From the Second Amendment Foundation . . .
Now that North Carolina’s Democrat Gov. Roy Cooper has declared a statewide emergency because of the spreading Coronavirus, the Second Amendment Foundation is reminding all Americans, especially Tar Heel State residents, their right to bear arms will not be impaired because of an important 2012 court victory in a case known as Bateman v. Perdue.
Cooper’s declaration activated the state’s Emergency Operations Center, but it did not suspend the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms that was incorporated to the states via the 14th Amendment in another SAF case, McDonald v. City of Chicago, in 2010.
“We could not have foreseen that our case against North Carolina would ever keep citizens safe in this kind of emergency,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb, “but we are delighted that no public official can arbitrarily render the state’s residents unable to defend themselves on the grounds of a declared emergency. That’s the time when honest citizens might need their firearms the most while away from home.”
He recalled filing the lawsuit on the same day the U.S. Supreme Court handed down the landmark McDonald ruling in June 2010.
In striking down the state’s emergency power to ban firearms and ammunition outside the home during a declared disaster, Federal Judge Malcolm J. Howard subjected the law to strict scrutiny. Judge Howard wrote at the time, “While the bans imposed pursuant to these statutes may be limited in duration, it cannot be overlooked that the statutes strip peaceable, law abiding citizens of the right to arm themselves in defense of hearth and home, striking at the very core of the Second Amendment.” His ruling was issued in March 2012.
“Judge Howard made sense then, and his ruling makes even more sense today,” Gottlieb stated. “We know there are all kinds of emergencies, including natural disasters, and while we never anticipated a problem like Coronavirus, which seems at least partly exacerbated by panic, the individual right to bear arms is no less important. At the time, we said SAF was winning firearms freedom one lawsuit at a time, and the situation in North Carolina underscores the significance of that strategy.”
The Second Amendment Foundation (www.saf.org) is the nation’s oldest and largest tax-exempt education, research, publishing and legal action group focusing on the Constitutional right and heritage to privately own and possess firearms. Founded in 1974, The Foundation has grown to more than 650,000 members and supporters and conducts many programs designed to better inform the public about the consequences of gun control.
why would you need arms in a national emergency?
Do criminals take a holiday when there is a national emergency, or any other situation?
Criminals being a broad spectrum of people, possibly including some government agents.
Thanks Captain Obvious. You will need to adjust the sensitivity on your PC Sarcasm detector.
Beats me!
/sarc
Cause it’s comin’ straight for us!?;-)
*snicker*
Great now all I can think of is Bender smashing the first creature to walk on land.
To carry your guns and ammo? 😉
arms hold up your hands when your flipping the bird to the “man”,
National emergency can lead to break downs in the system. Cops and firefighters may not be available or only a limited amount of service.
We all need firearms when it is not an emergency. We may need them more so in an emergency.
There is no may about it. That is the time you will need most.
When police and firefighters are at their busiest performing their sworn duties is when the criminals and other malcontents feel they are obligated to rob, loot, commit and mayhem with little fear of repercussions.
Our recent history has shown this time and again. Am I wrong?
No. You are not.
Gotta protect our TP and sanitizer stores.
tsbhoa.p.jr wrote, “why would you need arms in a national emergency?”
If they are not needed, as you suggest, then why have them restricted during an emergency?
Why do gun grabbers care, if they are Not needed? POTG are only going to abide by the law: before, during and after an emergency. You might accomplish something if you spent more time concerned about the criminals use of guns vs responsible law abiding citizens. Have you thanked a gun owner today?
There are operational emergency management plans to seize food supplies from “hoarders” to distribute to the “needy”.
I wish them good luck. Send bachelors.
“why would you need arms in a national emergency?”
Well, courts have held that you must either be able to keep arms, or feet. But not both.
People go fear crazy after natural disasters especially with the media hyping things up. Heard from one of my friends that works in hospital in Durham, NC Random people are going into hospitals now and stealing the purell dispensers off the walls. FYI NC might as well not even have a governor because he has done nothing for the past 3 1/2 years
Read up on hurricane Katrina 2005, New Orleans if you are not old enough to remember. Then come back and answer your own question. The politics focused on POTUS similar as today, but, the local government and police force completely trashed the Bill of Rights and committed outright murder. History will repeat itself if you keep your head buried in the sand.
Because where i live no one believed this was coming down i tried to warn people years ago and those that i warned thought i was nuts. But to answer your question why would i need a firearm in a time like this.
1. People will run out of food if they did not stock up.
2. In times like this if you live in the city like i do people use drugs sell drugs and will do any thing for those drugs.
3. Do you remember Katrina back doing the George Bush time and remember how people was murdered for food raped and so forth.
I will not go quietly into the night
People will do anything when they assume you are weak and unarmed they will come at you as a gang and try to take your stores you worked hard for.
Its your choice to live or to die I choose to live myself.
The virus doesn’t scare me, but the reaction to it by the government and people at-large does a little.
Where I live, people clean the grocery store out whenever the forecast calls for a mild dusting of snow. This is like a prolonged version of that.
If you’re under 50 and in good health, it’s unlikely to kill you- at least not compared to other risks out there. If you have anyone you care about that is over that age, or someone who has an underlying medical condition (asthma, COPD, diabetes, etc) then you have something to worry about. Most Americans care about someone who is in these risk categories, so that’s going to be an issue.
Of course there is another problem; this virus overwhelms hospitals to the point where people who don’t have it are still in trouble if they have cause to need medical attention for any reason. Good reason to consider basic medical training and supplies. You don’t want to be going to a hospital for the near future.
The whole thing with diabetes kinda makes me laugh. Such an overblown issue.
And then I remember that 70-80% of people with any form of diabetes basically don’t manage it at all which is the source of all these doom and gloom statistics.
Their talking about folks with a 48 plus waist and purple feet.
Actually they’re talking about most diabetics regardless of physical size or type of diabetes. Less than 30% of diabetics are at or below the target A1C at any given time. The average A1C for a T1 is 9.1, for T2’s it’s 9.7 (target being <7.0).
The reasons for this mismanagement vary but what doesn't vary is that this kind of average is horrendously bad for you over time and it does a lot of damage to your capillaries, which are a big component of the oxygen exchange system in your lungs. Adding this virus to that pre-existing damage is bad news.
This is one of the reasons I've harped on this for the overweight POTG before. Statistically speaking if someone ends up with T2 diabetes or pre-diabetes the chances they manage it correctly are sub-30% and that's really, really bad for them. Realistically for T2's the chances are sub-20% because the cause of the T2 is a life-style that is hard for them to change. If they had the right habits to properly deal with T2 they wouldn't, generally, have T2 to begin with.
This. This virus has been on the move, realistically, for months now. Where are the piles of corpses? The smart money says most people that have come down with this had no idea, went about their lives, and are over it.
This said, the bureaucratic overreaction of the government, which is rooted in craven CYA culture, is what’s causing this stupid panic that we’re seeing. The media is only too happy to pour fuel on the fire. They’ve been waiting for a pandemic to incite frenzy for years, but SARS, MERS, swine flu, bird flu, ebola, etc. were all busts.
So we’re left with a bunch of idiots and tin foil hatters hoarding toilet paper and insisting this is the second coming of the Black Death on internet message forums. Gun blogs are no exception as we have seen here. Over what? A virus that has killed thousands across the globe, which sounds like a lot until you consider the sheer numbers of people killed by other mundane things and illnesses utterly dwarfs this number. Be afraid of politicians and your fellow man, not some stupid virus.
You scoff now, but Corona Virus has now killed over 150 million Americans since the beginning of the year! It’s time to do something and ban this deadly, high-capacity assault virus.
“It’s time to do something and ban this deadly, high-capacity assault virus.”
Typical liberal gun-grabber. Bet you can’t even define what an assault virus, and have no idea what “high-capacity” really means. All viruses come with standard capacity.
So, really, we need legislation that bans the transfer of this assault virus from one person to another unless a background check is performed and the transfer occurs through a licensed medical facility, and the requisite transfer taxes are paid.
You are a moron. The figure you gave is nearly half the population of the United States.
Do you seriously see ANYTHING like that many funerals taking place?
“I don’t see it as revoking a privilege it is in fact micromanaging a decision that rightly belongs at the state level.”
Only one type of person has absolutely no sense of humor. They tend to self-reinforce their own importance. They also seem to have scoliosis the causes then to bend left. They also hate it when others identify the lack of a sense of humor, or take to ridiculing their self-importance. A tendency toward affection for brutal despots seems a common trait.
Ridicule, snark, parody, sarcasm completely escape such people.
And they are so easy to trigger, it is almost not fun anymore.
The replies miss that this is a parody of Biden’s comment that 150M people have been killed by guns since 2007.
“The replies miss that this is a parody of Biden’s comment that 150M people have been killed by guns since 2007.”
Yep.
“This said, the bureaucratic overreaction of the government, which is rooted in craven CYA culture, is what’s causing this stupid panic that we’re seeing.”
This. The university shut down as of 1600 today because… Corona Virus Fears. Not because there’s actually a problem but because of that CYA culture you mention.
Exponential infection is a funny thing. It happens, to steal a quote, much the way you fall asleep: “slowly, and then all at once.” The simmering nature before it breaks is not at all surprising given other diseases, notably HIV (which was around since the early 20th century in people). Certainly people died of it, probably the elderly, who were declared as having died of idiopathic respiratory failure, or heart failure, or some other natural causes when someone died in a nursing home and no one is paying attention. But there were a few people in a lab paying attention to cases popping up, trying to get the warning out, but they were continually ordered to stop testing by the federal government.
But then a breakpoint is reached where that doubling in growth is no longer 2 to 6, which can be overlooked, but 50 to 1000. Then things become apparent. It’s true that we don’t know the real mortality rate because the federal government has done an incredibly job of being utterly unprepared and being unable to test even the sick, much less others. But it also doesn’t really matter right now. Because all you have to do is look at other China, Iran, South Korea and Italy to see what happens when this hits. Imagine if you take your father to the ER because he can’t breathe and they tell you, sorry, they’re not admitting anyone over 65 years old because they are in triage mode and don’t have the resources.
This isn’t the black death. But it is the worst infection since 1918. Sticking heads in the sand isn’t going to help that.
It’s the classic lily pond problem: There is a pond with one lily pad in it. The next day, there are two lily pads. The next day four. The next day eight… etc etc. In thirty days, the pond will be completely covered with lily pads.
On what day is the pond only half covered with lily pads?
The day before. And a few days before you wouldn’t even notice them.
(literally about to post this when I read the same article I bet you did)
Didn’t read any articles.
And you’re right – the pond is half covered on day 29. One quarter on day 28. One eighth on day 27… and so on. In other words, by the time it hits you, it’s too late and you’ll probably never see it coming.
Memories of Katrina, anyone?
The might and power of the Chinese Communist Party versus a virus. Virus wins.
Viruses have a habit of ignoring politics, laws, prayers, and international boundaries. It is even affecting the North Koreans with on Tuesday reported 180 soldiers dead from the virus and 4000+ in quarantine. Officers have been ordered to feed their troops 3 times per day to help them resist the virus. With malnutrition rampant in North Korea, it is going to spread and the death toll rate will be higher than China or Italy.
Unless the Virus and the Communist were on the same team, then both win. And everybody loses.
So the Right to Bear Arms is only when We decide you can.
Something like that. At least here in CA. I always have a gun within reach, regardless, wherever I am. The #1 rule of self defense is survival, and dead men can’t argue their defense in court.
Haz,
My wife’s best friend recently told my wife that she wishes we would move out of Allentown. My wife asked her “Why?”. Her friend said “because it is so unsafe that your husband has to carry a gun everywhere he goes”.
So, there it is.
I guess we both have to relocate. 🙂
That is the opinion of most big shots in groverment. It’s not about pertecing The common people. It’s about getting the big shots more power, and making the people helpless.
Wait until large numbers of cops are sick at home. 911 might have to go to voice mail
Cops don’t get sick, they are protected
cops are the last in line to get PPE. That said, they tend to be younger than those at risk of dying or becoming critically ill.
Cops will be vectors for the disease. Although certainly not the only ones.
Hannibal,
Not being snarky or rude — it seems like a LOT of the deputies in my county are over age 50. If that is accurate (and I am definitely not sure that it is), I would be curious to learn why that is the case.
I apologize in advance if anyone is offended: men and women between the age of 50 and 60 are no longer capable of fast foot chases or wrestling and subduing an amped-up 20 year-old gangbanger. Assuming that is sometimes part of the job of being a deputy, I am surprised that we have so many deputies that are not up to the task.
Again, I am not trying to be a jerk or a troll. I am simply pointing out the truth — and just another of many reasons to be able to effectively defend yourself when out and about.
The age question may be that all younger folk understand the evil of LEO due to exposure by schools, media, Obama, etc for a few decades, so 50+ is all who will suit up.
The 50yo cop with years of experience may not have to chase and wrestle because he handles the situation better than the hot blood 24yo fresh out of the academy.
Would you rather have a 50 yo surgeon working on you or a 28yo?
A lot more people are going to be infected because of mass transit forcing them to be proximate to infected people who will lose their jobs if they stay home than because of contact with police.
Okay, something’s DEFINITELY going on with TTAG again. This is the second time in the same day – and the third time since yesterday – I’ve posted something, seen it appear in the thread, refreshed the page once or twice and still seen it here, but come back to the page a while later only to find it completely gone.
This has been an intermittent problem for months now, since late last year. What’s going on, Dan?
uncommon_sense, no offense taken. I actually looked up the average age and apparently it’s about 40, which is older than I had expected. I think the places I’ve worked were “young” for one reason or another.
I think that the places worst hit- the cities- probably still skew a bit younger in age than county sheriff departments, especially patrol divisions. But I certainly do think everyone should be prepared to act if the police can’t get there. It’s just that city folk are probably not used to the idea compared to people in a county where the response rate is quite longer.
jwm,
That exact dilemma cost my mentor of 30 years his life: he allowed a 28 or 29 year old surgeon to do his high-risk heart valve repair/replacement surgery. That young surgeon did not do the surgery correctly and complications from a revision surgery two years later cost him his life.
When it comes to high risk surgery, I want the 50 year old surgeon every time. When it comes to a fast foot chase or subduing an amped-up gangbanger, I want the 24 year-old deputy every time. (Honestly, in consideration of the times that our deputies do act honorably, I want several 24 year-old deputies chasing/subduing the amped-up gangbanger!)
In some places….it already does.
Asians are smart. While others are fighting over toilet paper and hand sanitizer they’re buying guns and ammo.
Most Asians don’t like to talk about all the stuff they got to defend themselves, their businesses and their homes. Don’t underestimate them. Even the women are capable…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8qJupxxfas
Here’s something, a personal observation about Asians buying guns. I live in the bay area in CA. The shops and ranges around here are heavy with Asians.
They do not buy low end guns. They go top dollar every time. And if there’s 3 people in the home that can be trusted with guns they buy enough to kit up 4.
Indians, on the other hand………they go for a bargain and if they have 3 adult males in their household they buy 1 gun to pass around.
Asian’s member history. History points, being better armed then your enemy keeps you from “spilling the Masters tea”
Lol that photo was taken about 400 yards from my house. In Kirkland, WA home of Costco and now… corona virus outbreak lol.
It’s almost Springtime and time to get out and enjoy nature and punch holes in paper. All sorts of things can kill you from insects bites to nukes. Life is valuable and short. Do not allow the sleazy fear mongering marxist media to put a turd in your punch bowl.
That’s what the Italians thought. They said don’t be racist, hug an Asian. Now they have over 500 dead in a short time. Martial law is being implemented and travel bans decreed.
Silly Europeans… Stop hugging, kissing cheeks, and shaking hands.
And in other news, Gov Ralph Northam invokes Va. Code Ann. § 44-146.15(3) banning all firearms by declaring the entirety of Virginia as an emergency shelter after finding success in doing the same for only the Capital complex.
Warning: essay inbound
For those still thinking this is ‘no worse than the flu’, consider looking at what has been happening in other places.
We now have plenty of evidence of how this is playing out in different countries. In China they first tried to cover up the issue but within a few weeks deaths started getting reported (including, eventually, one of the early doctors that tried to blow the whistle- a young man) and they took drastic action. They shut down a province and locked up a city. They put their entire economy on hold. People were not asked to ‘self-quarantine’ and finger-waggled if they broke it- apparently buildings had their doors welded shut. Huge field hospitals were purpose-built in a matter of days to deal with the crisis. They didn’t do this for something that is “no worse than the flu.”
And, impressively, it worked. I don’t think we know the true mortality numbers there but it’s pretty clear that they got a handle on the spread. I am not suggesting we should do this… but it’s useful information. And when it comes to building new hospitals in a matter of days, we can’t do it.
The next country hit was Iran. They took a different approach. They stuck their heads in the sand, claimed it was either a hoax or an exaggerated flu, and that it might be an attempt to mess with their elections (does all this sound familiar?). The Iranian healthcare system is now in shambles. They’re opening the doors of prisons because they can’t staff or control them anymore. Leaked videos show bodies literally piling up in hospitals that are simply unable to treat more patients. High numbers of doctors and nurses have succumbed as well (possibly due to high viral load exposure), having had little to no personal protective equipment. High ranking members of the government are dying off. Mortality rates reported are high for this virus but almost certainly lowballed given the amount of ministers dying off. Iran is what happens when patients cannot get intensive care because the healthcare system breaks down.
South Korea distinguished itself as one of the most effective countries for this infection. They immediately started testing everyone they could, found and isolated the contaiminated, and have been able to keep things in check despite being dealt a bad hand thanks to a cult. The medical system is badly strained, but has not collapsed. Mortality rates thanks to massive testing and available ventilators are the lowest I’ve seen, around 0.6
North Korea… is screwed.
Italy is likely most like the United States. They did not test except on those very ill and took almost NO measures to prevent the spread of the disease in the early days. The Italian healthcare system is now in collapse and is using triage. In other words, if you go to the hospital because you can’t breathe, there’s a good chance they turn you away. There simply aren’t enough ICUs and ventilators to treat everyone. If you’re young and otherwise healthy you have a reasonable chance of getting a bed. If not, you’ll either die in a hospital hallway or at home. Mortality rates in Italy are above 5%.
If you think that can’t happen here, take a look at the publicly available state health emergency plans. They have the same procedures. And we have way less than 100,000 ventilators on a good day if you include the national emergency stockpile. It won’t be enough when you consider that many are already in use because you can’t make money if you have a bunch of medical facilities not being paid for (so they are built to slightly above capacity).
This virus has been spreading exponentially and has some base mortality rate we won’t know for years. Even if the base mortality rate isn’t that high- say, .5%- the critical hospitalization rate is. That means that the mortality rate skyrockets when the ICUs are full. Which is exactly what has happened in almost all other countries that are ahead of us in the timeline. Next will probably be Spain, and then us.
The chance of dying from this if you’re under 50 and healthy is slight as long as there is medical care. It gets worse if there isn’t. And keep in mind, there are people walking around that will live but not fully “recover” for years, if ever (going on a ventilator or heart-lung machine is a traumatic experience). But if you have anyone you care about over, say, 60 years old- or anyone in poor health (asthma, high BP, etc) OR if you think you or someone you know might need any sort of medical care in the next few months, you should take this extra seriously.
I think the only thing we can do now, unfortunately, is to try and slow it down so that our medical system can gear up and not get hit with everyone at once. Even if the majority of people don’t need hospitalization, if even 5% do it could crush the medical system if they contract it around the same time. That’s the point behind reducing public events, etc.
See my post above about North Korea. I’ll be surprised if the fatality rate is below 10% for them. Barely third world medical infrastructure, a population that is malnourished by government policy (because hungry people will supposedly try harder to get more food), and a military that because of their Spartan training doctrine is also badly malnourished.
There are reports that Kim has fled the capital. Not reliable, but I wouldn’t be surprised.
I’m in full defense mode. Rifle does not leave lunging length and work requires backup extended (gasp) mags. I’ve seen this shit before, it’s not the virus, it’s the fear and it’s gonna kill us all cause stupid fucks get flightier than chickens at the first hint of a wolf. Toilet paper was the carney in the coal mine and we’re royally fucked in the next few weeks. I’ve literally lived this and then lived the subsequent 20 years after living this just knowing it would find me wherever I hide. My life has been multiple rounds of stupid chuckleheads flying off the handle and only realizing after the body count how wrong they were.
the barkers outside the entrance enticed the unfamiliar to the tilt a whirl within, while tiny yellow birds flitted about.
only to finally be used as rear end wiping material.
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