Observant OCD readers may have noticed that I posted yesterday’s Daily Digest this morning. Or was it today’s? To tell you the truth, in all this excitement I kind of lost track myself. But being as this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, you’ve got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk? Because the forces of disarmament are ranged against you and this time it’s personal . . .
Guns and Opioids Are American Scourges Fueled by Availability – The New York Times calls for the usual assault weapons ban, as well as a firearms ban for anyone convicted of driving while intoxicated. Meanwhile, someone should tell writer Sam Quinone about the link between supply and demand . . .
The United States is in the midst of at least two plagues with much in common.
One is gun-fueled mass murder; the other is addiction to opioids — pain pills, heroin, fentanyl.
Both are uniquely American afflictions, killing in alarming numbers. Both are revved in part by commercial interests and in part by the collapse of community in American culture. Both persist because of the erroneous belief that there’s an easy answer to these complicated problems.
Above all, both are about supply.
Prestigious U.S. colleges won’t reject students who protest guns – But will the sons and daughters of gun rights advocates reject prestigious U.S. colleges? . . .
The student-led #NeverAgain movement launched after the Feb. 14 rampage has reshaped the long-running gun control debate almost overnight and could influence the U.S. midterm elections.
“Yale will NOT be rescinding anyone’s admission decision for participating in peaceful walkouts for this or other causes, regardless of any high school’s disciplinary policy,” Hannah Mendlowitz, a senior assistant director of admissions and recruitment at Yale University, wrote on Friday in a blog post.
“I, for one, will be cheering these students on from New Haven,” Mendlowitz said.
In addition to Yale, more than 40 universities, including Brown, Dartmouth and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), have issued statements supporting prospective scholars who may heed the calls of the Parkland survivors and risk school disciplinary action by joining protests.
Trump Weighs ‘Red Flag’ Orders to Take Guns Away Quickly – The Donald reckons it may be time for Uncle Sam to reward states that ditch due process for gun owners . . .
The White House is considering the idea of using restraining orders to take firearms away from people considered dangerous as part of its response to last week’s massacre at a Florida high school, two people familiar with the matter said.
Under extreme risk protection orders, which are also known as red flag laws or gun violence restraining orders, firearms can be confiscated from people found to be at risk . . .
California, Connecticut, Indiana, Oregon and Washington have laws that allow the authorities to temporarily strip people believed to be a danger to themselves or others with their weapons. Anyone subject to such an order would not be allowed to buy or obtain more guns while the order was in effect.
The Trump administration is looking at encouraging states to enact the legislation, possibly by tying grant money as a reward for those states to adopt the idea, one of the people said.
U.S. gun manufacturers have produced 150 million guns since 1986 – Some good news, all told . . .
U.S. companies have manufactured more than 70 million firearms since 2008, rapidly escalating the production of pistols and the types of rifles used in recent mass shootings, government and industry data show.
In 2016, the latest year for which data is available, production spiked as firearms companies built roughly 11 million guns, in part due to a belief that Democrats would win elections that year and curb access to semiautomatic weapons such as the AR-15 rifle.
More than 4 million rifles were produced in 2016, up from 1.8 million in 2010. The National Rifle Association has estimated that 25 percent of all rifles produced in the United States are AR-15s or other semiautomatic styles, while other gun groups have said the ratio is closer to 50 percent.
All told, U.S. companies have manufactured more than 150 million firearms since 1986, according to the “Annual Firearms Manufacturing and Export Report,” published each year by the Justice Department’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives . . .
A 2015 survey conducted by Northeastern University and Harvard University projected that there were roughly 265 million privately held guns in the United States, and half of that gun stock was owned by 3 percent of the U.S. population. Those figures did not take into account the boom in gun sales in 2016.
All told, U.S. companies produced 11.5 million firearms in 2016, a 20 percent increase from 2015. The previous modern-era record was the 10.8 million firearms manufactured in 2013, the year following the Sandy Hook shooting. The Justice Department won’t release 2017 data until next year.
It looks like trump really may have turned on us this time.
This is startin to get ugly.
I don’t think so. Especially after his speech at CPAC.
I was very much encouraged. It’s probably on YouTube. He was very pro 2A.
How about the other amendments?
“How about the other amendments?”
If he makes a move on the 19th amendment, he has my *full* support…
*snicker*
Tom I worked for a company that Trump was a member of, they’d would have sold their own mother’s for enough money. Don’t be fooled by the lip service, actions speak louder then words.
Your screen name is too fitting. What action has Trump actually taken against the 2A as opposed to talking? Oh, that’s right, none. Writing a memo telling the DOJ to do a study doesn’t count. He did sign a bill to the restore the 2A rights of 75k social security recipients though.
So far this is like everyone getting all upset when Trump offered up amnesty for 1.8 million illegals misnamed as “dreamers”. How many actually got amnesty? 0.
@ Dale Gribble
Ya Think…..
Trump shifts like sand in the wind.
READ THE LINK.
Says Bloomberg,com Bloomberg there is the guy that is reliable and on the side of truth. Stop being so gullible.
Opioids are a unique American problem? Obviously these folks have never been to Europe and seen the use of heroin over there. Cocaine is big over there too. So much so that cartels have some little countries in West Africa that they quite literally own.
Not that you’d know about that from the US MSM…
As for the Trump/ERPO thing… well, let’s see how it all shakes out.
Seems like every couple of weeks there’s something that gets people’s panties in a twist and then nothing comes out of it. It wasn’t so long ago that I remember people having a complete freak-out over DACA and that Trump was a complete moron who was giving away the farm. What happened with that? Oh, the Left went full stupid in public, threw the DACA kids under the bus and now they basically have to run the midterm on planks of chain migration and open boarders and they lost the DACA kids votes. That’s called a “trifecta”. Planned? Perhaps, perhaps not but you can’t deny the results.
Let’s see if the Left decides to do the same thing with gun control. You never know. They might. I mean, they’re not really all that smart when you come right down to it.
I hope you’re right, but I’m starting to lose a little hope. Hopefully the dems will find a shiny new object and we can move along.
I suspect I am. Not because I think Trump is a genius but because I think he understands the Left on a level that other Republican POTUS’s have not.
First, he doesn’t expect them to be honest or negotiate in good faith.
Second, he understands that they eat their own. If you think about everything that’s been proposed for “gun control” the chances any of it comes to fruition are basically zero because infighting on the Left will kill it before Republicans even get a crack at it. Really, I don’t get why anyone here freaks out about it at all. Just look at reality and think for a minute or so and you’ll realize that the Left has a serious uphill battle to get ANY of this done and Trump obviously knows this because he’s at least as smart as a 5th grader.
Third, these proposals come with a poison pill: the prospect, no matter how remote, of arming teachers. That’s something the Left will not accept and it’s something that’s gaining traction with the public. That puts the Left in a pretty bad spot.
I expect the status quo will remain. We won’t win anything but we won’t lose anything either. Unfortunately everything we wanted that looked like it had a chance earlier this year is, for the foreseeable future, dead.
“If you think about everything that’s been proposed for “gun control” the chances any of it comes to fruition are basically zero because infighting on the Left will kill it before Republicans even get a crack at it.”
…Unless turncoats/dumbasses like Sen. John Cornyn R-TX (I can’t decide whether he is completely and utterly stupid or selling out the Second Amendment) submit “Bipartisan” bills such as his vaguely worded Fix-NICS Act that could be used to ban all semi-automatic firearms.
Don’t take my word for it though, just listen to Constitutional Scholar & Second Amendment expert Dave Kopel, along with 2A Attorney Stephen Halbrok at the congressional hearing regarding it: (Fast-forward to 2h:31m:30s)
https://www.c-span.org/video/?438135-1/hearing-focuses-firearm-regulations-checks
They say that the way Fix-NICS is worded ANYTHING that can be used to “increase the rate of fire” would become illegal without grandfather clause. Such items/acts would include gun-oil, firearm cleaning, trigger-jobs, lighter weight triggers, ergonomic handguards, recoil pads on shotguns. Etc. Etc.
OK, nerding the the fuck out about this…
The thing is that I don’t see any of this legislation passing and if it did, which is a YUGE if, then Trump would have to actually sign it which means we get to pressure him too.
I simply don’t see this going anywhere and here’s why: It’s not likely to get much more than lip service from a large number of Democrats. Politico had an article last week about this, it was essentially a series of interviews with Democratic staffers, consultants and other policy “experts”.
They all agreed that “gun control = good” but they all also said that selling it to the public was nearly impossible for the following reasons:
1) While gun control plays well in certain places like Denver and some of the surrounding suburbs it’s impossible to contain the message to those locations. It inevitably ends up “going wide” to places, like where I live, where it’s very unpopular. The same is true of targeting States because the message “spills” into the other States nearby where it goes over like a lead balloon.
2) While they don’t like to admit it in public very much there is a problem with gun control. That problem, they say, is that “we” (POTG) “spin” the message that it’s actually about bans and confiscation rather than “common sense”. This muddies the water from their point of view and makes the message a very hard sell. Combine that with #1 and it’s a serious issue they don’t really know how to address.
3) Related to #2: They can’t get some of their more hardcore elected officials to STFU about bans and confiscation. Yes, R’s talk about this too these days but the real issue for the D’s is people like State Sen. Gary Farmer go out and talk bans and confiscation. Kinda like Feinstein’s famous “Turn ’em all in” statement.
What it all adds up to is that an enormous number of D consultants, staffers, pollsters and others advise their candidates (and the party generally) to stay the fuck away from gun control in election years, especially the current one, because it’s poison for them as a party and Trump is so unpredictable that they don’t know WTF he’ll do but they doubt it will be good for them. It’s the kind of thing that could cost them certain seats even if the candidates themselves stay away from the issue. Joe Manchin comes up a lot but Bill Nelson, Claire McCaskill, Heidi Heitkamp, Jon Tester and a couple of others could become seriously vulnerable to being taken out by R’s if they are tied to gun control at this point. It’s also worth noting that while people like Jeff Flake or Dean Heller could lose gun control could ensure that the seat stays red.
Long story short: There’s a big fight within the Democratic Party right now about whether or not to seriously support gun control as a party. Generally speaking the current thought within the Party is that it’s probably a “third rail” that they don’t want to touch in a serious manner. So the question is if they can use it to rev up their base and then drop the issue as election time comes near and still benefit from the red meat they threw the base enough to win elections. That’s an open question and it has a lot of people in that party really rather nervous which is why, generally, they prefer to let CNN do the leg work.
Strych, I’m under *zero* illusion that when the Leftists eventually regain power, (and they *will*, eventually) we can expect a new ’94-type AWB, this time without a sunset provision, and quite likely a registration requirement and outlawing home-built guns at the federal level.
We flat got lucky in 2000 with Gore losing.
Next time we won’t be…
I’m with @STRYCH9 I think he’s just playing the left like a fiddle again. Every time he comes out for something, the Dems fall all over themselves to be against it even if they were for it (see amnesty). If Trump really wants Obummer care gone all he has to do is support it while his party runs a repeal bill in Congress and watch reps Waters, Pelosi, Schumer, and their merry band of commies fall all over themselves to swear Obummer care needs to go.
The bumpstock thing isn’t going to go anywhere he handed it off to the bureaucrats, when have they ever done something quickly and efficiently? By the time they announce anything the general public will have found a new shiny object to chase and won’t even remember Vegas.
Just be patient and wait, as more and more details about what actually happened in Florida come out the more and more clearly folks will see that government failed them. FBI had 2 shots to take the shooter down before he ever fired a shot, the county and local cops had somewhere between 17 and 37, and the school had a ton as well. I sincerely hope that when the dust settles this becomes THE case that leads to the nation taking serious steps towards actually securing schools, hospitals, nursing homes, and any other soft targets. Hopefully they’ll see that cops cherry picking charges to make their crime rates look better actually don’t reduce crime while private citizens carrying a firearm in self defense do.
Opiods bad/pot good. Guns bad/abortion good. Progs with head up ass/kick them in the nads.
College kids can protest all they want, they still don’t vote. Of course the administrators don’t care if the kids go to class, they much prefer four year degrees take eight years and want more SJWs that have no idea what they are talking about.
If they already have a bunch of guns, then they don’t need to buy anymore. Looks like a waste of time and money that isn’t going to do much of anything. Security Theater.
slow creeping infringement.
Only works for legal sales…not illegal ones…so anyone that really wants one will still find a way around it.
Only works to penalize them AFTER the fact when/if they find out about it.
Not like they will tattoo the person with a mark that tells everyone not to sell them a gun.
The problem with restraining orders etc is they grow. Temporary orders in my part of Australia used to have to be signed by a judge or Justice of the Peace. Now to save police time they just decide if complaint is “valid” and serve it on own authority. That is if your even given the order.
Permanent orders need court. But temporary order is enough to have to move firearms to safe storage, friends etc. Very common tactic in divorce and custody cases.
Seriously who does Trump think is going to vote for him should he choose to run for reelection.
Hey Robert, Got a new TTAG article for you.
Apparently, Commie china thinks are RTKBA are a “human rights violation”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/23/world/asia/china-us-gun-violence.html
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-usa-guns/chinese-paper-says-u-s-should-learn-from-china-restrict-guns-protect-rights-idUSKCN1G703W
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thh-gxNdukw
Okay…Chinese folks commenting about a Free America from inside The People’s Republic of China (PRC.) A Communist country, that has been known to take a Big Sh!t on it’s Citizens (Peasents). If they speak out to loudly or get a following…Or especially start a political protest in Tiananmen Square…I bet these folks might have forget about that…Though I am sure they would garnet local police attention if they said to much on 📷 camera…..
You know, I never thought of this before, but in that scene where Harry Callahan talks up the .44 ma gnum as ‘the most powerful handg un in the world’ and asks the ‘punk’ if he feels lucky… the guy was thinking of reaching for a 12ga shotgun, a weapon 3 times as powerful as a .44. So maybe it was Inspector Callahan that was feeling lucky.
No way , if the revolver would have clicked, Callahan would have said” Right turn Clyde* to a juvenile female orangutan.
Note that one of these two things is only ever legal with special dispensation from a government-certified professional, after a personal examination, who is supposed to dictate the type and quantity allowed… and used in twice as many deaths as the other.
THE MOST DANGEROUS PEOPLE ARE THE ONES PUSHING “GUN VIOLENCE RESTRAINING ORDERS”.
IF THOSE MFs WANNA SUBMIT TO, AND CAN PASS, A MENTAL HEALTH CHECK EVERY TWENTY SECONDS, IN ORDER TO HAVE THE AUTHORITY TO ISSUE ONE, THAT’S STILL THE POTENTIAL FOR 19 SECONDS OF THEIR F’D UP VERSION OF CRAZY, AND THAT’S TOO MUCH.
FURTHER, THEIR OUT OF THEIR EFFING MINDS IF THEY THINK THEIR JOB TITLES RATE THEIR MFn ASSES THAT MUCH POWER.
F EM ALL
Dirty Harry’s revolver had a 6″ barrel. Or was it only 4? In all this gun control excitement, I forget.
The left keeps talking about a “gun violence epidemic”, yet the total number of deaths in which guns were used is between 12 and 13000. And they get their panties in a twist because of the “epidemic” of mass killings, which amount to abut 180 people a year for the last decade. Is this really an “epidemic”, especially when it doesn’t even hit the CDC’s top ten causes of deaths list? Let’s look at opioid overdose deaths for an eye-opening comparison. According to the CDC, Opioids—prescription and illicit—are the main driver of drug overdose deaths. Opioids were involved in 42,249 deaths in 2016, and opioid overdose deaths were five times higher in 2016 than 1999. Now THAT is an epidemic. Moreover, gun deaths are soluble, if police agencies, instead of being worried about showing a decrease in crime statistics (typically achieved through underreporting and undercharging) actually put people in jail, the already low numbers would drop even further. And school shootings can be almost entirely eliminated by “hardening” the targets, through secure entries and armed staff, without telling millions of law abiding Americans that they have to give up their firearms.
Both are about supply huh? Even for a leftist, the stupidity shown in that single, simple statement is unbelievable. No, you moron, it’s about demand. As long as there is demand for something, regardless of its legal status or if it’s a positive or negative thing, there will be supply. They can’t even keep drugs out of prisons (which should be the easiest thing in the world), precisely for that reason
You got it…
Thinking the same thing.
If the item in supply isn’t in demand, the item ends up in the 99¢ bin.
It’s no wonder the left doesn’t understand the economic situation; something as basic as supply and demand is a foreign concept to them.
Drugs, booze, cigarettes, coffee, sugar, soda pop, sex, gunz, long hair and rock an roll. My oh my what are we to do. Damn those negroes and Fisk University
20 years from now this will be the good old days.
The (D) will yearn for the time when you couldn’t 3d print a handheld electromagnetic bolt gun, when there were no artificially intelligent drones that can hover and anonymously attack anyone at random, and the whole millennial generation wasn’t blasted out of their mind on combination heroin/opioid/designer drugs shaped to look like tide pods.
“The student-led #NeverAgain movement” is just another example of cultural appropriation, in a most insensitive way which I am surprised RF did not pick up on. Of course, to the SJW, Israelis are the worst example of white supremacy, literally worse than Hitler, but following that attitude, I am surprised they don’t pick up on “Arbeit macht frei” while they’re at it.
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