The ongoing firearms investigation is one of 11 internal investigations involving 15 sheriff’s office employees conducted over the past year. The investigations included complaints of domestic violence, sexual harassment, excessive force, abuse of authority, failure to follow policies and order, and failure to perform assigned duties. The investigations produced disciplinary actions ranging from oral reprimands to termination.

All of this is very upsetting, but the issue of the guns is the one we find very disturbing as it sort of takes aim at the argument that only police should have guns. In this case at least a dozen or so guns would now be in the hands of the bad guys near Duluth if “only the police” had guns.

“On February 2, 2011, at approximately 1500 hours, ATF Special Agent Gary Styers was contacted telephonically by Robert Donovan and Brian Downey, representing United States Senator Chuck Grassley and the Senate Judiciary Committee,” a pdf file of an ATF memorandum posted on Dec. 14 on the Senate Judiciary Committee website begins.

As usual, the “Authorized Journalists,” those with “professional” reporters, and staffs, and budgets, and insider access, connections, T&E accounts, etc., have not made the memorandum available to their readers and viewers.

And, as has happened so many times since the reporting on “Project Gunwalker” began (with very little notice and much resistance) almost a year ago, Mike Vanderboegh of Sipsey Street Irregulars and Gun Rights Examiner continue to beat them to the punch.

Continue reading on Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/gun-rights-in-national/bloggers-continue-to-beat-media-at-their-own-game-on-gunwalker

About David Codrea:
David Codrea is a long-time gun rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He is a field editor for GUNS Magazine, and a blogger at The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance.

In this op-ed, which basically notes a recent shooting in New York City, he notes a few points. Let’s take a look at a few of these:

“The trafficking of guns in this country is it an astronomical level.”

“This week in NY, eight NYPD officers were charged with helping to run a gun-smuggling ring in a city already grappling with unresolved shootings.”

“Gun supporters and advocates always champion the 2nd Amendment and our right to bear arms. But this right doesn’t mean that everyone should possess a weapon. It doesn’t mean guns should be so readily accessible to the least stable among us. And it doesn’t mean that we don’t need stricter gun laws to keep them out of the hands of criminals and those with a complete disregard for human life.”

“Get guns out of the community and stop them from ever finding their way back in.”

We took those points out, because they show the problem with gun control in general. Let’s consider that if we “get guns out of the community,” it is still impossible to “stop them from ever finding their way back in.”

Sharpton defeats his own point when he states “eight NYPD officers were charged with helping to run a gun-smuggling ring.” In other words, as long as there are guns there will be those who will break the law. Perhaps Sharpton should try to address the thug mentality that exists in many of the communities that have this violence and crime. It isn’t a gun issue as much as it is a crime and lifestyle issue.

Violence did not begin with guns and getting rid of guns won’t solve the problem. As long as there is a gang problem, a lifestyle that embraces the gang culture and the criminal element there will be violence.

Finally, is the “trafficking of guns in this country” really as “an astronomical level?” We don’t see it. This is just another way that the blame for local problems is pushed to somewhere else. Typical for those who can’t see that the problems are made at the community level, not the national level.

Prudie writes:

“Talk about being held up at gunpoint! You can’t start a family because your husband refuses to discuss the impasse you’re at over firearms. His obstinacy—is he seething about this?—is hardly making the case that you’ll be safer with a gun in the house. You two come at this with strong but rather inchoate views: You’re a pacifist who loathes guns. He’s a Second Amendment purist who needs protection from the hordes stalking your city.”

Why are these obnoxious puns necessary? The wife was never actually at gun point, but look at how each party is described. “A pacifist who loathes guns,” compared to “a Second Amendment purists who needs protection from the hordes…”

This statement suggests one side is reasonable, and living in reality, as if suggesting that to “loath” guns is reasonable. Whereas, the husband is painted as frankly a bit delusional, “needs protection from the hordes stalking the city.”

Finally, Prudie offers advice such as moving, getting an alarm system and better doors and windows. We pretty much has to suspect that this letter was real. But the advice is nonsense nonetheless.

On August 24, 2011, federal agents of the Fish and Wildlife Service raided offices and production facilities of the Gibson Guitar company.  They sent workers home and confiscated several pallets of wood along with computer files and numerous guitars (amounting to about $2 million in lost production and property).  This was the second raid on Gibson in as many years over questions about some of the wood the legendary guitar makers use in their products.  The timing of the latest raid is convenient for the government as they are currently trying to convince a federal judge to indefinitely delay a lawsuit from Gibson demanding the return of some half-million dollars worth of ebony wood seized by federal agents back in 2009.  No charges have ever been filed against the company regarding that raid, but the government has continued to refuse to return the seized wood which they suspected might have been illegally harvested in Madagascar.

The object of the August 24 raid appears to have been wood imported from India.  Gibson says that they have been extra careful to document all of the wood they import since the 2009 federal assault and that the particular wood in question was acquired from a supplier certified by the Forrest Stewardship Council, an environmental organization set up to protect endangered trees by identifying legally harvested wood and closing markets to illegally cut products.  The particular wood in question was purchased and imported from India with an extensive paper-trail from the Indian government and the US Customs Service.  According to Gibson, the Fish and Wildlife Service is claiming that the wood violates an Indian requirement that wood exported from the country must be processed to a certain degree by Indian craftsmen prior to export.  Gibson says this requirement was either met or waived by the Indian government as demonstrated by India’s export authorizations.  The Indian government did not sanction or participate in the August raid.  Gibson executives say they are being unjustly bullied by the feds.

The persecution of Gibson Guitars has instrument manufacturers and musicians around the country and around the world deeply concerned.  The raids highlight threats posed by well-intentioned laws aimed at curtailing over-harvesting and destruction of certain trees as well as some animal products such as certain types of horn and ivory.  When these laws and international agreements were enacted they focused mainly on furniture and art items, but now enforcement is broadening with musical instrument makers and people traveling internationally with instruments being required to provide proof that the ebony, cherry, and ivory used in the instruments’ construction came from legal sources.  Even though an instrument might be over 100 years old, the lineage of an ivory bridge or a fingerboard of Brazillian Cherry is subject to question and confiscation if proof of the components’ sources can not be provided.  This threat also directly impacts gun owners as many fine firearms have exotic wood stocks with inlays and accents of ebony, ivory or other rare and potentially restricted materials.

The whole idiotic assault on Gibson Guitars is reminiscent of what firearms dealers, manufacturers, importers, and owners have been dealing with for decades.  Firearms importers have had literal boatloads of products seized on the basis of some obscure paperwork complication and even when the issue is resolved, the seized guns might not be returned.  Gun shops have been closed down and their entire inventories confiscated on the basis of customers using “Y” and “N” rather than “Yes” and “No” on purchase forms or abbreviating the name of a city rather than writing it out completely.  When guns are returned, they are often damaged from improper storage and handling and there have even been cases where agents have lost parts of a dealers seized records and then come back and cited the dealers for not being able to produce the records the agents lost.

The problems stem from well intentioned, but poorly written laws and regulations.  They are emotionally appealing when described in sound bites during congressional consideration, and they’re always supposed to accomplish some laudable goal, but soon federal enforcers realize that it’s easier – and more lucrative – to ignore the real objective of the laws (serious criminals) and go after technical violations by people who have no criminal intent and pose no threat to society or the environment.  The laws get interpreted and implemented ways that make it virtually impossible for people to conduct their business or pursue their hobby without running afoul of some technicality or paperwork issue.  With such a universal failure rate, government agencies are able to target virtually any business or individual for selective enforcement and even if they can’t put together a winning case, they can cause enough disruption and financial damage to effectively destroy productive lives and businesses.

Whether it’s guitar makers besieged by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, farmers under assault from the Environmental Protection Agency or the Army Corps of Engineers, or gun owners and dealers under attack from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, it all boils down to overreaching federal government.  While the feds do have some legitimate jurisdiction in these matters, they are overstepping their rightful authority in all directions and it’s well past time for the citizens to rein them in.  If all of the disparate interests being victimized by these overreaching federal bureaucrats would join forces, we could put a stop to this nonsense once and for all.

What the media doesn’t note is that if one can buy grenades, wouldn’t you think it is fairly easy to buy illegal firearms. The point is that tighter gun control won’t work, because this shows that in violent prone areas if criminals can get their hands on grenades somehow, guns won’t be much of an issue.

The story added a line we thought was interesting too:

“The guns bought will be melted down – meaning fewer will be on the streets and involved in crimes.”

This is misleading and we have to question the due diligence in the reporting. That line implies that the guns handed in may have been used in crimes, and were actually “on the streets,” as opposed to tucked in a closet, stored in a drawer or under a bed. What we are saying is that this particular sentence is practically a lie, it sounds good but there is no credible evidence to it. But this is true of all gun buybacks too. They sound good, but there is no evidence they do any good.

“If today is an average day in America, eight children and teens will be shot to death before the rest are tucked into bed. Each day, our nation’s weak gun laws fail to protect our children, whether it’s a 9-year-old born on 9/11 and killed while visiting her congresswoman in Tucson, or a college freshman, eager to learn, yet gunned down with 31 others in classrooms at Virginia Tech.”

By citing those examples he implies that these are daily occurrences. That is akin to suggesting that heading to work in New York City could result in your office tower being the target of a terrorist attack, or that Japan is hit by earthquakes and tsunamis every week.

Of course Vice, who happens to be a lawyer for the Brady Campaign also makes another foolish statement on how states with what he calls “strong” gun laws suffer because of states with “weak” laws:

“But our country’s weak gun laws allow traffickers and killers to stockpile guns in states with weaker laws and smuggle them into our communities. In New Jersey, strong laws make it so much harder for criminals to get firearms that guns flood in from states with weak gun laws at a rate seven times higher than the number of crime guns trafficked out of the state.”

The problem with this argument is that it doesn’t explain examples such as Chicago, or Washington, D.C. These are dangerous cities now because criminals obtain firearms illegally and leave the residents undefended. His argument is also flawed, surprising because as a lawyer he essentially argues for a living. Read this again:

“In New Jersey, strong laws make it so much harder for criminals to get firearms that guns flood in from states with weak gun laws.”

In other words, the so-called strong gun laws only mean criminals look elsewhere, and thus break the law to do so. Wouldn’t this imply that criminals would turn to smuggling in guns from other countries as well if there were national “strong” gun laws? Those strong gun laws thus are NOT working to keep guns out of the hands of criminals. And instead of going after the criminals, this lawyer is blaming the system instead of the criminals. And some how this is “common sense.”

“Virginia’s bars and restaurants did not turn into shooting galleries as some had feared during the first year of a new state law that allows patrons with permits to carry concealed guns into alcohol-serving businesses, a Richmond Times-Dispatch analysis found.”

Not only did the bars not turn into shooting galleries, but crime was in fact down as the paper notes:

“The number of major crimes involving firearms at bars and restaurants statewide declined 5.2 percent from July 1, 2010, to June 30, 2011, compared with the fiscal year before the law went into effect, according to crime data compiled by Virginia State Police at the newspaper’s request.”

The question is whether this story will continue to be ignored? We suspect that if this had been the opposite and crime increased the media would have been all over this story.

“New York City’s roadways are crowded, we can all agree, but who knew they were paved with blood? In the past decade more New Yorkers have died in traffic than from guns, a new report, Vision Zero from Transportation Alternatives reveals. Which helps explain how traffic incidents cost the city over $4 billion in 2009.”

And yet to hear Bloomberg and his ilk talk about it guns are out of control and destroying the city.

Former Tijuana Mayor Jorge Hank Rhon has been arrested on suspicion of illegal weapons. Imagine that… didn’t the Showtime series Weeds have a corrupt Tijuana mayor?

With Rhon be accused of having 88 unlicensed weapons we can’t help but say this is life imitating art.