I-1639, the most egregious and intrusive anti-gun effort we have seen to date has been approved for the ballot this election. It goes without saying that those of us who appreciate our constitutional right to defend our homes from bad guys must band together to ensure it is defeated.
To that end, the National Rifle Association has joined the effort to see it go down in flame with their website, Initiative1639.org
In announcing the website the NRA said,
“ ‘Law -abiding gun owners in Washington State need to understand the impact I-1639 will have on their Second Amendment right to self-defense,’ said Chris W. Cox, executive director of NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action. “The NRA’s new website, Initiative1639.org provides the facts on how this gun-control initiative will infringe on law-abiding citizens’ constitutional rights and make it more difficult to protect themselves and their families’.”
This blog has never shied away from stating how the Lazy C, aka the Columbian newspaper, fails the very community it claims to serve with its bias and ignoring allegations of wrongdoing when it comes to Democrats.
Where they lack in deep investigative journalism locally, they make up by promoting whatever the latest agenda of the left may be.
There is little doubt left today that we do have a significant number in our society that wants to disarm citizens, one initiative at a time here in Washington State.
Since initially proposing I-594, Universal Background Checks on Gun Purchases, the Washington Alliance for Gun Responsibility has become one of the more notable anti-gun groups as year after year they return with more initiatives, incrementally moving us towards total disarmament in little baby steps, all while claiming they respect the second amendment.
Proclaiming an intent to “end gun violence,” media and anti-gun special interest groups like the Washington Alliance For Gun Responsibility, Moveon.org, the Brady Campaign and others constantly bombard us with their claims of the gun lobby this and the gun lobby that as this elusive gun lobby was pure evil incarnate with no soul and cares less about people and children.
If you recall, the Washington Alliance For Gun Responsibility was responsible for bringing us I-594 in our state, requiring universal background checks on the basis of it was going to “make us safer.”
That no sooner went into law than they announced in a July 2, 2015 email, “When we set out to pass universal background checks in Washington the pundits said it couldn’t be done. The gun lobby was too strong. Yet, last year, we proved them wrong — and Washington is safer as a result. But that isn’t the end of the story. The fight to save lives from gun violence is just beginning.”
In what I can only describe as placing political gain over the safety of American citizens, Democrats have once again shown that nothing matters much to them but political power as they now play political games to score points over actually addressing the problem of terrorism.
“Democrats are seeking to limit the political fallout from the attack in San Bernardino, Calif., by pressing for legislation that would prevent terrorism suspects from buying a gun.”
“Leaders in the party think they have a winning message in pushing legislation that would ban gun sales to people on the federal terror watch list, and have made the bill a focal point of their response to the shooting.”
As the investigation continues into the heinous shooting this past week in San Bernardino, California, an all too familiar narrative is once again being heard. That being, “Muslims feel a backlash” since the two people that committed the terror attack, Syed Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik was both Muslim.
Once again tragedy has struck in yet another ‘Gun-Free Zone,’ this time in the small community of Roseburg, Oregon. Another unhinged person shot and killed people on the campus of Umpqua Community College.
For those that claim the campus was not ‘Gun-Free’ due to Oregon law, please recheck your sources as the laws on guns on campuses in Oregon is much more complicated than believed.
Be that as it may, tragedy struck and 10 people are dead, 9 innocents and the shooter with more wounded, hopefully to survive and regain their lives.
And as we see all too often, gun-haters come out of the woodwork before any corpses are cold to blame guns, the NRA, the Second Amendment, Conservatives, everybody except the actual shooter.
Gun grabbers across the nation were elated at their ability to pull the wool over voters eyes in passing their ill-advised anti-gun measure, I-594 in Washington State by a fairly large margin in 2014.
Promoted as merely a simple background check requirement on private sales and well funded by out of state anti-gun interests, 18 pages of the most confusing words that even law enforcement opposed and has seen both the State Attorney General and the Dept. of Licensing shy away from offering guidance on quickly transformed into “just the first step” in what gun-grabbers erroneously label “common sense solutions” to gun violence.
“The first problem is to slow down the number of handguns being produced and sold in this country. The second problem is to get handguns registered. The final problem is to make possession of all handguns and all handgun ammunition–except for the military, police, licensed security guards, licensed sporting clubs, and licensed gun collectors–totally illegal.” (Richard Harris, “A Reporter at Large: Handguns,” New Yorker, July 26, 1976, p. 58.)
We have long referred to Liberals as “looney” and nothing shows this more than the reaction of Liberals in regards to the Washington State Republican Party auctioning off an AR-15 rifle for fundraising.
That an AR-15 functions absolutely no different than any other semi-automatic rifle, one shot per trigger pull, mean nothing to Liberals. It “looks scary.” That it fires a relative small diameter bullet means absolutely nothing, it “looks scary.”
An unidentified 15 year-old girl speaks before a legislative body, I believe in Maryland and with a little bit of common sense, deconstructs every single strawman argument currently being promoted by gun grabbers in America.
Well done, young lady.
We must ask ourselves, how is it a 15 year-old can so easily see the fallacy of the current cries of gun-grabbers and is willing to speak out to protect her future rights, yet so many others sit back quietly and hope there are sufficient numbers of other people willing to take stand and protect our rights?
“There is a terrific disadvantage in not having the abrasive quality of the press applied to you daily. Even though we never like it, and even though we wish they didn’t write it, and even though we disapprove, there isn’t any doubt that we could not do the job at all in a free society without a very, very active press.” John F. Kennedy, 35th President of the United States
Once was the time that we had great trust in our media to report news fairly and give us relevant information of what is happening within our cities as well as across the nation. The media was tenacious in pursuing Richard Nixon, 37th President of the United States, leading him to become the first ever President to resign the office in 1974.
Perhaps fueled by their success in that endeavor, the media of today bears little resemblance to the media we largely trusted so many years ago. The media of today seems less inclined towards reporting news fairly, especially in political news and more inclined to push an agenda favored by the leftwing politicians.
Those of us old enough to remember can recall how throughout the 1980’s the media ridiculed Ronald Reagan with Sam Donaldson coming on after televised speeches to inform of us what he “really said or meant.” George H.W. Bush was portrayed as a buffoon. And of course, the relentless assaults on George W. Bush through the 2000’s even to the point in 2004 of a fabricated memo surfacing and reported as “fake but accurate.”
Saturday February 16, 2013 saw a large crowd of over 160 people assemble at Coffee Villa in Orchards, Washington. We assembled to meet new friends, discuss pending legislation, politics or whatever came to mind. Most came armed with a gun strapped to their hip to show support for our right to “keep and bear arms” that is once again under assault as government, unwilling to give up their arms, tries to pass new laws to inhibit our right to self defense by a firearm.
I was pleased to see favorable media coverage from both KGW News in Portland as well as our own local newspaper of record, the Columbian. To be honest, coverage was much better than I expected, having seen biased coverage in the past concerning guns and favoring efforts to further restrict our right to own one.
Many may think that many armed people in a small space, standing in a long line to order and be served their coffee is a recipe for disaster. Not so, as everybody in attendance came to show those with an abnormal fear of guns that guns in the hands of private citizens is nothing to be fearful of. Everybody respected each other’s space as discussions were carried on throughout the establishment.
49th Legislative District Representative, Democrat Sharon Wylie has joined with 13 other Democrats in sponsoring a bill they claim is for “Promoting firearm safety through an education program funded through fees on firearms and ammunition and creating a sales tax exemption on gun locks.”
The bill, House Bill 1703 calls for implementing taxes and fees on sales of guns and ammunition within the state citing the need to fund an “education program” designed to reduce gun deaths in Washington State.
To do this, every gun sold will have a $25 fee attached per sale and ammunition would be charged a one cent tax per round.
As always seems to happen after a horrific shooting, blame is placed on guns as gun grabbers and politicians line up to scheme of new ways to disarm law-abiding people, criminals ignoring current laws and any new ones passed (that is why we call them criminals)
But we also hear voices of sanity rising out of the sorrow. Suzanna Gratia-Hupp after losing both of her parents in the Luby’s restaurant shooting in Killeen, Texas in 1991. Darrell Scott after his daughter Rachel was gunned down in the Columbine massacre in 1999. And now, Mark Mattioli whose small son James was killed at the Sandy Hook Elementary Shooting in December 2012.
KATU TV recently featured a discussion with 18th Legislative District Representative Liz, Pike, Vancouver’s Bob Larimer advocating allowing the arming of teachers and Drew Persse a teacher and Erin Thomas a Brady Campaign Representative opposing the arming of teachers.
I feel Liz and Bob gave excellent logic in favor of arming teachers while the other relied more on talking points.
Thanks to KATU for hosting this 1/2 hour discussion and to Rep. Liz Pike and Bob Larimer for presenting reasonable, solid logic trying to prevent another mass school shooting.
The Constitution of the United States of America is one of the most remarkable documents ever written. It clearly and in plain language lays out the foundation of our nation, the makeup of our government and establishes the rights of our citizens along with the limitations of government.
It has served our nation well in our short history and guided us into becoming the super power we have been known as, along with being the freest nation on the planet a long as we have abided by it and followed the basic tenets of it.
But government wishes to grow and assume powers our country was founded to get away from, putting the limits on citizens and granting more powers to government denied it when we adhere to our Constitution.
“Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” Benjamin Franklin 1759
Over the years we have all heard the above quote or a disambiguation of it, usually from the anti-war crowd, twisting it to mean if we submit to any measure for security, we are not deserving of liberty.
What they and many others did not do, though, was to research the quote and its context. Had any done just a little research they would have discovered Ben Franklin was addressing those who would not accept one of the guns he purchased to help protect what was then the frontier from marauders and murderers.
Sadly we are once again facing the claim of if we just give up a little bit of our liberty, that being our rights under the second amendment to bear arms freely, we can be safer and our children less likely to be slaughtered in schools or even on the streets in drive-by gang shootings.
Once again, pure evil visited a community in America and the media wasted no airtime informing the world of it. At least 28 people, 20 of them small children lie dead because of the callous act of a lone mentally disturbed gunman who felt he should end so many lives at an Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.
Barack Obama said, “As a country, we have been through this too many times. Whether it’s an elementary school in Newtown, or a shopping mall in Oregon, or a temple in Wisconsin, or a movie theater in Aurora, or a street corner in Chicago — these neighborhoods are our neighborhoods, and these children are our children. And we’re going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics.”