  | | | |  | The number of firearms manufactured in the U.S. for sale to American customers hit an all-time high in 2012, according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives' (BATFE) new Firearms Manufacturers and Export Report. American firearm manufacturers produced roughly 8.3 million firearms for sale in the U.S., a new record, up 33 percent from the 6.2 million produced for American customers in 2011.
The report shows not only that Americans valued firearms in 2012 more than ever before, but also that they particularly valued the kinds of firearms that gun control supporters have tried the hardest to get banned--handguns and semi-automatic rifles. READ MORE >> |
| Despite current restrictions that place New Jersey well outside the American mainstream, gun controllers and some state lawmakers have made clear their intent to push even further in 2014, with wide-ranging legislation targeting nearly every aspect of the remaining gun freedom Garden State residents enjoy (or cling to, perhaps more accurately). Chief among these proposals is a bill that would lower the magazine capacity limit from the current 15 down to 10. And it appears gun control advocates are prepared to sink to any level of rhetorical excess to get it passed.
In a February 14 NJ.com article, Bryan Miller, Executive Director of the self-proclaimed "faith-based movement to prevent gun violence" Heeding God's Call, is quoted as stating, "Nobody needs a 15-round ammunition magazine unless they are a domestic terrorist or a gangster." READ MORE >> |
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Two sets of data published by the FBI seven months apart show increased gun ownership coinciding with a reduction in violent crime.
Last July, the FBI completed its monthly update of an online table showing the number of firearm-related checks conducted through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). The new numbers showed that the number of checks increased from 8.9 million during the first six months of 2012, to a whopping 11.4 million during the same period in 2013, an increase of 29 percent.
Gun control supporters pretend that NICS checks that result in denials perfectly correspond with the denial of firearms to aspiring violent criminals, while denying that the numbers of approved checks indicate anything at all about trends in firearms purchases. However, while not as reliable an indicator of firearm purchase trends as the Annual Firearms Manufacturers and Export Reports and Firearms Commerce in the United States reports complied by the BATFE, the FBI's NICS numbers provide a fair indication of such trends. Even though not all approved checks result in the acquisition of firearms, some checks result in the acquisition of multiple firearms. And even though some checks are conducted for carry permit purposes, some firearms are acquired through licensed dealers without a NICS check, based upon the exemption available in some states for persons licensed to possess or carry a firearm. READ MORE >> | |
Apparently, Michael Bloomberg didn't learn his lesson after one of his two anti-gun groups, Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG), was taken to task for claiming that Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, shot by police, was a "victim of gun violence."
Last week, Bloomberg's other gun control group, which he markets as a "Moms" group, teamed with MAIG to release propaganda intended to convey the impression that school shootings are on the rise.
However, in an article for Fox News, economist John Lott showed that the shootings cited by Bloomberg included suicides, incidents in which no one was injured, at least one self-defense shooting, and shootings that took place late at night on and off school property. "Contrary to what many people believe, high school shootings have actually been falling over the last two decades," Lott wrote. READ MORE >> |
Former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens found himself on the wrong side of law and history in both of the Supreme Court's landmark cases on the Second Amendment in the early 21st Century, District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) and McDonald v. City of Chicago (2010). Together, these decisions recognized that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms for self-defense that is not dependent upon service in an organized militia, and that this right binds the acts of federal, state, and local officials.
Stevens wrote lengthy (and unavailing) dissents in both cases. In his Heller dissent, he argued, among other things, that the Second Amendment was intended only to preserve the right of the people to maintain well-regulated state militias; that it did not "enshrine the common-law right of self-defense in the Constitution;" and that it does not curtail legislative power "to regulate nonmilitary use and ownership of weapons." Meanwhile, his dissent in McDonald opined that the plaintiffs were asserting a property right, rather than a liberty interest; that other "advanced democracies" manage just fine without a right corresponding to the Second Amendment; and that the Second Amendment, properly understood, has nothing to say about state and local gun control. READ MORE >> | |
The NRA--and hunters, fishermen, and outdoorsmen the world over--lost a long-time friend this week as Dick Cabela, founder of Cabela's, Inc., passed away on Monday at the age of 77.
Dick, along with his wife Mary, founded Cabela's at their kitchen table in 1961, after Dick bought $45 worth of fishing flies with the intention of selling them at the family's furniture and hardware store in Chappell, Nebraska. When the flies didn't sell, Cabela ran an ad in a local newspaper. That didn't work out either. Finally, Cabela ran the following ad in Sports Afield magazine: "FREE Introductory offer! 5 popular Grade A hand-tied flies. Send 25c for postage and handling." That ad was the breakthrough; orders started flowing in, and Cabela's was born. With the business growing, Dick's brother Jim joined the company as a co-owner in 1963. READ MORE >> |
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John Hames |
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