Numerous people have asked my thoughts on Virginia. I’ll do a YouTube video on it over the weekend. For now, here are some thoughts.
1. In the 13 December Watch Report, I pointed out that Virginia politicians had done some backpedaling on the concept of gun confiscation. I know the topic is still circulating in the news, but it’s not going to happen the way some people think it is.
There was that article about Governor Ralph Northam mobilizing the National Guard. (A state representative floated this possibility, not the governor himself. Still, it’s unlikely.)
Then there was that article about Governor Ralph Northam cutting off power and cell service during confiscation attempts. (Fake news.)
There’s a LOT of disinformation out there.
2. Here’s what I think is most likely to happen…
The SAME THING that happened in New York and Connecticut — states that floated similar proposals and passed similar laws.
No mass confiscation. No National Guard (many of whom are likely AR-15 owners themselves). No cutting power and cell service for gun owners.
Yes, Northam has scaled back on confiscation, but only to introduce a gun registry scheme that few are going to comply with.
3. 2020 is an election year. No Democrat presidential candidate is going to risk his or her election based on a large number of civilians getting killed over their AR-15s (for now).
With the way pro-Second Amendment groups are organizing, they could build an incredibly violent insurgency in parts of the state. No politician wants to risk that (for now). (Mass confiscation can only come after firearms manufacturers are out of business, by the way. The number of AR-15s, spare parts, magazines, and other accoutrements flooding into the state would be massive.)
4. So I think 2020 will bring Virginia some new gun laws, which could very well be watered down by the time they’re passed.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Virginia rolls out a gun registry program, but I would be incredibly surprised if any meaningful number of Virginians complied. (Same as in New York and Connecticut.)
Democrats are going to keep on changing gun culture by propagandizing young people. If successful, they’ll eventually erode support for “assault weapons” and the gun community will get smaller. Meanwhile, the Democrats will ban the transfer of “assault weapons” through inheritance. That’s going to make confiscation less of a challenge when some citizens are selling back “assault weapons” themselves (peacefully).
The state is likely to impose civil and social costs for being a well-armed citizen. They’ll likely pursue some kind of “gun owner insurance” scheme and/or encourage insurance companies to write in gun-owner provisions that jack up the cost of keeping an “assault weapon” in the home. They’ll try to put gun manufacturers out of business, thus reducing the availability of “assault weapons.” The state of Virginia has to raise the costs of owning “assault weapons.”
These things are not only possible, but LIKELY in the future.
And, yes, I’m sure there will be an increase in red flags where the state of Virginia curbs Second Amendment rights of some citizens over the risk of “imminent threats.” The goal for the state is to characterize these enforcement actions as “common sense,” like targeting gun owners who pose a “clear and present danger” to themselves or others. The evidence of “clear and present danger” could well be manufactured (“anonymous tips,” etc.).
What’s uncertain is exactly how, when, and where pro-Second Amendment groups will react to red flag laws in the future. There very well could be instances where gun rights activists impede or attempt to impede extreme risk protective orders from being carried out. Those instances could lead to bloodshed.
So what’s more likely in the near future is the shooting death of a gun owner at his own home during a red flag search, which could initiate a cascade of political violence (i.e., The Boogaloo/The Big Igloo/The Hootenanny).
What’s unlikely in the near future is bands of masked law enforcement and/or soldiers going door to door, doing mass confiscation while your power and cell phone service is down.
The situation is still developing. And politicians know that the groundswell of peaceful pro-gun activism is backed up by something harder. That’s why in the near term they’re most likely to try and erode support for “assault weapons” and legislate them out of existence, as opposed to confiscate everyone’s AR-15s… for now.
These are my thoughts. I hope you’ve found them helpful.
This piece talks about how 90% of the counties in Virginia have become Second Amendment sanctuaries in just 43 days after draconian anti-gun rights bills were introduced by the new Democrat majorities in the state’s legislature. The movement is also spreading to other states.
Stirred awake by Democratic proposals to take, register, and possibly seize their legally obtained weapons, Virginia gun owners in just 43 days have pushed 90% of the state’s counties to become gun “sanctuaries,” the latest three on Monday night.
Since the Nov. 5 election that gave Democrats control of Richmond, an “organic,” pro-gun movement has prompted the governments of 86 of Virginia’s 95 counties, as well as 15 towns and cities, to adopt some type of sanctuary language, putting Gov. Ralph Northam and other liberals on notice that their gun control plans aren’t welcome.
“I did not think it would be that high of a number,” said sanctuary advocate and Culpeper County Sheriff Scott Jenkins.
Stafford County is now a sanctuary! That’s the last for tonight and number 101!
“It’s an organic thing that just took off after Election Day. Elections have consequences, and this is the result. This has truly rocked the conservative, libertarian group’s core. It has really shook a lot of them awake. They are fully awake,” he told Secrets.
Remarkably, the effort has not seen a big push from the National Rifle Association. Local groups, notably the Virginia Citizens Defense League, have led the campaign that has brought thousands of gun-rights advocates to county board meetings.
It has also become the national model for the movement that has now reached Illinois, Washington, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, New Jersey, Florida, and Tennessee. Illinois is credited with starting the movement…
On December 12, 2019, Washington state senate Democrats and others, including Governor Inslee and AG Ferguson proposed three bills, constituting a new “assault weapons” ban, a standard capacity magazine ban, and restrictions on ammunition sales. They claim that all of these bans are for safety purposes, though no previous such bans in any country have been shown to increase safety.
…Senator Patty Kuderer and Rep. Strom Petersen, both Democrats, will sponsor companion bills in the House and Senate proposing the assault weapons ban.
Assault weapons would be defined as semi-automatic weapons that contain at least one military-style feature, similar to other states with those laws that have survived court challenges…
The proposed ammunition legislation will include:
• Prohibits violent felons and other individuals who cannot lawfully obtain firearms from purchasing or possessing ammunition
• Makes it illegal for firearms dealers to knowingly sell ammunition to violent felons and other individuals prohibited from owning firearms
• Prohibits dealers from knowingly selling ammunition to violent offenders and other individuals prohibited from owning firearms
• Requires ammunition sellers to obtain a state firearms license, which costs $125. This change will not impact current firearms dealers
• Requires background checks for all ammunition sales 30 days after the U.S. Department of Justice changes its rules and authorizes dealers to use the national instant criminal background check system, known as NICS, to initiate a check for a transfer of ammunition
Ferguson is also proposing new requirements for ammunition sales, including background checks.
In what will not come not as news to most, billionaire tyrant, candidate for US President Mike Bloomberg recently reiterated his stance against your individual Second Amendment rights by saying that when he is President he will pack the Supreme Court with justices who believe that individuals have no right to keep and bear arms. Further, he believes that people who have a desire to protect their own and others’ Second Amendment rights are “oblivious to public safety and out of step with the American people.”
…Last year, Illinois’ Bruce Rauner was one of five Republican governors who signed a “red flag” law that helps keep guns out of the hands of people who pose a threat to themselves or others. Those laws would be at risk if the Supreme Court issues a far-reaching opinion in the New York case.
As president, I will appoint judges who understand that the Second Amendment allows for common sense limits on gun ownership. I’ve spent 15 years working to build a national coalition that is capable of taking on the NRA and winning — and I’m glad to say that we now have the NRA on the ropes. That may be one reason why the NRA is hoping the court will save it.
The NRA is rolling a Trojan horse through the doors of the Supreme Court. The justices should send it packing, so that reasonable regulations and vital responsibilities can continue to coexist with Second Amendment rights.
In this short article at American Thinker, author William Gensert adds another voice to those talking about the possibility of another civil war and he, too, recognizes the danger growing in Virginia.
…Graciously, the left had given Americans the opportunity to do as they were told, and they refused, costing the Democrats the House, the Senate, and the Presidency in 2016. There will be no more trying to rally Americans around to their way of thinking. “The people,” going forward, are the enemy. Because of that, the left will be forced to give us the government we “deserve to get… good and hard.”
When the enemy stands between those with blinding hatred in their hearts and the power they crave, there is nowhere else for them to go but to war.
There is just one problem with their strategy, Americans see what the Democrats have planned for them. Americans understand what is coming.
They are coming for those who will not acquiesce to the left’s plans for America. All that remains is how the people will react. Normal Americans have had enough — they are going to fight.
Trump can only do so much with the media and the Democrats in their entirety opposing him — so far, it’s miraculous how successful he has been against such odds. The left’s tactics have changed, as we’ve seen in the recent actions in Virginia. With the Democrats taking over the state government, the first legislation they have proposed for the next state legislative session is nothing more than gun confiscation.
Make no mistake, Virginia is a test. Unable to depose the president, they will proceed on a state-by-state basis to create the nation they long for. And disarming Americans is crucial for the Democrats as a first and necessary step, because an armed populace can say, “No!”
Will Virginians willingly give up their guns to the Democrats? Some might. After all, Virginia is proximate to D.C. and many will obey. Yet, many will not. Virginia will be the future, because the Democrats will brook no dissent. They will come heavy and hard and it won’t be long before there is gunfire, and someone is hurt or killed…
This report comes from Summit News, citing a speech that billionaire Presidential Candidate Michael “your-rights-are-void” Bloomberg announced during a speech in Aurora, CO on Thursday.
…Bloomberg went on to outline a gun control plan that includes every proposal that has ever been attempted, and has failed.
These include proposals to:
— Reinstate the federal ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.
— Require every gun buyer to obtain a permit before making a purchase.
— Require point-of-sale background checks on all gun purchases while closing the gun show loophole.
— Institute a new age limit of 21 for those wishing to buy handguns, semi-automatic rifles and shotguns.
— Require a mandatory 48-hour waiting period for all gun purchases.
— Institute a federal “red flag” law to deny permits to “troubled people who pose a danger to themselves or others.”
— Institute a temporary ban on gun possession for those convicted of assault or other violent misdemeanors.
— Ban all guns in K-12 schools, colleges, and universities, except for law enforcement.
— Reverse the law that gives gun makers and gun dealers immunity from lawsuits.
— Create the position of White House gun coordinator “to mobilize the public to fight gun violence and launch an inter-agency hub to fight gun violence.”
“My agenda is not some johnny-come-lately list of borrowed ideas,“ Bloomberg claimed, adding “This is part of my life‘s work, and I‘m just telling you I will get this done whether I get elected or not.“
Addressing the proposal for permit requirement, Bloomberg attempted to conflate the idea with voting rights…
One of the events that inflamed tensions just prior to the US Civil War was the 1859 raid by abolitionist John Brown against a military arsenal at Harpers Ferry in Virginia (Now it’s in West Virginia). Brown was hoping to lead an uprising of slaves and establish an independent stronghold of freed slaves in the mountains. Slaves were, of course, denied the right to have arms, so the raid’s success would provide weapons to supply the slaves and other freedom fighters. But the raid was not a success. Ten of Brown’s men were killed during the raid and John Brown was executed for treason and murder. His last written words were, “I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood.”
2020 Presidential candidate, former New York City mayor, Democrat, billionaire, and wanna-be tyrant Michael Bloomberg recently spent millions to help the Democrats win majorities in the Virginia state house and senate. Shortly after the election, Governor Northam announced that they would begin “banning the sale of [semi-automatic firearms] and high-capacity magazines, restoring the law that limits purchases to one gun a month, and a red flag law that would empower a court to temporarily remove a gun from a person deemed to be a risk to himself or others” as soon as they could pass such laws. Northam additional said that confiscating firearms was something he is working on.
Democrat senators in Virginia submittled SB16 which among other things creates an extremely broad definition for “assualt firearm” and prohibits any person from “importing, selling, transferring, manufacturing, purchasing, possessing, or transporting” the same. There is no grandfather clause; possession is prohibited.
Last night, hundreds of Virginia citizens decended on a Virginia Beach city council meeting, calling for the city to become a Second Amendment sanctuary. Gloucester County earlier had voted to become a Second Amendment sanctuary. As of December 3rd, twenty-four counties in Virginia had adopted Second Amendment sanctuary resolutions.
In the Declaration of Independence, our forefathers wrote that some of the most important, unalienable rights were life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The rights and powers contained in the Bill of Rights all support those three unalienable rights. Most of the Bill of Rights are in support of the right of liberty. The Second Amendment is one of the few which supports all three. What good is your right to life without means to defend it? Those who claim that their right to life means that no one should be allowed arms are profoundly incorrect. Noted professor of law at the time of the Bill of Rights ratification St. George Tucker said “the right to self-defence is the first law of nature” and that the Second Amendment is “the true palladium of liberty.” A world without arms simply means that those with physical strength will take as they want. As the old saying goes, “God created men, but Sam Colt made them equal.” No tool so far invented is a greater equalizer in a fight against a superior opponent than a firearm.
Virginia has also introduced SB64 which makes it a felony if one assembles for training or practice “for use in…a civil disorder.” As Law Enforcement Today notes,
The most dangerous words in this proposal are “knowing or having reason to know” and “in furtherance of”.
The reason being that intent is no longer really required, leaving every gun range owners and employees susceptible to prosecution for simply doing business. It’s plain as day why this language is the way it is, because with these key words, only loose connections need to be established to criminalize gun owners and enthusiasts.
Furthermore, civil disorder is also quite a broad term as well to be concerned about.
The Second Amendment has a prefatory clause, that being “a well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state.” Recently some people have opined that well regulated means that there may be laws banning certain firearms from ownership. What well regulated meant at the time, however, was that the populace making up the militia must be well trained at arms and their use in order to be effective as a fighting force. Banning training in the use of arms because it might be put to use in a civil disorder runs exactly counter to having well trained/regulated citizens.
Attempts to disarm the populace are attacks both on the people’s right to life and their right to liberty. (They are also attacks on the right to pursue happiness.) This is why such legislation is so vigorously opposed by firearms owneres. It isn’t because “they are gun lovers;” it’s because they love life and liberty. And this is why Viginia’s new direction is so dangerous. The rapid surge in sanctuary counties is telling of people’s sentiment. The government there may be satisfied to criminalize possession and then wait things out, but if there is a push toward confiscation things could get ugly. Any success will lead to other states following suit.
There is another old saying that there are four boxes to be used in the defense of liberty – the soap box in which people use free speech to sway people to their cause; the ballot box in which the people try to vote in representatives who will actually represent them rather than succumb to other corrupt influences; the jury box in which people may show their dissatisfaction with laws through the use of jury nullification; and, finally, the cartridge box or ammo box through which people fight for their liberty.
The battles of Lexington and Concord were an attempt by our government to seize firearms so that the citizens could not fight back. They sparked the Revolutionary War. The raid on Harpers Ferry was an attempt to seize arms from the government so that slaves could fight for their freedom. It sparked the US Civil War. Could firearms confiscation in Virginia or in another state be the spark for a second, much uglier, civil war?
In response to the wave of proposed anti-gun legislation in Virginia, many of its cities and counties have declared themselves Second Amendment Sanctuaries. One county, in particular, took it a step further at their December 3rd County Board of Supervisors Regular Meeting.
In addition to passing their Second Amendment Sanctuary Resolution, the county also passed a Militia Resolution. This resolution formalizes the creation, and maintenance of a defacto civilian militia in the county of Tazewell…
As Reddit user Liberty_Pr1me said in reference to the Washington Examiner article above:
The Second Amendment was incorporated against state and local governments, through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. (McDonald v. City of Chicago, 561 U.S. 742)
“An unconstitutional act is not a law; it confers no rights; it imposes no duties; it affords no protection; it creates no office; it is in legal contemplation as inoperative as though it had never been passed.” (Norton v. Shelby County, 118 U.S. 425)
“Congress does not have the power to pass laws that override the Constitution.” (Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137)
“If the State converts a right into a privilege, the citizen can ignore the license and fee and engage in the right with impunity.” (Shuttlesworth v. City of Birmingham, Alabama, 373 U.S. 262)
The Governor of Virginia has allegedly ordered a small cadre of staffers to begin the process for determining how to cut off electricity, telephones/ FAXES, Cellular phones AND DATA, as well as the Internet, in areas where he plans to send Virginia National Guard Troops to forcibly seize guns when the Democrat legislature convenes in January!
The order was allegedly given to a very small and trusted group of staffers, some of whom it turns out, do not agree (at all) with this idea…
…For those who were hoping that Maj. General Williams was going to come out swinging with a “Hell no we’re not taking anybody’s guns”, it wasn’t going to happen. Even if that’s how the adjutant general feels, he’s not going to pick a fight with the governor if he doesn’t have to…
The Patriot Nurse:
…Your rights are not safeguarded by any institution other than yourself and your ability to defend it…
This article is from an opinion piece at the Washington Post by Leah Libresco – a statistician and writer for news site FiveThirtyEight. At the WaPo site, her more logical article is preceded by an emotional video about how guns must be banned. There are links in the article below to some of her research at FiveThirtyEight, including some methodology for her results. When you look at the data, the vast majority of gun control proposals make no sense.
Before I started researching gun deaths, gun-control policy used to frustrate me. I wished the National Rifle Association would stop blocking common-sense gun-control reforms such as banning assault weapons, restricting silencers, shrinking magazine sizes and all the other measures that could make guns less deadly.
Then, my colleagues and I at FiveThirtyEight spent three months analyzing all 33,000 lives ended by guns each year in the United States, and I wound up frustrated in a whole new way. We looked at what interventions might have saved those people, and the case for the policies I’d lobbied for crumbled when I examined the evidence. The best ideas left standing were narrowly tailored interventions to protect subtypes of potential victims, not broad attempts to limit the lethality of guns.
I researched the strictly tightened gun laws in Britain and Australia and concluded that they didn’t prove much about what America’s policy should be. Neither nation experienced drops in mass shootings or other gun related-crime that could be attributed to their buybacks and bans. Mass shootings were too rare in Australia for their absence after the buyback program to be clear evidence of progress. And in both Australia and Britain, the gun restrictions had an ambiguous effect on other gun-related crimes or deaths.
When I looked at the other oft-praised policies, I found out that no gunowner walks into the store to buy an “assault weapon.” It’s an invented classification that includes any semi-automatic that has two or more features, such as a bayonet mount, arocket-propelled grenade-launcher mount, a folding stock or a pistol grip. But guns are modular, and any hobbyist can easily add these features at home, just as if they were snapping together Legos.
As for silencers — they deserve that name only in movies, where they reduce gunfire to a soft puick puick. In real life, silencers limit hearing damage for shooters but don’t make gunfire dangerously quiet. An AR-15 with a silencer is about as loud as a jackhammer. Magazine limits were a little more promising, but a practiced shooter could still change magazines so fast as to make the limit meaningless.
Opinion | The Washington Post Editorial Board appeals to Trump and Congress to stand up to the gun lobby and prevent mass shootings. (The Washington Post)
As my co-workers and I kept looking at the data, it seemed less and less clear that one broad gun-control restriction could make a big difference. Two-thirds of gun deaths in the United Statesevery year are suicides. Almost no proposed restriction would make it meaningfully harder for people with guns on hand to use them. I couldn’t even answer my most desperate question: If I had a friend who had guns in his home and a history of suicide attempts, was there anything I could do that would help?
However, the next-largest set of gun deaths — 1 in 5 — were young men aged 15 to 34, killed in homicides. These men were most likely to die at the hands of other young men, often related to gang loyalties or other street violence. And the last notable group of similar deaths was the 1,700 women murdered per year, usually as the result of domestic violence. Far more people were killed in these ways than in mass-shooting incidents, but few of the popularly floated policies were tailored to serve them.
By the time we published our project, I didn’t believe in many of the interventions I’d heard politicians tout. I was still anti-gun, at least from the point of view of most gun owners, and I don’t want a gun in my home, as I think the risk outweighs the benefits. But I can’t endorse policies whose only selling point is that gun owners hate them. Policies that often seem as if they were drafted by people who have encountered guns only as a figure in a briefing book or an image on the news.
Instead, I found the most hope in more narrowly tailored interventions. Potential suicide victims, women menaced by their abusive partners and kids swept up in street vendettas are all in danger from guns, but they each require different protections.
Older men, who make up the largest share of gun suicides, need better access to people who could care for them and get them help. Women endangered by specific men need to be prioritized by police, who can enforce restraining orders prohibiting these men from buying and owning guns. Younger men at risk of violence need to be identified before they take a life or lose theirs and to be connected to mentors who can help them de-escalate conflicts.
Even the most data-driven practices, such as New Orleans’ plan to identify gang members for intervention based on previous arrests and weapons seizures, wind up more personal than most policies floated. The young men at risk can be identified by an algorithm, but they have to be disarmed one by one, personally — not en masse as though they were all interchangeable. A reduction in gun deaths is most likely to come from finding smaller chances for victories and expanding those solutions as much as possible. We save lives by focusing on a range of tactics to protect the different kinds of potential victims and reforming potential killers, not from sweeping bans focused on the guns themselves.
A Senate bill has been filed in the Oklahoma Senate which would prohibit that state from enforcing any federal “red-flag” laws. The so-called “red-flag” gun laws are widely seen as unconstitutional. Current trends toward both immigration sanctuaries and Second Amendment sanctuaries harken back to the Nullification Crisis of the 1830s. The summary below comes from the Free Thought Project.
A bill prefiled in the Oklahoma Senate would prohibit state enforcement of any federal “red-flag” laws, setting the foundation to nullify any such laws in practice and effect.
Sen. Nathan Dahm (R-Broken Arrow) filed Senate Bill 1081 (SB1081) for introduction in the 2020 legislative session. Under the proposed law, the Oklahoma legislature would “occupy and preempt the entire field of legislation in this state touching in any way federal or state extreme risk protection orders against or upon a citizen of Oklahoma to the complete exclusion of any order, ordinance or regulation by any municipality or other political subdivision of this state. “ In effect, only the Oklahoma legislature could pass any type of so-called red-flag law effective in the Sooner State.
The legislation also would declare that any federal red-flag law “which would infringe upon a citizen’s Constitutionally-protected rights including, but not limited to the right to due process, the right to keep and bear arms and the right to free speech, shall be null, void, unenforceable and of no effect in the state of Oklahoma.”
These declarations would have very little effect in practice, but SB1081 includes provisions that would make federal red-flag laws nearly impossible to enforce in Oklahoma. The proposed law would prohibit any Oklahoma agency or any political subdivision from accepting any federal grants to implement any federal statute, rule or executive order, federal or state judicial order or judicial findings that would have the effect of forcing an extreme risk protection order against or upon a citizen of Oklahoma.
It would also make it a felony offense for any individual, including a law enforcement officer, to enforce a federal red flag law. In effect, this would bar state and local police from enforcing a federal red-flag law.
EFFECTIVE
The federal government relies heavily on state cooperation to implement and enforce almost all of its laws, regulations and acts. By simply withdrawing this necessary cooperation, states and localities can nullify in effect many federal actions. As noted by the National Governors’ Association during the partial government shutdown of 2013, “states are partners with the federal government on most federal programs.”
Enforcing a red-flag law would be no different.
Based on James Madison’s advice for states and individuals in Federalist #46, a “refusal to cooperate with officers of the Union” represents an extremely effective method to bring down federal gun control measures because most enforcement actions rely on help, support and leadership from state and local governments.
“Partnerships don’t work too well when half the team quits,” said Michael Boldin of the Tenth Amendment Center. “By withdrawing all resources and participation in the implementation and enforcement of a federal red flag law, states and even local governments can help bring these unconstitutional acts to their much-needed end.”
LEGAL BASIS
The state of Missouri can legally bar state agents from enforcing federal gun control. Refusal to cooperate with federal enforcement rests on a well-established legal principle known as the anti-commandeering doctrine.
Simply put, the federal government cannot force states to help implement or enforce any federal act or program. The anti-commandeering doctrine is based primarily on five Supreme Court cases dating back to 1842. Printz v. U.S. serves as the cornerstone.
“We held in New York that Congress cannot compel the States to enact or enforce a federal regulatory program. Today we hold that Congress cannot circumvent that prohibition by conscripting the States’ officers directly. The Federal Government may neither issue directives requiring the States to address particular problems, nor command the States’ officers, or those of their political subdivisions, to administer or enforce a federal regulatory program. It matters not whether policy making is involved, and no case by case weighing of the burdens or benefits is necessary; such commands are fundamentally incompatible with our constitutional system of dual sovereignty”
WHAT’S NEXT
SB1081 will be officially introduced and referred to a committee when the Oklahoma legislature convenes on Feb. 2.
The initiative to repeal the effects of I-1639 is I-1094 (Defense of the Second Amendment Act of 2020). From Ammoland – Grassroots Revolt to Repeal WA Gun Control Initiative 1639 Launched. Signatures must be turned in by Jan. 3, 2020, so be sure to sign the petition by the end of the year if you support it.
Thousands of yard signs opposing Initiative 1639 in Washington state last year did not prevent passage of the multi-faceted gun control measure. Now there is a grassroots repeal effort, despite a federal court challenge by SAF and NRA. (Dave Workman photo)
U.S.A. –-(Ammoland.com)- Frustration and fury are the two main ingredients of what can best be described as a grassroots revolt in Washington State with the launch of a counter initiative effort to repeal gun control Initiative 1639, the extremist measure passed by about 60 percent of Evergreen State voters last November.
This isn’t a case of “sore losers” but legions of law-abiding private citizens who believe their right to bear arms under both the federal and state constitutions is being violated.
I-1639 has already resulted in one federal lawsuit by the Second Amendment Foundation and National Rifle Association, one declared candidacy for governor by a small town police chief, refusal by sheriff’s in a majority of the state’s 39 counties to enforce provisions of the measure, and the creation of a new crime, “Community Endangerment.” This carries either gross misdemeanor or Class C felony penalties, depending upon the violation.
The initiative also, for the first time in history, defined a firearm that, according to Spokane County Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich, doesn’t really exist: the “semiautomatic assault rifle.” Under the language of I-1639, a “semiautomatic assault rifle” is “any rifle which utilizes a portion of the energy of a firing cartridge to extract the fired cartridge case and chamber the next round, and which requires a separate pull of the trigger to fire each cartridge.” This translates to literally any self-loading rifle ever manufactured anywhere on the planet, according to critics.
There is no indication Sheriff Knezovich, or any of the other lawmen who opposed I-1639, is involved in this repeal effort.
Spokane County Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich said earlier this year that I-1639 defines a firearm that actually doesn’t exist. (Official Sheriff’s Department photo)
Perhaps most famously, the initiative prohibits the purchase of a so-called “semiautomatic assault rifle” to anyone in the 18-20-year-old age group; young adults who can still join the military, get married, enter into contracts and vote. They just can’t exercise their Second Amendment right to purchase or own one of these firearms.
It also created a registry requirement.
The initiative was opposed by nearly every major law enforcement organization in the state, a fact that was systematically downplayed, if not ignored, by the establishment media. It was opposed by some newspapers, endorsed by others.
And now I-1639 has spawned the effort to erase it. The office of anti-gun Attorney General Bob Ferguson, who has spent the last three years filing lawsuits against the Trump administration and who was an early endorser of I-1639, has given this new effort a number and ballot title.
The new measure is Initiative 1094, and the ballot title approved by Ferguson’s says this:
“This measure would remove requirements for sale or delivery of semiautomatic assault rifles, remove certain age limitations for pistols and semiautomatic assault rifles, repeal crimes regarding firearm storage, and change other firearms-related laws.”
The language applies to rimfire as well as centerfire rifles, so such popular sporting guns as the Ruger 10/22, Remington Nylon 66, Marlin Model 60 and Browning SA-22, the popular “gallery gun,” all chambered for the .22 Long Rifle rimfire.
The ballot measure summary provided by Ferguson’s office explains:
“This measure would remove increased background checks, firearm safety training requirements, and waiting periods for purchase or transfer of semiautomatic assault rifles; remove certain age limitations for pistols and semiautomatic assault rifles; repeal crimes related to firearm storage and firearm sales to unauthorized persons; modify requirements for private, non-dealer transfer of firearms; and repeal or amend other firearms-related laws, including requirements for recordkeeping, notification to law enforcement of firearms sales and denials, and background checks.”
The campaign, according to activist John Valle, is so far being conducted via social media. Initiative forms were being printed, and Valle said copies will be available for downloading online for printing on an 11×17-inch sheet.
Valle told Ammoland News, “We have a network of volunteers. Every Patriot group is on board and I’ve got 23 gun shop owners in Eastern Washington who will put it in their shop.”
He has spoken with gun show operators, and there is a growing legion of volunteer signature gatherers who plan to canvas the state.
Here’s the downside. The goal of this unorganized grassroots movement is to collect 5,000 valid signatures every day in order to turn in 300,000 signatures to the Secretary of State’s office.
The deadline for signature turn-in is Jan. 3, 2020 for the measure to appear on the November 2020 ballot, where it faces the likelihood of disappearing amid the presidential, congressional, gubernatorial and legislative election choices.
Among those involved in this effort is Nick Culp, son of Republic Police Chief Loren Culp. He’s the lawman who famously went before the Republic City Council following the passage of I-1639 to declare he would not enforce it and ask that Republic become a “Second Amendment sanctuary.” Sheriffs around the state followed suit, and more than a half-dozen county commissions also expressed opposition to enforcement.
The lawsuit, meanwhile, is lumbering forward. It is joined by gun shop owners in Spokane and Vancouver, and three private citizens in the affected age group. Currently, in the discovery phase, there may not be a hearing or trial until sometime next year.
Backers of the initiative are fired up, though they realize the challenge is formidable. I-1639 supporters spent about $5 million on their campaign. Valle, a Spokane-area resident, told Ammoland that he has no budget, and really can’t start a PAC.
But what this effort has is devoted participants. Getting enough signatures to validate is only half the problem they face. If the measure does quality, supporters face a daunting campaign in which they will almost certainly be out-spent by the Seattle-based gun prohibition lobby, which is bankrolled by billionaires and wealthy elitists, living primarily in a handful of zip codes in and around the Seattle area.
Sheriff Knezovich theorized earlier this year that the reason this measure included a definition of “semiautomatic assault rifle” is to lay the groundwork for a future effort, either via legislation or another initiative, to ban such guns. Anti-gunners think in the long term, he indicated at the time.
This article comes from Reason magazine, detailing some of the problems with Attorney General Barr’s proposal to expand background checks for buyers of firearms.
Attorney General William Barr is reportedly floating a proposal to expand background checks for gun buyers that is similar to an unsuccessful 2013 bill sponsored by Sens. Joe Manchin (D–W.Va.) and Patrick Toomey (R–Pa.). The proposal would require background checks for “all advertised commercial sales, including gun sales at gun shows.”
Manchin and Toomey’s Public Safety and Second Amendment Protection Act would have required that federally licensed firearm dealers, who are already required to conduct background checks, be involved in all sales at gun shows and all transfers resulting from online or print ads. It explicitly exempted transfers “between spouses, between parents or spouses of parents and their children or spouses of their children, between siblings or spouses of siblings, or between grandparents or spouses of grandparents and their grandchildren or spouses of their grandchildren, or between aunts or uncles or their spouses and their nieces or nephews or their spouses, or between first cousins.”
Barr’s proposal would do pretty much the same thing, but it also would authorize licenses for “transfer agents” to help gun owners comply with the background check requirement. The idea, presumably, is that the new category of licensees would make compliance easier by providing an alternative to firearm dealers.
This proposal is less sweeping than the Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2019, which the House of Representatives approved last February. That bill, which was supported by 232 Democrats but only eight Republicans, would ban almost all gun transfers by people who are not licensed dealers. It applies to any sale, whether or not it happens at a gun show and whether or not the firearm was advertised.
The House bill makes an exception for “a transfer that is a loan or bona fide gift between spouses, between domestic partners, between parents and their children, including step-parents and their step-children, between siblings, between aunts or uncles and their nieces or nephews, or between grandparents and their grandchildren.” If money changes hands, in other words, a background check would be required even for transfers between relatives.
Both proposals share the same problems as any other effort to expand the reach of background checks. First, the categories of prohibited buyers are irrationally and unfairly broad, encompassing millions of people who have never shown any violent tendencies, including cannabis consumers, unauthorized U.S. residents, people who have been convicted of nonviolent felonies, and anyone who has ever undergone mandatory psychiatric treatment because he was deemed suicidal.
Second, background checks are not an effective way to prevent mass shootings…
The Civil War (1861-1865) was nothing less than a revolutionary reorganization of American government, society, and economics. It claimed almost as many lives as every other U.S. conflict combined and, by war’s bloody logic, forged the nation which the Founding Fathers could not by settling once and for all lingering national questions about state sovereignty and slavery.
The postwar period, however, was one of arguably greater turmoil than the war itself. This is because many men in the South did not, in fact, lay down their arms at the end of the War. What’s more, freedmen, former slaves that were now American citizens, had to take defensive measures against pro-Democratic Party partisans, the most famous of whom were the Ku Klux Klan.
America’s militia has existed for a number of purposes and has exercised a surprising number of roles over the years. But at its core, it’s a bulwark of the power of the country against the power of the state…
The Reconstruction Era (1865-1877) is one of the most fascinating – and violent – periods of American history. After the defeat of the Confederate States, the United States Army took direct control of the quelled rebel states. Elections were eventually held and Republicans won every state, with the exception of Virginia. The state governments then organized militias, which were comprised of a majority of black men.
To say that there was racial tension in the former Confederate states would be an understatement. Not only was the South under continued military occupation, but they were also being occupied by their former slaves, now armed by what was until very recently a foreign power. The white population of the South responded to what they considered to be an attack on them and their rights by organizing militias of their own, despite the fact that this was prohibited by law. In fact, postbellum laws on militia organization prohibited drilling, parading, or organizing…
A correspondent writing at the time spoke of the palpable fear of the white population: He believed that a massacre of the entire white population was impending. This anxiety is what led to the so-called “Black Codes” of the postwar era, which included tight restrictions on the weapons that could be owned by free blacks – if any at all. Some laws even restricted blacks from owning knives.
It’s worth noting that black veterans of the time were armed quite well. Not only did many keep their service weapons after the war was over, but they were also in possession of weapons claimed as war prizes. The average black citizen of the time, however, wanted only arms for self defense. Indeed, the mutual feeling of uneasiness in the postwar South seems to have a solid foundation for each group…
Some of the first anti-gun control movements in the United States were among freed blacks seeking to keep and bear arms for their own protection against the white independent militias. The names are familiar to most Americans: The Ku Klux Klan, the Knights of the White Camelia, The Red Shirts, The White League, The White Brotherhood. These white independent militias have been called by George C. Rable the “military arm of the Democratic Party.” Many blacks who had no intention of firing a shot in anger wanted a weapon simply to keep themselves and their families secure in the face of armed terrorist gangs seeking to circumvent the Reconstruction…
I was recently listening to a talk given by my friend Cheryl Todd of Gun Freedom Radio on the topic of “red flag laws,” and she said something that caught my ear. She was explaining the difficulty that trained psychology and psychiatry professionals have in predicting violent behavior, and said “we suck at it.”
Minority Report is fiction, you know.
She’s absolutely right. It does not take much research to discover that it is in fact extremelydifficult to predictviolentbehavior in even those clinically diagnosed…by professionals…as mentally ill. It is also a widely recognized fact that mental illness does not automatically mean someone is dangerous.
So why would we get in such a big hurry to take guns from people suspected of being dangerous, as assessed by the untrained non-professional…when the professionals admit that they “suck at it,” and that the vast majority of legitimately mentally ill people are not dangerous?
And why, if the mental health of the person is in question, do “red flag laws” confiscate the gun(s) but not the person? If the person is suspected of being dangerous, why should they not be immediately confined for assessment by mental health professionals? If their mental health were really that important to us, wouldn’t we want to see that they receive immediate care? And if the safety of those around them were truly the priority, how effective is it to just confiscate the guns we know about, while leaving the supposed dangerous person free to a gun we missed, obtain a replacement gun, or substitute another weapon to commit violence? After all, you could even leave the guns right where they are if you simply take the dangerous person away from them and into treatment.
Seems like there’s an awful lot of holes in that red flag.
You just know what she’s going to do if she gets out…
It is because it actually has nothing to do with mental health or violence prevention, and everything to do with removing as many guns as possible from the hands of free, law-abiding citizens. There are already plenty of laws on the books to prohibit criminals, addicts, and those who have been legally designated as mentally ill from possessing guns. But “red flag laws” are nothing more than an attempt to throw the largest possible net over as many gun owners as possible, without the dueprocess guaranteed by the Constitution.
Benton County Commissioners are publicly showing their opposition to Initiative 1639.
On Tuesday [April 2, 2019], commissioners unanimously approved a resolution that supports Sheriff Jerry Hatcher’s opposition to the initiative, which imposes strict gun regulations statewide.
The resolution is meant to “recognize the right of citizens of Benton County to self-defense with the legal and constitutional right to lawfully purchase, own and possess firearms as permitted under the federal and state constitutions,” according to a news release.
Sheriff Hatcher was one of more than a dozen sheriffs across the state who have said they will not enforce I-1639, claiming that the legislation violates citizens’ Second Amendment right to bear arms.
Commissioner Shon Small told KAPP-KVEW the resolution is meant to send a message to the community on where he and his fellow county leaders stand on the matter.
“The bottom line is that we believe in our citizens of Benton County, we believe in our sheriff, we’re going to support our sheriff and any kind of law enforcement action that he’s planning on doing, specifically toward 1639,” said Small.
Franklin County Commissioners passed a similar resolution in January in support of Franklin County Sheriff Jim Raymond.
On December 12, 2019, Washington state senate Democrats and others, including Governor Inslee and AG Ferguson proposed three bills, constituting a new “assault weapons” ban, a standard capacity magazine ban, and restrictions on ammunition sales. They claim that all of these bans are for safety purposes, though no previous such bans in any country have been shown to increase safety.
Trump can only do so much with the media and the Democrats in their entirety opposing him — so far, it’s miraculous how successful he has been against such odds. The left’s tactics have changed, as we’ve seen in the recent actions in Virginia. With the Democrats taking over the state government, the first legislation they have proposed for the next state legislative session is nothing more than gun confiscation.
This article comes from Reason magazine, detailing some of the problems with Attorney General Barr’s proposal to expand background checks for buyers of firearms.
Lower Valley Assembly 
