constitutional party.
Revelator and Will, how about Cruz 2024, as long as he does not stab us in the back before then.
A little shaken from when he folded in 2016, but so far I have not seen anything egregious from him. If he stays true, I think he’d be close to a Regan.
Too bad we cant have 2014 Cruz back, as that was more like Coolidge.
Will, Pence is a good man. I hope he will not cave on 2nd if he runs and wins.
HEY all you guys that favour Cruz, WHY? DOesn’t matter how cool he is, he is NOT ELIGIBLE. Born in Canada of Cuban Father and Yank Mother. Not Ntural Born Citizen. HOW can you support a man of mied loyalties? Dontchya remmember what the kinyun did? And how that Camelnose Harris thing is stumping, and she is certainly less eligible than the kinyun was/is.
You make all your hollerin about upholding the laws, then promote an ineligible candidate?
Double minded, unstable in everything.
@Tionico Been there before, and you lost that argument Tionico. Or did you forget about our back and forth over Blackstone and De Vattel. His Cuban Father was a legal Resident of the United states and was in Canada for work at the time. His mother, as a Citizen, and his father as a legal Resident would mean Ted Cruz had citizenship at Birth. This was one of the two situations where you got into trouble before and decided to pick a fight with me. Citizenship was never misconstrued to be born within a state prior to the reinterpretation of… Read more »
I wanted cruz to win but i realize now that his streak is Not mean enough!
Hillary would have wiped him off the map because he’d not gain the votes of non-evangelicals as well as democrats that couldn’t stand hillary. Trumps gun accessory ban and other crap piss me off but with hillary we’d be free and burying tyrants or dead by now
@macdog
What the rest of us are hoping. If Cruz goes down that path, he may as well register as a Democrat because it will destroy his reputation.
To the dishonorable coward, Harold “Humperdink” Hutchison “Given the present realities, the best bet is to put up a version of a “red flag” law that has due process protections (including penalties for maliciously false reports and requirements for the guns to be stored securely) and treatment for those who are suffering from acute mental health crises” No Harold, there is no such thing as a red flag law that protects due process. It does not, has never, and will never exist. The reason for this is simple, the premise of ERPO’s ( Red Flag Laws ) is that they… Read more »
The usual response from the NRA: Let’s negotiate our rights away, because we really never had any other plan. What has been set in motion today was long planned by the NRA. We will be losing more rights again. Anyway, Harold’s writeup is nonsense. That whole “strong due process” is just absolute nonsense, as the very definition of a red flag law is the absence of due process. The targeted person is being convicted in absence, punished and then has to prove his/her innocence in court. The whole concept of “penalties for maliciously false reports” is nonsense too. Those reports… Read more »
Looks like you were writing the same thought as I was at the same time Charlie. Good show.
So did the FPC: https://www.firearmspolicy.org/fpc-statement-red-flag-laws-trump-remarks. The NRA is the only “gun rights” organization supporting red flag laws.