Brady Campaign Vice-President Dennis Henigan is once again presenting a carefully woven fabric of undulating lies, half-truths, misstatements and outright fabrications. He somehow has linked the recent court decision in Woolard v. Sheridan with a self-defense shooting in Florida: “Recently Judge Benson Everett Legg of Maryland became the first federal judge to hold there is a Second Amendment right to carry a gun outside the home. Only days before, Trayvon Martin, a Florida teenager, lay dead from a shooting that dramatically illustrates the price in lives we will pay if Judge Legg’s renegade ruling becomes the law across the United States.”

Anyone who has read Judge Legg’s decision can hardly qualify it as “renegade”. He explains his logic clearly and thoroughly, providing numerous citations to show the principles and precedents he is drawing upon to craft his ruling. And it is a complete fabrication to say that his ruling held that there is a Second Amendment right to carry a gun outside the home.

No, Judge Legg’s ruling addresses neither the issue of whether people have a right to carry a gun outside the home nor the places that they can carry them. It did not even address what sorts of people should be issued concealed carry permits. His ruling said that a person who the state believed was qualified to carry a gun (by virtue of not being a felon etc.) in all of the places where the state allowed people to carry guns, did not have to show a “good and substantial reason” why they wished to carry a gun.

Without going into the depth which he did, basically what Judge Legg held was that, while self-defense at home was at the core of the right protected by the Second Amendment, the way SCOTUS reasoned Heller indicated that carrying a gun outside the home was also part (if a lesser part) of that right. While I personally disagree, Judge Legg felt that intermediate scrutiny (as opposed to the highest level or strict scrutiny) was the proper level of review to apply to laws impinging this aspect of the right.

Finally (awful lot for a first paragraph, I know) the shooting of Trayvon Martin is, at best, only very tangentially related to the issue of permit laws; having far more to do with racial perceptions and the siege mentality of gated communities than concealed carry.

That’s when Denny starts with the misstatements and outright lies:

In 2008, in the Heller case, the conservative 5-4 majority of the Supreme Court reversed the Court’s own longstanding precedent in holding that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to have a gun in the home for self-defense. Since that ruling, federal and state courts have issued at least 40 decisions refusing to extend the right to have a gun for self-defense outside the home.

For starters the entire court held that the Second Amendment protects an individual right. As Justice Stevens (joined by the other 3 dissenting Justices) stated in his dissent:

The question presented by this case is not whether the Second Amendment protects a “collective right” or an “individual right.” Surely it protects a right that can be enforced by individuals. But a conclusion that the Second Amendment protects an individual right does not tell us anything about the scope of that right.

Second there was no “longstanding precedent” on keeping handguns in the home for self-defense; in fact there was no precedent at all on that point. The only case in the century preceding Heller and McDonald, Miller v. United States (which the antis loved to quote), did not address the issue of possession of firearms in the home but rather the Constitutionality of the National Firearms Act of 1934’s ban on short-barreled shotguns. (You remember the NFA, the law to keep bootleggers from shooting up neighborhoods with Tommy Guns which was passed after Prohibition ended!)

Denny’s follow-up statement about 40 decisions refusing to extend the right is simply misleading; the lack of a precedent does not itself constitute precedent. He also is awfully vague about what cases he is referring to. So vague, in fact, that he doesn’t actually single one out until two paragraphs later:

Judge Legg’s ruling not only diverges from the holdings of other federal and state courts, but it also is in direct defiance of the federal appeals court that establishes binding law for lower court judges like him in Maryland and four other states. In a case decided one year ago, … by a 2-1 vote, a panel of the Fourth Circuit refused to go beyond Heller to extend the Second Amendment right outside the home.

Well, actually, not quite Denny. In fact that doesn’t even qualify as a not quite, that qualifies as another flat out lie. In U.S. v. Masciandaro the court simply stated that:

Masciandaro’s Second Amendment claim to a right to carry or possess a loaded handgun for self-defense is assessed under the intermediate scrutiny standard, and, even if his claim implicates the Second Amendment, a question we do not resolve here, it is defeated by applying that standard. [emphasis added]

So the single one of Denny’s 40 decisions he actually specifies doesn’t even involve Second Amendment issues. But Denny continues:

… refused to go beyond Heller to extend the Second Amendment right outside the home. Instead, Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson … decided it would be “prudent to await direction from the [Supreme] Court itself” before making the quantum leap to recognizing a new right to be armed in public places.

Oddly enough, given Denny’s apparent worship of Judge Wilkinson’s Constitutional wisdom, he fails to mention the Judge’s footnoted comment on the main holding:

In his opinion for the court, my good colleague [Judge Niemeyer] concludes that we need not decide whether Masciandaro’s Second Amendment rights were implicated outside the home. But, I respectfully note, this is not the type of case where constitutional avoidance is appropriate. … Applying intermediate scrutiny to reject Masciandaro’s claim does not avoid the constitutional question—it presumes the existence of the constitutional right and conducts a constitutional analysis to defeat it. As I have written, I would acknowledge that Masciandaro’s claim, in the particular circumstances of this case, implicates the Second Amendment, leading us to reject the claim under the intermediate scrutiny standard. [emphasis added]

This omitted part indicates that what Judge Wilkinson wants to wait for is direction from SCOTUS on the core right of the Second Amendment; in other words is possession of a firearm for self-defense outside the home part of that core right which would be subjected to strict scrutiny.

So I guess it is not Judge Legg who is ignoring precedent and making shit stuff up .

Denny then continues:

In words that now seem prescient, [Judge Wilkinson] described his worst fear: “This is serious business. We do not wish to be even minutely responsible for some unspeakably tragic act of mayhem because in the peace of our judicial chambers we miscalculated as to Second Amendment rights. It is not far-fetched to think the Heller Court wished to leave open the possibility that such a danger would rise exponentially as one moved the right from the home to the public square.”

The killing of Trayvon Martin is exactly the kind of “unspeakably tragic act of mayhem” that arises from the right to be armed in public places.

Wow, a (possibly questionable) self-defense shooting is an unspeakably tragic act of mayhem? Jeez I thought gun nuts had a lock on overblown rhetoric! Anyway this is Denny’s link; that Judge Legg’s ruling will allow more people to get permits to carry, which will lead to more (possibly questionable) self-defense shootings. Denny continues:

George Zimmerman, 28 years old, had obtained a license to carry concealed from the State of Florida, which has become infamous for handing out such licenses to very dangerous people.

Ah, yes, the state that has “become infamous.” Not “the state that has had 20% of permits revoked for criminal activity.” Not “the state whose legislature has debated repealing their ‘shall-issue’ permit law.” Not even “the state that has seen an uptick in crime since passage of their permit law.” No, Denny made none of these statements, indeed made no kind of fact or evidence based statement at all, because, well, there are no facts or evidence to back such statements up.

In fact the state of Florida keeps track of how many permits they issue, and how many they revoke. According to this report, of the 2,145,632 concealed weapon licenses issued since 10/01/1987, one hundred sixty-eight have been revoked for criminal use of a firearm after issue. This means a whopping 0.0078% have been revoked for criminal use of a firearm. Overall, 6,837 or 0.32% have been revoked for any reason (and 743 or about 10.8% of those have since been reinstated).

This, in Denny’s mind, constitutes handing out permits to dangerous people. I have a feeling if Denny’s criteria for allowing people to be armed were applied across the board not even cops would qualify.

Then on top of the positively miniscule number of crimes by permit-holders is the fact that precisely 1 out of 29 peer-reviewed studies of right-to-carry laws performed by economists and criminologists showed an increase in crime.

And the cherry on the very top is that more than twice as many lives are saved in defensive gun uses as are lost in criminal gun uses

But Denny goes on:

The full facts about this incident are still emerging. But one thing seems clear. If George Zimmerman had not been carrying a gun, it is likely Trayvon Martin would be alive today. Surely the gun played a role in Zimmerman’s fateful decision to ignore the advice of the police dispatcher to wait for the arrival of patrol officers. Absent the gun, whatever fight occurred between Martin and Zimmerman likely would not have resulted in a fatal injury.

Okay, first the dispatcher (actually a 9-1-1 operator, but I guess police dispatcher sounds more authoritative) never ‘advised’ Mr. Zimmerman to wait for officers to arrive, he asked George where he wanted to meet the officers.

Second: Had Trayvon Martin not tried to evade George it is likely that he would be alive today. I he had just kept walking back to his house, George Zimmerman almost certainly would have done nothing but watch him. See Denny? We can all play these could’a would’a should’a if only games, but they prove nothing.

Third: Guns do not have evil black magic hypnotic mind control powers! Therefore a gun can not make a decision for someone, nor can it even play a role in making a decision. As anyone who has read the transcript of the 9-1-1 call could tell you, George’s decision to follow Trayvon probably had much more to do with the fact that there had been a series of unsolved break-ins in the neighborhood (George stated in the call “these a$$holes always get away”), there was a teen male walking around in the rain who, when he saw George watching him put up his hood and tried to run away from him.

As for whether any lives would have been lost had George not had a gun it’s hard to say and not really relevant to the overall question of armed self-defense. You are always going to have questionable cases of self-defense, but they are far outnumbered by the undisputed “good” defensive shootings[1].

Denny the goes back to bashing Judge Legg:

In fashioning a right to be armed in public out of whole cloth, Judge Legg struck down Maryland’s entirely sensible requirement that, to carry a concealed weapon, one must show a “good and substantial reason” to be armed.

Okay, as we have already pointed out, Judge Legg fashioned nothing out of whole cloth, or even out of taffeta. Second, as Judge Legg pointed out in his ruling:

A law that burdens the exercise of an enumerated constitutional right by simply making that right more difficult to exercise cannot be considered “reasonably adapted” to a government interest, no matter how substantial that interest may be.

So even if we accept (which I do not) that Maryland’s requirement is sensible that does not make it Constitutional. After all, you could argue that it is sensible to require people be literate in order to register to vote but the courts have long ruled that it is not Constitutional to do so.

When it loosened its requirements for concealed carry in 1987, Florida made a terrible mistake. The result is that trigger-happy individuals like George Zimmerman have been emboldened to impose their own death sentences on persons they believe are acting “suspicious.”

Again, no. George did not impose a death sentence on someone who was behaving suspiciously, he did what Denny and his ilk always say you should do; call 9-1-1 and be a good witness. Other factors led to the confrontation, and without witnesses it is very hard to know whether Trayvon was “executed” or whether George was reasonably in fear of death or great bodily harm and acted in self-defense.

The problem is that Denny and his cohorts would rather see a woman beaten, raped and strangled with her own pantyhose than standing over the bullet-riddled body of her assailant because they will always say “but what if he just wanted a light” or “why couldn’t you just scream/run away/vomit/wet yourself.”

Denny concludes:

Maryland and other states with more restrictive laws have chosen not to make Florida’s mistake. Their choices should be respected by the courts. Nothing in Heller, or in the Constitution, suggests otherwise.

Given the relative crime rates before and after Florida passed their law I would hardly characterize it a “a mistake”, but whether it was a mistake or not is utterly immaterial to the root principle that the freedom to own and carry the weapon of your choice is a natural, fundamental, and inalienable human, individual, civil, and Constitutional right — subject neither to the democratic process nor to arguments grounded in social utility.[2]

Period, stop.


[1] Not that the killing of a human being is a “good” thing, sometimes it is simply the “least bad” option.

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40 COMMENTS

  1. Predictable, tired BS from the Brady Bunch. So Dennis Henigan is dancing in the blood of the slain? Like this is a surprise? And he is a liar? And that is a surprise?

    The only surprise is that it took him more than 30 minutes to start spouting his trash.

  2. So, the Brady’s are again spewing lies while dancing in the blood of innocents? You don’t say…

  3. I predict (hopefully I’m wrong) that this will be another thread that will erupt in vitriol as soon as someone notices that some of Bruce’s conjectural statements can be interpreted to be “blaming Trayvon Martin for his own death.”

    • And that vitriol will come from the same people who are happy to blame all guns and gun owners for the actions of George Zimmerman.

  4. Ya know, this knucklehead and Vinnie DiMartino from American Chopper should get together and write a blog called “Unctuous ‘R’ Us”.

  6. “Nothing in the world is more dangerous than a sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”

    Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said that and, based on what the Brady wingnuts do every day of the week, I’d have to say that he was wrong. There is something more dangerous, namely The Joyce Foundation and its bitch, the Brady Campaign.

    What Denny Penny is really saying is that anyone whose life has been or will be saved by a gun must die so that there can be no more Trayvon Martin incidents. If we’re talking about my life, Denny, then I must respectfully tell you to go f^ck yourself. Okay. Not respectfully.

  7. Events like the Zimmerman-Martin confrontation appear to be exceedingly rare event in Florida since the introduction of stand your ground. How many stand-your-ground outside the home shootings have there been and how many were judged to be unjustified. There will always be bad outcomes when humans are involved.

    Chicago’s southside looked like a war zone last week as gang bangers shot up the streets leaving a casualty count that looked like Afghanistan on a bad day. The Chicago gun ban had no effect in stopping the violence. If legal carry were a problem, Florida would look like Chicago. It doesn’t and Henigan is full of it.

  8. I’ve said all along that the gun haters DREAM about this kind of thing. They actually WISH for innocent people to die at the hands of those of us with permits just so they can say “I told you so….”. They are GIDDY about this.

    • They warmed up the bullpen after the Giffords incident, all ready with flyers, TV ads, lobbying, and nice warm suggestions for lawmakers on what they need to do.

  9. “Brady Campaign resorts to distortions, misinterpretations and bloody-shirt-waving to make thier increasingly unpopular and irrelevant arguments.”

    In other news, Climatologists report that snow may be cold…

  10. This probably isn’t the first time I’ve mentioned this, so apologies, but some things need to be repeated. Every country where there was a genocide in the 20th Century first disarmed its citizens. Well, disarmed its subjects. That’s upwards of 100 million people murdered by their own governments. In Rwanda in the early 1990s, nearly a million disarmed people were slaughtered in about 3 months, mostly with machetes.

    So if Mr. Henigan wants to blame the United States Constitution–and American gun owners– for what appears to be a case of one individual’s bad judgment, maybe Henigan won’t mind if I consider him to be pro-genocide.

  11. Has anyone noticed, that the media is now calling Zimmerman a “white” hispanic, nothing like trying to really make this a racist killing!

  12. Nice capitalizing on a tragedy there while ignoring the thousands of DGU each year. I bet he lives in a nice gated community with alarms on his house and all that.

  13. Funny thing about the skittles guy is his pic looks younger than the 13yo that raped a 90yo woman in OH http://www.limaohio.com/news/rape-80858-lima-boy.html . The skittles pic must have been from when he was 12. The initial report said Zimmerman was bleeding at the nose and back of head when cops got there. It also happened on a school night 200+ miles away from his school. Having worked with the coroner on several cop vs black shootings it reminds me of the” he was on his way to church” talk for those shot around 2am after the bars/strip clubs kicked the saterday night crowd out.

  14. According to LA Times today Zimmerman said he was no longer following Trayvon when he was attacked. Zimmerman sustained injuries to the back of his head and face.

    She he have followed him? No he shouldn’t have. Mater of fact, I was on Trayvons side until I listened to all the 911 tapes in their entirety, read more news reports comming directly out of Florida (CNN’s Cooper had a nice little spin on this only playing a couple bits and pieces of the 911 tapes). We all watched the news spin this and set the stage for “get their guns” brouhaha.

    If Trayvon attacked Zimmerman AFTER Zimmerman stop pursuing him, I hate to say it, Zimmerman’s self defense claim could hold up. I’m no lawyer but if your following someone down the street STOP, turn around, and walk away and minutes later they attack you, you have a defense case right? If you have an LTC, the peson you where following could not have known you where armed, this their self defense claim would be invalid as they had no reason to assume you where of any danger to them. Right?

    This whole White/Hispanic this is nauseating. Media spinning this one like no tomorrow.

    Gotta love how they say “if it was a black cop and a white kid, they would have arrested and drug tested the officer” uhhh… Yeah, ok. Lets make it racial.

  15. That’s it, I’m done with this site. DONE. To call that shooting “self defense”… It’s just unfathomable to me, a daily concealed carrier. A day or two ago, in the Bonfire of the Vanities comparison, this site refered to Martin as the “victim” (quotation marks are crucial here). That is a passive aggressive insult. You might as well come out and say “I’m sure the little *n-word* had it coming for something or other, probably acting all ghetto and tough”. Self defense, huh? Stand your ground? If anything, Martin stood his ground and wound up dead. Zimmerman closed ground, pursuing a kid guilty of no crime. I’m just sick of it all. You say the media has exploited the story… How, may I ask? By bringing the story to the public? By showing pictures of him smiling? I’m not referring to the Brady campaign here, but news outlets such as CNN. I think I will stick with thefirearmblog.com, and their policy of “firearms, not politics”. This site is starting to be counter productive to the cause of gun rights, and has grown more and more about right wing agendas (i.e. getting Obama out of office). The comments section is often abuzz with posts that have undertones of, if not outright, racism. That’s right people, it still exists. The fact that Zimmerman is Hispanic has no bearing on the fact that Martin was racially profiled, and was in fact guilty of walking while black. He did not deserve to die, let alone be questioned. The kid was walking down the street. Long story short, I’m fed up. I used to love this site for the reviews, coverage (SHOT show coverage was mediocre at best this year, btw), and overall “guns are fun” tone. More and more, you are losing that… And beginning to look like an extension of… Oh, doesn’t matter I suppose. What will be will be. Too bad, this was once a damn fine website.

    • Oh wow. I didn’t know you were there to see what happened that night. It will be awfully helpful to know what did in fact happen.

      So far there has been nothing but conjecture by all sorts of media, both against (mainstream) and for (TTAG) gun rights.

      I just assumed that since the police had not made a report public yet, we would have to wait to find out the facts, but since you obviously have them, by all means, please share.

  16. I retract the “n-word” portion of my last post. Replace that with “punk”, or something to that effect. Don’t want to be unfair, and I recognize that that one statement was. Every other word in my last post I stand by, and firmly believe.

    • The truth is that EVERYTHING we have heard up to this point is pure speculation. NO ONE will know the truth until the police make the report public. Everyday new “facts” leak out, but I won’t believe a word of it, nor demonize either participant involved until the FACTS are revealed by the police.

      I am sorry a young man lost his life. I am also sorry that a man who seems to be an upstanding citizen has had his life ruined. No matter what the police report says at this point, whether for or against him, he will be considered a murderer for the rest of his life.

      If he is proved to be non-guilty of the ACCUSATIONS against him, do you think you will really see Al Sharpton up at the podium apologizing.

      I didn’t think so.

          • So long Mitch. Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out. As of right now, no one knows for sure what happened that night. Anyone who claims they do, needs to go file a police report or shut up. As far as claims of racism go, I haven’t been a member here long but I haven’t seen it. Except of course from people like you who read into things whatever you want to. And politics and guns go hand and hand. Not sayin it’s right, but thats how it is. If your just looking for shits and giggles videos of people dicking around with guns, join YouTube. Also, and I quote “The fact that Zimmerman is Hispanic has no bearing on the fact that Martin was racially profiled”. You completely missed the point the other guy was making. They’re not calling Zimmerman hispanic. They’re calling him white hispanic. If Zimmerman had been the victim, the media would just call him hispanic. White people are being profiled too, but that doesn’t seem to bother you. Everyone knows all white people with guns are racist and just look for any excuse to shoot minorities. At least that’s what your beloved CNN would have you believe.

            • I had to come back, just to see if anyone would provide some sort of valid rebuttal to what I had to say.
              “White people are being profiled too, but that doesn’t seem to bother you.” You know, I have to admit that I don’t lose much sleep at night wondering if my white mother *GASP!* is going to be harassed due to the fact that she is white. Nor do I worry about being harrassed myself for being darker. If the police are looking for a white bank robber in a yellow hat, then they are probably going to stop every white person they see with a yellow hat. Same goes for any other color or demographic. Common sense police work. That is not the sort of situation that occurred here, however. I certainly expected backlash from the post, but was really hoping for rational arguments. You, Tim, have thus far failed thus far. Embarrassingly so.
              “Everyone knows all white people with guns are racist and just looking for excuses to shoot minorities.” Oh, Tim… You silly guy, you. By making such overt exagerations of those whome with which you disagree, you make yourself look like an ass. At least provide a somewhat valid or cohesive argument, or… STFU.
              I agree that we don’t have all the facts about what happened that night. My point was that this was something that never should have happened in the first place. Leave race out of the equation completely, and I still say this never should have happened.
              One last bit of clarification, I never meant to imply that those running this website are racists. I certainly know better than that. But was referring much more to those (certainly not the majority, please don’t get me wrong) posting in the comments section. It doesn’t take much digging to find the types of posts I speak of. I wouldn’t be surprised a bit if someone chimed in by calling me a SAVAGE or a half-breed, or lord knows what else. And that, my friends, is my biggest issue. It’s no longer a surprise, it’s become expected.
              You guys all be safe, and good luck to the website.

              • I will give you this, now that I think about it I do remember someone saying the word savage. I also remember everyone telling him to kindly go fuck himself. But, YOU also seem to be hung up on race. Hell, you have no idea what happened that night, but you’re already warming the chair up for Zimmerman. Believe me, if he did something wrong he should fry for it. But lets have a trial first. A quote from you “guilty of walking while black”. Were you there? Do you know what happened? No, but you went strait to race instead of facts. You just proved my point, if you’re white and shoot a minority you’re probably a racist and guilty until proven innocent. Yes if the police are looking for a white bank robber in a yellow hat and I’m wearing a yellow hat and get stoped, that is common sense police work. If they were looking for a (your race here) bank robber in a yellow hat and stopped you, you would probably say you were racialy profilied. You just seem like that kind of person. I don’t think you understand at all. When I said white people are profiled I didn’t mean by the police. I meant by the media. Unless your mom has ever shot someone and been on TV, this doesn’t apply to her. The media made it a point to call him “white hispanic” instead of just hispanic. If the word white isn’t in there, then it’s not a hate crime and Sharpton has no reason to rush into town. You also took affence to Martin being called “victim” in quotes. Do you know he was a real victim or was he the aggressor. Let’s be honest for a second. Are you siding with him because of facts or are you jumping on the Sharpton race bandwagon. If you have facts please share them. I’m sure the police would like to know what happend too. Anyway I’m done for now. Like they say, arguing on the internet is like being in the speacial olympics. Even if you win you’re still retarted.

              • I will give you this, a while back I do remember someone using the word savage. I also remember everyone telling him to kindly go fuck himself. But YOU also seem to be hung up on race. A quote from you “guilty of walking while black”. Were you there? Did you see what happened? No, but you’re already warming up the chair for Zimmerman. Let’s have a trial first. If he did something wrong, he should fry just like all murderers. But we don’t know yet. Yes, if the police are looking for a white bank robber in a yellow hat, and I’m wearing a yellow hat and get stopped, that is common sense police work. If the police are looking for a (your race here) bank robber in a yellow hat and stop you, you would probably claim you were racialy profiled. You just seem like that kind of person. When I said white people were being profiled, I didn’t mean by the police. I meant by the media. Unless your mom has ever shot someone and been on the news, this doesn’t apply to her. The guy who posted before me was talking about the media calling Zimmerman “white hispanic” instead of just hispanic. If the word white isn’t in there, then no hate crime has been committed and Sharpton has no reason to run into town. Zimmerman may not be fully white, but he’s light skined enough to be called a racist by people like you who have no idea what happened. Basicaly you just proved my point. If you shoot a minority you’re automaticaly a racist and guilty until proven innocent. You said to leave race out of the equazion. OK, we have a dead body and a guy claiming self defence and no police report. How did you come to the conclusion that Martin wasn’t doing anything wrong that night. Do you have facts. No, you went strait to race and said Martin was simply “guilty of walking while black”. Also you said you don’t like to get into politics on gun sites. Hate to tell you this but, politcs and guns directly effect each other. Love to get into that, but it aint gonna be tonight.

              • I will give you this, a while back I do remember someone using the word savage. I also remember everyone telling him to kindly go f*ck himself. But YOU also seem to be hung up on race. A quote from you “guilty of walking while black”. Were you there? Did you see what happened? No, but you’re already warming up the chair for Zimmerman. Let’s have a trial first. If he did something wrong, he should fry just like all murderers. But we don’t know yet. Yes, if the police are looking for a white bank robber in a yellow hat, and I’m wearing a yellow hat and get stopped, that is common sense police work. If the police are looking for a (your race here) bank robber in a yellow hat and stop you, you would probably claim you were racialy profiled. You just seem like that kind of person. When I said white people were being profiled, I didn’t mean by the police. I meant by the media. Unless your mom has ever shot someone and been on the news, this doesn’t apply to her. The guy who posted before me was talking about the media calling Zimmerman “white hispanic” instead of just hispanic. If the word white isn’t in there, then no hate crime has been committed and Sharpton has no reason to run into town. Zimmerman may not be fully white, but he’s light skined enough to be called a racist by people like you who have no idea what happened. Basicaly you just proved my point. If you shoot a minority you’re automaticaly a racist and guilty until proven innocent. You said to leave race out of the equazion. OK, we have a dead body and a guy claiming self defence and no police report. How did you come to the conclusion that Martin wasn’t doing anything wrong that night. Do you have facts. No, you went strait to race and said Martin was simply “guilty of walking while black”. Also you said you don’t like to get into politics on gun sites. Hate to tell you this but, politcs and guns directly effect each other. Love to get into that, but it aint gonna be tonight.

    • Bruce, You are an incredible spin doctor. First you said the judge was the FIRST to rule that the 2A covers carrying a gun outside the home, then you bitch about Hennigan calling him “renegade.”

      You said the judge’s ruling did not hold “that there is a Second Amendment right to carry a gun outside the home.” Then you explained that it did state that people who want to carry a gun can do so in “all of the places where the state allowed people to carry guns, [and they] did not have to show a “good and substantial reason” why they wished to carry a gun.”

      This is the reason I find you’re writing the “baffle ’em with bullshit” kind rather than something to be taken seriously. And the best part of your “baffle” attempts are in the incredible prolixity and repetition.

      “The problem is that Denny and his cohorts would rather see a woman beaten, raped and strangled with her own pantyhose than standing over the bullet-riddled body of her assailant because they will always say “but what if he just wanted a light” or “why couldn’t you just scream/run away/vomit/wet yourself.””

      Who’s lying now, Bruce? You don’t know what other people “would rather see.” And to characterize what Hennigan “would rather see” like that is lawlerly inflammatory crap, nothing more.

  17. FLAME DELETED I haven’t been here that long, but I haven’t really heard much talk of race except coming from people like you who read into things what you want. At this point nobody knows anything for sure, and anyone who claims they do, needs to go file a police report or shut the fuck up. And politics and the 2A go hand and hand. If you just want shits and giggles videos of people messin’ around with guns, go to YouTube. You said, and I quote “The fact that Zimmerman is Hispanic has no bearing on the fact that Martin was racially profiled”. I don’t thik you understand, It’s not that he is being call hispanic. He is being called white hispanic. White people are being profiled. If Zimmerman had been the victim, the media would just call him hispanic. By adding white to it, they play the race card. You know every white person with a gun who kills a minority is a racist right. Even if that minority is breaking into your home. At least that is what your beloved CNN would have you believe. The truth will come out one day.

  18. I don’t like this guy’s smile. It’s fake and conniving like a snake. I’ve seen it before when I lived in the San Francisco Bay Area.

    • Aharon, I think you and I disagree on a few things, but on this, I’m firmly with you. As soon as I saw his expression, I heard a whiny, smarmy, condescending tone in my head. I considered making a post about it as soon when this post first went up, but thought it might be a little frivolous. Thanks for opening the door for me.

      • Matt,

        You are most welcome. We can have our disagreements and thats ok. FYI, whatever differences politically I have here with regulars ranging from the far left to the far right I still respect them. Most people who post here recognize that whatever ways they’d like to see America changed, they still seem to respect that going beyond the US Constitution and Bill of Rights would be morally and legally wrong, and crossing the line. Seriously, if we were to meet one day on the street, I’d shake hands and suggest going out for BBQ ribs or something.

  19. That used car salesman look says it all.
    Well I regret what happened to Brady his taking out his being disabled
    by a gunman on the nation should never been allowed to happen.

    The problem with the current president is he does things behind the backs of American citizens and mark my words if he is elected for a second term his anti-gun agenda will kick in.

  20. I know we should judge people based on the quality of their character and not their appearance, but Henigans’ picture really creeps me out.

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