God bless mikeb30200. Sometimes I don’t know what I’d write about if he wasn’t such a frequent and ardent contributor. I recently did a piece on how quiet revolutions in manufacturing and materials will allow people to make their own guns at home. As is his way, mike commented:

Bruce, You write this stuff and then wonder why I conflate you so-called lawful gun owners with the criminal variety.

I’m not exactly sure how making firearms in your home could be considered any more illegal than, say, baking a cake or making a knife, but mike seems to believe that such activities are grounds to 1) refer to us as so-called lawful gun owners and 2) smear us as being no different from criminal gun owners . . .

First of all, the United States Supreme Court ruled (a 9-0 decision no less) in Heller that the Second Amendment protects an individual right and then ruled (5-4) in McDonald that this right is incorporated against the states through the 14th Amendment.

So I could make the Marbury v. Madison argument that “[a] law repugnant to the Constitution is void” therefore any sort of AWB (Assault Weapons Ban) is void, but let’s bypass the Constitutional argument for a moment and address the actual mechanics of federal gun-control laws.

All such laws depend on Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3 (the grossly distorted “interstate commerce” clause), and specify that they apply to items which have traveled in, or substantially affect, interstate commerce. Making something in your own home for your own personal use does not fall under either of these provisions.

After conflating law-abiding people enjoying perfectly legal activities with criminals, mike then reveals his (and by proxy, all antis’) true intentions:

What you’re propagating is a nightmare. The more guns and gun parts that DO NOT come from legitimate sources the harder it will be to regulate them properly.

So apparently a gun owner who makes his own weapon while complying with all applicable laws and regulations does not qualify as a legitimate source in the eyes of mike and his fellow gun grabbers. And yes, I am calling him a gun grabber because who else would be opposed to hobbyists making their own weapons free from “proper regulation”?

I think what really bothers mike here, though, is that DIY guns will leave no paper trail. So when the jack-boots come marching down the street to start the confiscations, they won’t know who has all the guns.

And mike, don’t try and tell me that your concern is for criminals making guns. Why should they when they have no problems getting their “illegal” guns, well, illegally? mike meant was that my proposal for propagating guns is a nightmare.

He finishes with a soupçon of sarcasm:

Bravo, Bruce, you are a regular humanitarian.

Given that (according to Cook and Ludwig) there are about 1.4 million DGUs (Defensive Gun Uses) each year, and given that 15.6% of the people defending themselves believe that they “almost certainly” would have been killed had they not used their weapon, assuming that 9 out of 10 of those people were mistaken, we have about 22,000 lives saved by guns each year.

Now according to the  CDC, between 1999 and 2007 there were an average of 11,792 firearm related homicides annually. This means that, at a minimum, almost twice as many people’s lives were saved by the defensive use of guns as were lost by the criminal use of guns.

So I would say that yes, increasing the number of guns in the hands of the law-abiding does qualify me as a humanitarian. So thanks.

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62 COMMENTS

  2. Farmers make explosives to remove rocks and tree stumps from diesel fuel and fertilizer. I assume mikeb302000 considers them terrorists too. gunpowder can be home made, bullets can be cast, there are a myriad of ways to launch a projectile.
    Mikeb302000 likes the warm teat of government authority assuming he would be in it’s warm embrace and safe.

  4. I’m beginning to wonder if maybe mikey is a pro-2A “false flag” agent. It seems to me that he does a good job of making the antis look as bad as possible. He consistently pushes the worst anti-2A arguments and all anti-2A arguments in the worst possible way.

    By being such a dope, mikey’s done more to advance gun rights than Jeff Cooper ever did. It’s gotta be intentional, right?

    • I’m still convinced Mikeyb is a regular feature of this website. He doesn’t seem to be interested in firearms reviews or other information. If he’s not actually a fun little gem management encourages, then what is he? A bored budget clerk in DC? A lonely college kid planning on a future in New Jersey politics? A plethora of guns in our jurisdiction isn’t a problem. It is the massive number of careless people who let themselves get angry, stoned, drunk, or who run double cycles of steroids just before they mix with the rest of us. People notice that the vast majority of car drivers stay in their lane and stop at red lights. That’s because in the early years of driving the incompetent wrap their car around a tree farily quickly. So it is evolving with guns: With widely increased CCW, guns in the hands of homeowners and decent folks, we’ll get the same phenomena with the gangsta boys and others with illegal guns or with dispositions unsuitable for gun ownership. They’ll end up dead, and the neighborhoods will start to feel safer. Then we’ll be able to get by with less spending on law enforcement, which is good considering the austerity few seem to realize is coming. We’ll be both a polite society and a more efficient one. Mikeb apparently wishes it to be the other way around. That makes him a waste-encouraging sort. Mikeb, get a gun. Get a job which is very demanding and rewarding, and you’ll soon forget all your worries about the 2nd Amendment. Life will be good. Your significant other will be happy. The sun will shine.

        • I’m trying to give the guy hope, something to live for in a world he fears. Hell, I hope he’s not a lonely guy on the edge of dispair, for whom my comment triggers a moment of plunging depression as he reflects upon that issue.

          • Don’t worry about me, Ropingdown. Worry about yourself.

            Your idea seems to be increase the gun availability to everyone and let the stupid and dangerous ones kill each other off.

            That’s brilliant.

            • What’s not so brilliant is that you apparently failed to grasp a single thing that Ropingdown said.

              No surprise there, however.

              Once again, you see what you want to see and believe what you want to believe, in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

      • “If he’s not actually a fun little gem management encourages, then what is he?”

        Old guy with too much time on his hands.

  6. All you really need to know about mikeb’s thoughts on gun ownership is contained in the following 9 words:

    “… the harder it will be to regulate them properly.”

    And all he wants is “reasonable” gun restrictions. And if you ask him to name ONE existing gun ownership restriction that he would admit to being UNreasonable (out of what, 30,000 or so between the Feds and the states?), he will not answer. Right, mikeb? Not even one.

  7. Bruce, I reject that DGU statistic and comparison outright. It’s bogus, and I’ve explained why I think that plenty of times.

    About the home manufacturer of guns and gun parts, the purpose in many cases would be to stay off the radar, to be immune from the regulations. But look what’s happening now.

    Gun flow is such that between the increased sales of guns, which is nothing like you guys keep saying, but it is up, and the leakage into the criminal world, gun manufacturers can hardly keep up. Regulations which would slow down that portion of the gun production that flows into the underworld is lacking.

    That’s what gun-control advocates are fighting for. In spite of your paranoid idea that we really want total bans and confiscation, what we really want is to prevent as many of the bad guys from acquiring guns as possible.

    What you do is fight us all the way, using several pretexts to do so, the one I just mentioned about fearing confiscation, the one about the tyrannical government, and there are others. This results in a terrible flooding of society with guns and the resultant gun violence.

    Now, you want to encourage folks to do the DIY thing, which will only make matters worse. I know you love guns, Bruce. But think about what you’re doing and what you’re preaching. It’s “criminal.”

    • I don’t know what rule book that you read, but perhaps you do not understand that in most states – IT IS 100% PERFECTLY LEGAL TO MANUFACTURE A FIREARM FOR PERSONAL USE.

      Sorry to scream, but I don’t think that you “get it “when written in lower-case letters.

      • I get that, no problem. Making a gun at home is legal. But, so is buying and owning a gun by psychopaths who’ve not yet been caught doing their thing.

        Legal’s got nothing to do with it except that I want to change our concept of what’s legal.

        • Mike, you’ve been away from American jurisprudence for too long. The legal theory here is still “innocent until proven guilty.”

        • Mike that’s the problem you want to move in the direction of making laws around Precognition such as Minority Report. the problem is even crazy people have the ability to change their mind. Just as you wouldn’t say Black/African Americans are lazy because statistically they have the highest percentage of people on welfare by race. you can’t say all depressed people are likely to commit suicide because they are statistically more likely to commit suicide than some one who isn’t depressed. Such blanket statements ignore environmental conditions and personal choice.

          you cant successfully preserve individual rights while trying to create laws that PREVENT crime. the only ways to reduce the crime rates is provide ways for people to better their opportunities to succeed, better enforce the laws on the books and not create no go zones.

        • Seeking to prevent crime before a person behaves criminally is so British Left Wing! I can (but won’t) name two famous and good US Officials who committed criminal acts when young and wild, but who grew out of it. In fact I can think of two who admitted to it in autobiographies, one of whom is President Obama. Heck, even after Ted K. walked away from a drowning woman and failed to report her circumstance at his first opportunity, failed to seek immediate help, we didn’t take away his gun rights. I think what you have in mind is slightly unstable poor folk? You would, it seems, be one of those people who would prefer Prior Restraint on Free Speech? I have saved for you an interesting snippet from a Delaware newspaper today:

          “In my opinion, the vast majority of these crimes are somehow tied into prescription drug abuse,” said Ocean View Police Chief Ken McLaughlin.

          He believes the prescription drug epidemic in Delaware today is worse than the crack cocaine epidemic of the 1980s and ’90s.

          “The police drug investigators are working overtime, they’re making arrests,” he said. “… The increase has been so large and so rapid that it’s almost impossible to stop.”

          In 2009 and 2010, 354 Delawareans died as a result of opiates or anti-anxiety drugs — 72 percent more than from heroine, cocaine and alcohol combined and 60 percent more than traffic accidents. Every year, the Delaware State Police’s Drug Diversion Unit arrests more people in connection to prescription drugs than the year before.

          SO, if you’d like a good cause, here it is: Campaign for a law which requires follow-up, rehab if necessary, for anyone receiving a prescription for Oxycodone for more than one week. That’ll take you up against the Big Pharma and Big Medicine lobbies, give you a worthy opponent as you fight for something actually worth the trouble. Is your SO In MMM or PETA? Are you being pushed into your positions?

    • “Bruce, I reject that DGU statistic and comparison outright. It’s bogus, and I’ve explained why I think that plenty of times.”
      —–
      Once again, you are entitled to your own opinion. You are not entitled to your own facts.

    • Your honor, I object, you cannot admit these numbers because they clearly invalidate my argument…

    • Regulations which would slow down that portion of the gun production that flows into the underworld is lacking.

      Remind me again what regulations are supposed to control this “underworld” that is pretty much defined as operating outside the law?

      • There is a case today in California: The burglar broke into a truck, stole a hammer, smashed his way into a home. The homeowner shot him in the leg and held him for the police. Guns don’t cause crime, though criminals want our guns.
        Mikey, if you are so concerned about the underworld and its weapons, why not become a social worker and target your help towards gang-infested neighborhoods? This would keep you busy and provide you with an education…..right up until ya’ get knifed.

        • As a social worker and former left-wing idjut, I am now the proud owner of several firearms (that I am very capable of using). I have been previously employed by several gov’t agencies and assure all that said govt is lousy at running any agency “meant for good.” Mikey, unfortunately, does not understand that “good intentions” by your government is how Stalin, Hitler and Pol Pot made hay in their day. These days, republican or democrat, I’m suspicious of anybody that wants to grab my guns or freedoms.

    • Preventing bad guys from getting guns will never work without catching good guys under the umbrella.

      However, in a society with an armed majority (i.e., everybody has a firearm), the career killers would lose their victim pool.

      All that would be left are the spree killers and you could not stop them anyway if you ensured you did not catch good guys in the umbrella.

      That said, how far do you really think they would get in an armed society?

      The best thing that the anti-gunners could do to prevent gun violence would be to let the people own guns and police each other. It is very rare for LEOs to be capable, based only on time, of doing anything but cleaning up afterwards.

      This is necessary. People should not be allowed to take vengeance; that’s what the justice system is for. That said, the police are not a complete solution for crime prevention.

      • We do let the good guys own guns, it’s just that too many of you turn out to be bad. Better qualifications is called for. What do you want to do, lower the standards and let more and more unfit people have guns in order to increase the number of gun owners?

  8. Well, the main problem in Mike logic is presumption, that less guns means less crimes. What a complete dumb idea it is?!!
    If you want to hammer a nail – will a lack of hammer stop you? You can take a rock. But a nail will be hammered anyway.
    The same in crime prevention – if you want to fight a crime, well, you have to plan battle against criminals, not instruments they are used.
    US have less murders per capita than most of world countries. In most of those places where life costs nothing – is it coincidence that there is strict gun laws? Nope. Does it helps to stop violence in Columbia? Or in higly police state of Venezuela? Or in Russia? Nope.
    You won’t be less dead if someone commits murder with sticks and rocks, instead of firearm, isn’t it?
    Wanna fight crime? Fight criminals first. But that’s dangerous and hard deal, simplier to abuse lawful citizens. As always.

    • If less guns = less crime, it would seem reasonable that more guns = more crime.
      The biggest problem with that is that during the last few years CRIME has been going DOWN while concealed carry and gun sales have been going thru the ceiling.

      Seems to be a serious issue in this mike guys comprehension skills.

      • Actually, I think my comprehension skills are OK. You must be mistaking me with someone else who thinks that guns are the only factor in crime. I don’t think that.

        What I do think is that gun availability is one of the factors, and it’s a concrete one which we could do something about.

  9. Always ironic that antis try to criminalize gun owners when, in fact, their desire to eradicate the 2A is far more criminal, and in fact treasonous. Get together a group whose goal is to eradicate any other Amendment and see what happens with them.

  10. All such laws depend on Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3 (the grossly distorted “interstate commerce” clause), and specify that they apply to items which have traveled in, or substantially affect, interstate commerce. Making something in your own home for your own personal use does not fall under either of these provisions.

    I wouldn’t trust this to actually protect us. Didn’t they rule in
    Gonzales v. Raich that making pot in your own yard for your own use affects interstate commerce?

    • Hell, in Wickard v. Filburn they ruled that growing your own grain to feed to your own farm animals affects interstate commerce.

      Under that presumption there is basically nothing you can do that doesn’t affect interstate commerce. In fact, the argument of the Solicitor General of the United States in the upcoming lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the PPACA (Obamacare, in the vernacular) will be that DOING NOTHING affects interstate commerce, in that *not* purchasing insurance costs everyone else money.

      Here’s hoping the SCOTUS will walk the interstate commerce clause back a few steps.

    • Five of the nine sitting Justices of the US Supreme Court have stated in various cases (always in dissents) that cannabis should be de-criminalized. Justice Thomas believes the Controlled Substance Act is unconstitutional. The grotesque extension of the Commerce Clause is probably opposed by a majority of practicing attorneys at some level. It dismays me that the Federal Executive Branch cannot stop the flood of cocaine across our national borders, yet spends so much energy to control what flows across inter-state borders. The founding fathers all knew people who took a little opium to get through the day. They expressed no interest in throwing them in jail or creating a bloody black market in opium. Indeed, several of them were not above trading the stuff as merchandise.

  11. Criminals will always find a way to acquire anything they want including guns, drugs, illegal booze and dozens of other things, and no law with ever stop them. They’re criminals before they don’t care about any of our silly laws and they will do as they please.

    • Yeah, sure, Joe. Keep spinnin’ it.

      question: where do the guns come from?
      answer: legitimate gun owners including FFL dealers.
      conclusion: with proper gun control laws aimed at the law abiding gun owners, the availability of guns to the criminals would go down.
      secondary conclusion: Joe is just repeating the same old bullshit which doesn’t really make sense.

      Sure, some of the better organized gangs and drug syndicates would begin importing guns with their other contraband, but meantime, the general availability would be crippled.

      Why wouldn’t you want something like that, Joe?

      • conclusion: with proper gun control laws aimed at the law abiding gun owners, the availability of guns to the criminals would go down.

        Funny, that sounds more like a hypothesis than a conclusion – and an ill-formed one at that. What makes gun control laws “proper?” They make the availability of guns to criminals go down! If we implement gun control laws and they don’t reduce the availability of guns to criminals, obviously it’s not that the hypothesis is falsified, it’s that the laws weren’t ‘proper!’

        Your ‘conclusion’ also fails to consider the impact of gun laws on the availability of guns to lawful gun owners. A law that results in a 100% reduction in availability to the law-abiding and a 30% reduction in availability to the criminal element sounds like a suicidally bad outcome to me.

        Finally, you’re considering the wrong outcome. Reducing the availability of guns to criminals is a means to an end – namely reducing crime and the harm caused by crime. I don’t see the advantage of reducing gun murders if they’re substituted by knife murders.

      • I was wondering, would you blame the victim of a sexual assault for the criminal’s act of rape? If you would not, then how can you blame a gun owner who’s firearm is stolen from their house by a criminal?

        • Brian, That’s a stupid comparison, which I suppose you’ve heard others use and you thought it was cool. It’s only meant to be inflammatory, nothing else.

          Safe storage laws make good sense. They prevent unauthorized persons from getting ahold of your guns too easily. If you fail to comply with them, you’re in the wrong.

          Many places don’t have such laws. That doesn’t make it any less wrong to leave your guns lying around easily accessible to a burglar. They, the guns, should be locked up.

          • I don’t see it as being a stupid comparison and it is not one that I am repeating. All my own thoughts here. I see you berate and blame gun owners for being irresponsible with the storage of their weapons as I have seen others berate women for being irresponsible in the way they dress and the places they go. In both cases, it is someone blaming a person for the actions of another.

            You say safe storage laws make sense. Some would say it makes sense not to allow women to go to frat parties or be in downtown DC late at night. Once again, both seem to be about avoiding placing responsibility where it belongs, on the criminal.

            I do not mean these comments to be inflammatory. It is, in my opinion, a valid comparison and I am was hoping to hear what you thought the differences were, something which I do not feel you explained.

            • The only thing the two cases have in common is the blaming. That’s not enough. The way women dress and act does not compare to the way one stores his firearms at home. Unless, of course you want to stretch your imagination to say so.

              If you’re in the right, why is there need for any comparison?

              I’m saying safe storage requirements are useful and right. You say they’re not. I say they would cut down on the theft aspect of gun flow. What do you say, that you don’t want to be told what you can or cannot do in your own home, even if it is for the Overall Good?

              That’s pretty selfish of you, don’t you think?

              • The Overall Good? According to whom, mikey? I, for one, am sick and damned tired of the lowly ignorant dregs such as yourself somehow divinig the “authority” to demand that the rest of us abide by your intrusive, invasive, ill-informed, arrogant rules as though we are not capable of exsercising good judgement and common sense.

                I am more than capable, and certainly more qualified than you, to decide what works in my home, without your unwanted or unwarranted intervention.

                Show us some hard, indesputable evidence that so-called “safe storage” laws reduce crime. There are reams of evidence to show the opposite, i.e., unecessary loss of innocent life or injury due to “safe storage”, with decades of proof coming from no less than Washington, D.C.

                You see, unlike you, I live in REALITY. Here, the world is not perfect, and never will be. The Utopian fantasyland that your ilk constantly harps about will never take place on this planet.

      • If what you say is correct Mike, then how would you account for all the handguns possessed by criminals in a place where they are banned?
        Not only that but the nearest source of ANY handguns is separated from said criminals by a sea crossing.
        Criminalising firearms possession really does only disarm the law-abiding & like here in the UK, the criminals will always find a way to arm themselves.
        Even my own government believes there may be more firearms in the hands of criminals than are legally possessed here.
        Victim disarmament only protects the criminal.

        • Mike, just think about it. In the UK, do you think your average bad guy can get a gun as easily as his counterpart in the US?

          No, of course he can’t. And that means less damage is done.

          With proper controls, criminals in the US would also be hardpressed to get their hands on guns. The better organized and more connected ones would begin importing them with their other contraband, but the results would still be that fewer criminals would have fewer guns.

          • Perhaps. But there are a few points worth considering . . .

            1. The UK is a small island nation. As in smaller than Texas. It’s MUCH easier to control the flow of contraband
            2. There’s no way to reduce the number of guns available to criminals without reducing the number of guns to legal owners—especially if you still hold a candle for that “hidden criminals” malarky. Fewer criminals with guns would mean fewer people with guns with which to defend themselves.
            3. Any deterrent affect created by gun ownership (especially in the case of burglary) would decrease.
            4. Criminals who used guns would not abandon their criminality if they lost their guns. They’d simply use other dangerous weapons. Such as . . . knives.guardian.co.uk now has a special section dedicated to knife crime. How about these recent stats from knifecrime.blogspot.com:

            Closer inspection of the 2010 knife crime statistics shows robberies using knives rose to 14279, a three (3) per cent increase from recorded knife robberies in 2009 (13908).

            Rapists too seem to favour using knives to get their sickening way. An 11% increase in rapes with knives has been recorded – from 213 blade rapes in 2009 to 239 last year.

            Threats to kill using knives also rose year-on-year in 2010 from 1,419 to 1,454.

            Government intervention is not the answer. Personal self-defense is.

          • If less damage is done then why does the UK have crime rates far higher than in the US?
            Sure, less people here end up shot but they get stabbed & beaten to death instead.
            As far as criminals getting hold of guns goes; it isn’t difficult BUT we have a more effective deterrent in that a conviction for illegal firearms possession WILL see you locked up for five years minimum.
            Rather than making more legislation that affects everyone, the US justice system should be using what it already has in an effective manner.
            There have been several well publicised cases recently where a homicide would not have happened had the felon been incarcerated for prior illegal possession of a firearm.
            Go & campaign against lax sentencing if you really want to reduce crime.

      • “onclusion: with proper gun control laws aimed at the law abiding gun owners, the availability of guns to the criminals would go down.” = eh…no. Sorry but they would just turn to breaking into more homes to get their guns. The problem with your delusional sort is that you never seem to comprehend the fact that CRIMINALS find a way to commit CRIME. Taking MY gun way wont do $$$$ to even slow down the bad guys. Hell, we have plenty of laws in the US…as does Mexico. Have ya READ a paper lately? Mexico is drowning in illegal guns and it wont matter if MY guns get restricted further…they’ll just get them somewhere else.And IF we could do away with ALL guns, then WE would be at the mercy of a group of thugs with knives….or ball bats….or any other object they could use as a weapon. Removing and restricting guns doesnt do squat to even slow crime down..sorry.

  13. I recently did a piece on how quiet revolutions in manufacturing and materials will allow people to make their own guns at home.

    Some food for thought, but what is stopping organized crime and the drug cartels from making their own weapons? I mean if they can make a drug submersible, you would think that if they really had to, they could make their own guns.

    Still think gun control is BS as criminals can get guns from military, police, international arms shipments, organized crime manufacture, etcetera.

  15. Anti-gunners are not interested in fact. They tend to believe the world will run just fine on good intentions and unicorn farts. There are plenty of laws already in the books on rape, murder, battery, assault, theft, burglary, etc, etc…

    The mere fact that criminals ARE criminals because THEY BREAK THE LAW, means that yet another “common sense” law will do absolutely nothing but kill more trees for some officer’s statute book.

    If you think the world can honestly run on good thoughts and unicorn farts, move to LA or NYC.

  16. I’ve been a reader of this blog for a long time. I rarely post, I’m content to read the articles… most of the time.

    But Jesus Effing Christ ENOUGH ALREADY.

    To those of you arguing with Mike: You will never, ever gain any traction. There’s been study after study done on the psychological profiles (One of them I assisted with at a local University) of Big Government vs. Small Government adherents. Mike’s need for the hand of big brother on his shoulder is not something you can get rid of with facts. It’s a psychological need that’s no different than anything else that’s hardwired into many of us.

    To Mike: While I realize you can’t change, Mike, you could go away. Watching you come back to this blog is like watching my Sister-in-law keep coming back to her abusive husband before I put him in the hospital. Did you ever stop and think as to what it says about your character when you keep coming back over and over for more abuse? You don’t honestly think you’re going to change anyone’s mind around here. You know that. Yet you keep coming back.

    What do you think that says about you?

    • I don’t think anyone here expects to change Mike’s viewpoint but it is still important to counter his points with reason . In this manner those less committed to the path to serfdom might well see the error of their ways.

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