what if all guns disappeared?
courtesy bbc.com

What if all guns disappeared?

They keep hoping and it never seems to happen . . .

The most obvious effect of such a disappearance is simple: no gun deaths. Approximately 500,000 people around the world are killed by guns each year. In terms of developed countries, the biggest losses are in the US, where citizens own 300 to 350 million guns in total. There, gun homicide rates are more than 25 times higher than the combined rate of other high-income nations.

“About 100 people in this country die every day as a result of a gunshot,” says Jeffrey Swanson, a professor of psychiatry and behavioural science at Duke University School of Medicine in North Carolina. “If you take away the guns, lots and lots of those lives will be saved.”

courtesy nraila.org

NRA backs Challenge to Vermont Magazine Ban

Fighting them on the beaches, the landing grounds, in the fields and on the streets . . .

The National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA) today announced support for a lawsuit brought by Vermont citizens, sporting-goods stores, and shooting clubs to challenge the state¹s recent ban on many of the most popular firearm magazines in America.

“The magazines Vermont has now banned are owned by millions of law-abiding Americans,” said Chris Cox, Executive Director of the National Rifle Association’s Institute for Legislative Action. “In fact, nearly half of all magazines in the nation would now be deemed ‘large capacity’ by Vermont.”

At issue in the lawsuit is one of the measures signed into law by Governor Scott on April 11, which bans the possession, sale, purchase, or transfer of long-gun magazines with a capacity greater than 10 rounds and handgun magazines with a capacity greater than 15.

courtesy research gate.net

The Second Amendment comes first in teaching constitutional law

Apparently ACLU attorneys go to the wrong law schools . . .

Twenty years ago, when I was a law student taking constitutional law, the Second Amendment did not even come up in class.

Today, as a law professor, I teach the Second Amendment as the very first case in my constitutional law class.

The emergence of the Second Amendment in law school classrooms is a lesson in the ways politics and society drive constitutional debates, breathing meaning into our Constitution.

The Second Amendment says, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

The only reference to this right in my law school casebook was tucked into a 1997 case where the court ruled that the federal government could not commandeer local officials to enforce federal law.

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courtesy nationalinterest.org

60 Countries Around the World Go to War with This Gun For 1 Reason

It makes a big boom and knocks almost anything down . . .

One weapon system not only revolutionized the field of military sniping but also created an entire new category of weapon systems. Using an existing large caliber bullet and adapting it to the precision rifle platform, the innovative Barrett M82 sniper rifle practically created the category of large caliber rifles that equip military snipers worldwide to this day.

In 1982, Ronnie Barrett was a professional photographer taking photos of a military patrol boat on Tennessee’s Stones River. The patrol boat was armed with two M2 .50 caliber heavy machine gun mounts. Barrett was intrigued by the guns and wondered if a rifle could be designed to fire the .50 BMG bullet.

With no firearms design experience or training, Barrett hand drew a design for a .50 caliber rifle. Barrett drew the rifle in three dimensions, to show how it should function, and then took his design to local machinists. Nobody was interested in helping him, believing that if a .50 caliber rifle was useful someone would have developed one by then. Barrett finally found one sympathetic machinist, Bob Mitchell, and the two set to work. Less than four months later, they had a prototype rifle.

courtesy vox.com

You’ve heard of David Hogg. But the right has claimed another Parkland student as its own.

Huh. Wonder why you hear a lot less about Kashuv than you do about Hogg . . .

Before the shooting in Parkland, Florida, on February 14, and before the March for Our Livesand Friday’s planned National School Walkout, Kyle Kashuv, a 16-year-old junior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, spent a lot of his time taking Advanced Placement classes and playing video games in his spare time (his favorite is Fortnite). But since February 14, Kashuv has been too busy for video games. He’s visited Washington, met President Trump and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and made multiple appearances on Fox News.

In the weeks after the shooting, Kashuv has emerged within conservative media as a “professional and respectful” alternative to Parkland students like David Hogg and Emma Gonzalez, who’ve become something of celebrity faces in the anti-gun movement.

Kashuv has never touched a gun, he told me, but said, “I am super conservative on the Second Amendment because I realize that the Second Amendment protects all the other amendments.”

He really doesn’t want to get off that stage, does he?

51 COMMENTS

  1. “…a boycott of two of what he says are the biggest investors in gun manufacturers: BlackRock…”

    Too late, my wee snowflake. BlackRock is already divesting.

    Conveniently, I had already divested myself of them.

    Read a newspaper now and then.

    • IRT Blackrock, it’s called creative boycotting. You choose a target that you already know is easy pickings and then you get to claim boycott victory!

      • No need to pick an easy target when you can simply claim victory. Just look at the boycott against Laura Ingraham. The media constantly lists that boycott as “successful” which makes no sense. She’s still on the air and still has most of her advertisers.

  2. Just curious. Does anyone know how much security detail for David Hogg and his girlfriend that daddy Bloomberg is providing if any. I would think he is under a lot of threats for his anti-gun activism.

    • Apparently you have no contact with how things work in the real world. Good bet that Kashuv get 50x the death threats etc of the hogg

  3. What if all guns went away? We’ve been there. It was the Middle Ages prior to the introduction of gunpowder. Not the most peaceful period the world has known. Such an environment would favor the big and the strong at the expense of the small and weak. The former would no longer worry that the latter had firearms to negate the disparity in size and strength.

    I hope Vanguard sticks to investing and stays out of politics. Their stock index funds are very good for small investors.

    • God created man. Same Colt made them equal.

      It continually astonishes me how limited the gun grabber imagination is. I understand the statists who want no armed opposition, but the average person can’t think for a minute about the average male being so mush stronger and bigger than the average female? They can’t imagine any need for self-defense that doesn’t involve years of practice and training?

      I’ve mentioned that a few times and all they mention is the police. What will the police be armed with? I ask. Guns, of course. But then some will be stolen and lost. Oh no, that only happens with bad police.

      Head stuck in the sand, sometimes somewhere else.

      • Ever seen a kung fu flick, Jet Li movie, or Bruce Lee film? That’s what some folks think it’ll be like. No guns? Oh everybody will just learn (insert martial art here) besides in the one movie the dude takes on like 7 dudes with pistols and whips them all without getting shot. So…. Obviously (insert martial art here) is better than a gun.

        Yes I have had that arguement before and the sheer stupidity of it gave me Forrest Whitaker eye for a month.

    • Remember: It’s not about taking all guns away…. its about taking YOUR guns away. The Chinese communist government that oppresses Tibetans can keep their guns. The Iranian government that funnels weapons to terrorist groups all over Asia, N. Africa, and Europe can keep their guns. Mexican drug cartels can keep their guns. Donald Trump’s “racist cops” and “fascist military” get to keep their guns…. but YOU, no, YOUR immediate self defense will depend on how many club wielding knuckle dragging friends you have with you when the bigger and stronger someone (someones?) want to kill you for your stuff….. thats what these people want.

    • What if all guns disappeared? Invest in gun manufacturing, we’d be back to 300+ million in a few years. Now! For a more interesting question, what if all the dumbass liberals disappeared? Home prices would come down, unemployment would disappear, our carbon footprint would decrease, we could get to real news, on and on, it would all be good.

  4. “About 100 people in this country die every day as a result of a gunshot,”
    As Harry Callahan once said, “Nothing wrong with that, as long as the right ones get shot.”

    • What caliber is the gun which can kill 100 people with one shot? Methinks they were retired with the battleships which carried them.

    • I want a breakdown of these 100 victims. How many are suicides, criminal murders, justifiable shootings by police, self defense shootings, accidents, Etc.

  5. A utopia would have a federal government permanently restrained at no more than 25% its current size in scope, headcount, and spending. Then the 2A wouldn’t be so necessary.

    • 25% of a $21,000,000,000,000 spending disaster?

      Utopia would look like a Federal Government that fulfilled its only legitimate purpose which is to provide for the common defense, which essentially means a robust Coast Guard and Border Patrol, with possibly a smallish Navy to secure shipping lanes and deter any would be invader. Done.

      Let me quote the venerable George Washington who in part stated:

      “The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop. Europe has a set of primary interests which to us have none; or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves by artificial ties in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities.

      Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a different course. If we remain one people under an efficient government. the period is not far off when we may defy material injury from external annoyance; when we may take such an attitude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time resolve upon to be scrupulously respected; when belligerent nations, under the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard the giving us provocation; when we may choose peace or war, as our interest, guided by justice, shall counsel.

      Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation? Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor or caprice?

      It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world; so far, I mean, as we are now at liberty to do it; for let me not be understood as capable of patronizing infidelity to existing engagements. I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is always the best policy. I repeat it, therefore, let those engagements be observed in their genuine sense. But, in my opinion, it is unnecessary and would be unwise to extend them.

      Taking care always to keep ourselves by suitable establishments on a respectable defensive posture, we may safely trust to temporary alliances for extraordinary emergencies.”

      If only we had listened…

      • That world does exist, and has not existed for over 200 years. America had to protect our people and economic interests before the 18th century was over, when we fought and defeated the Barbary pirate nation states of northern Africa.

        Many Americans believed in an isolationist foreign policy during Washington’s presidency, but it quickly became clear to all of them that the United States could not survive very long with such a policy.

        • You will note that we were discussing utopia. Mainly the reason that such a world no longer exists is because we systematically destroyed it by meddling in the political affairs of nearly every country on the planet, usually maker things worse and at a cost of untold lives and dollars.

    • The 2A would still be just as necessary. Our federal government was once much smaller than 25% of its current size, yet, here we are.

  6. The only utopia Leftists really want is the one where they rule over you. And “you” being whoever they can force to submit to their fantasy and arbitrary rules.

    All the rest of the noise is in place to distract everyone from that simple truth.

    The irony is ALL liberals think this way, which is why their utopia can never truly be realized because they all can’t agree on any stance for anything. Which is why they endeavor to water everything down so nothing is “right” or “normal”. Hint: If everything is unique and special, then nothing is unique and special.

    What liberals secretly wish for is total freedom (anarchy) yet they believe it will somehow still be orderly and controlled, which is, by definition an impossibility.

    So what do you call people that can’t comprehend simple realities and insist on living in fantasy? Insane or delusional.

    Those are the facts. It’s time to treat them accordingly. Lock them away in asylums, take them out of any positions of political power, and throw away the key.

  7. A world without guns would STILL have knives,big sticks,trucks,gasoline bombs,bows and arrows and big dudes with fists. BULLYING would rule…do the guntards really want THAT?!?

    • The AMC show Enter The Badlands claims to explore a “world without guns”, and it goes exactly how you would expect, tyrannical feudal warlords fighting constantly, who ever wins is who has the most strong armed thugs. Ironically exactly what the world was like before America and firearms lol. No doubt the makers of the show are liberals and it makes you marvel at the cognitive dissonance at play. I’m not sure the anti gun crowd really want to live in a world of survival of the fittest… food for thought.

      • A feudalististic world would be intense with efforts to develop weapons like firearms, it would only be a matter of time.

      • I was going to bring up into the Badlands as well. What gets me is the fact that in the show, the still have ranged weapons like bows and crossbows. People think “oh, every one will just fight with swords and Kung fu”, but realistically , people would probably still used ranged weapons.

  8. The fetish of the BBC marxists for us colonists is hard to understand. As is that of the American leftist for UK royalists. Nutters all around.

  9. The 2nd Amendment should be the first Amendment taught in Constitutional law classes, because it is the easiest right to find justification for in 18th century writings. Just go to the Declaration Of Independence, and you will find several sentences which refer to our right to protect our life, and to our right (no, our DUTY) to revolt against a government that becomes tyrannical.

  10. How many people were killed in Rwanda, with freakin’ MACHETES, in the 1990s? Half a million? A million?

    That’s what happens when “all the guns go away”.

  11. The guy that wrote that Barrett article, Kyle Mizokami, basically has 3 different articles he writes over and over which are really little more than listicles. For a defense “expert” living in San Francisco, he seems to be pretty light on actual information and real detail.

    Even in that article, the entire second page is the first paragraph repeated.

    Not a lot of “there” “there”.

  12. Lots of people have been killed with guns. No one is ever killed by guns, since none of them have free will.

    Words have meaning and the left wants to control us all, and part of that control comes from controlling the language.

  13. Why, after constant fails, do these people think lawsuits will work against something like the Vermont magazine ban or the Florida age restriction? The courts repeatedly uphold this stuff. All it does is create more case law to support the gun control side.

  14. “There, gun homicide rates are more than 25 times higher than the combined rate of other high-income nations…”

    What does “high-income” have to do with anything? Do only rich lives matter?

    Whenever you see a qualifier like that, you know they are generating a question for the answer they want. In this case they want to exclude countries like Mexico that have very strict gun laws and yet where homicide is off the charts.

  15. Progress by inches. Or maybe .9mm steps perhaps:

    “About 100 people in this country die every day as a result of a gunshot,” says … (hand-picked quote dispenser guy — ed) … “If you take away the guns, lots and lots of those lives will be saved.”

    This still sucks. It names “guns” rather than jackholes doing violence to other people. BUT, it says “gunshot”, and “lots” will be saved. These are both slices of precision and nuance the quote-bots didn’t used to use. It’s a hit article. They want the most extreme quote they could get; and this is what they could get.

    Progress. Once you make them take that first, tiny step back, you’re winning.

    Better, since this isn’t a quote from a debate with an articulate pro-gun guy, The Quote Bot is responding to what’s already out there. He, or the author, or editor, or their paymasters have decided they need to be a bit more accurate, meaning less dishonest or their piece will be discredited, based on what people already understand.

    So, the “pro” side is getting some traction seeding the Zeitgeist with precision and facts. Yes, you need to put facts and rational argument forward with the same tools they use for lies. Call it “promotion” if you have to, to do it. But do it. (The point off some kerfuffle with NRADana isn’t the kerfuffle of the moment, but the factoids when she responds stick in people’s brain, to come up later. This is how you get a selected quote-bot using a tad of precision and nuance.

    So a little motion. Enough .9mm steps they’ll eventually have to start from something like reality:

    “About 100 people in this country die every day as a result of a gunshot,” says … (hand-picked quote dispenser guy — ed) … “Some of those are tiny, frail people protecting themselves from violence by someone stronger and meaner. Some of those are whack-jobs doing assault. The game is to maybe keep tools like guns in the hands of people who can’t protect themselves by hand, and out of the hands of people who shouldn’t be trusted with a baseball bat … they could do a lot of damage with one of those, too.”

  16. No guns?

    So what you want is a world ruled by large, strong men armed with clubs and edged weapons.

    I believe we’ve already tried that.

    It was called “the dark ages”.

  17. When someone tells me that a world without guns would be really, really nice, I ask them if they realize that entire wars have been fought, and, indeed, entire civilizations wiped out, before guns were invented?
    From their silence, I assume they have never thought of that.

  18. I do not understand why they think if the guns disappeared I would not be able to kill myself if I choose to do so. While I have no intention of doing so if I were so inclined, high speed into bridge supports, slit the wrist, hanging, jumping off a bridge or building or cliff, overdose of medication, non oxygen carrying gas suffocation, let a train hit me or run into traffic, set self on fire, drowning, use a knife are just a few of the ways I can think of to off myself if I wanted to. I guess I would like to die in my sleep when real old since there would be no way for a jealous husband could shoot me when I’m 90 if all the guns disappeared.

    • Well in their Utopia they also want to ban knives and pointy objects (see London), and I think cars as well (see various European cities with car bans in city centers). And probably fire, as it pollutes. And eating meat. So everyone can join hands and sing John Lennon’s “Imagine.” No religion, God, countries, money, just people loving each other and dancing around. If you refuse this enlightenment, you must be re-educated or purged.

      Actually the most hardcore actually blame humanity and want all humans eliminated. I guess that would be Utopia for them? A peaceful world where animals can frolic and run out of food or get eaten by other animals.

      • It must have been utopia back before guns. Imagine, no suicides since there was no way to do it. No murders, no war as how did they fight without guns? Everyone lived peacefully and died contently as elders.
        NOT!

  19. +1 here on the attention given the 2nd Amendment in law school. My Constitutional Law class spent two semesters plowing through the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the “Civil War Amendments” with one glaring exception: we spent absolutely zero time studying the 2nd Amendment. Not one case review. Not one moment of instruction. Nothing. When asked in class about the 2nd Amendment, the professor stated that it was obsolete, on it’s way out due to our society’s progress since the 1700s, and not worthy of our study. That was in 1995…

  20. “What if all guns disappeared?” You’d wake up from your wet dream and you’d still have a gun in your head.

    “Consider, as well, the attempts to limit the possession of firearms, as a means towards
    their complete and permanent disposal. The futility, and danger, of this idea can be demonstrated by pointing one’s first and middle finger at someone with one’s thumb pointed straight up and the other two fingers cupped towards ones’ palm. One doesn’t have to utter ‘bang’ for most of the population of the earth to recognize what is being mimicked.
    Therefore, since the idea of firearms [a gun] cannot be eradicated, then their legal possession by the lawful must be maintained as a contradictory threat to their actual creation, possession and use by the unlawful [9]. Employing the maxim ‘I will not pay to raise up an army against myself’, hypothetically, I will not pay (provide support in any way) for you to prevent me from protecting myself against you, or other foe, who does not feel equal compulsion to support such a doctrine.
    In affect, I will not support you in your attempts to disarm me for my enemies, and to
    preempt further shaded attacks on my security, You give up your ‘gun’ and I will get you to give up everything else. Again, this idea can be expanded to a family, a town, a city, a country, the globe, the universe.” [J.M. Thomas R., TERMS, 2012 Pg. 39]

  21. Are we uninventing high speed / high energy chemical reactions or just “guns”?

    Linear electrical motors and compressed air can still accelerate objects to very high (deadly) speeds. Crossbows and compound & conventional bows are also quite deadly.

  22. Martial Arts exist because emperors comfiscated weapons from the common folk. The weapons used in martial arts other than swords are versions of farm tools.
    Breaking boards in martial art is besides bones for breaking wooden armor. Flying side kicks while showy and useless against opponents are quite effective against mounted troops. Again who were wearing wooden armor.
    Disarmed masses.
    Who wants to get shot by an English long bowman raise your hand. 🙂

    • “Wooden armor”

      Please stop spreading this drivel. Great googly moogly.

      The Japanese and Chinese did NOT use wood to make armor. It was made with laquered iron, rawhide, leather, rarely steel if they could afford it, bound together with silk or leather lacing. Karateka trained to break boards because it was cheaper than practicing on dried bones. They trained to be able to cause damage BEHIND the armor.

      Wooden armor is a universally horrible idea.

      Yes, modern kendo Do are made with laquered bamboo and leather. But a shinai is not a sword.

  23. “If you take away the guns, lots and lots of those lives will be saved.” ; only to be killed in the crime wave that follows.

    There, fixed that for ’em.

  24. Evil people want everyone to be unarmed so that they have no fear of being attacked by the masses (victims).
    To put this in a religious perspective- Satan wants only his followers to have the means to exterminate human kind (followers of God).

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