Mainstream Media Now Promoting "Gun Confiscation Orders" As Solution To Mass Shootings

Authored by Alex Thomas via SHTFplan.com,

In what many saw coming a mile away in the aftermath of both the Las Vegas Massacre and the Texas Church mass shooting, liberals in the government, with the help of their mainstream media allies, are now pushing what amounts to plans for gun confiscation, outside of normal law, for Americans across the country.

The new push for gun control from the left comes courtesy of ABC News which recently published a piece promoting the use of an Extreme Risk Protection Order (ERPO) that many believe is nothing more than a thinly veiled confiscation plan that would allow a judge to “issue an ex parte order” for the direct confiscation of an American citizens firearms.

Unbelievably, the order can actually be issued without the firearm owner even being present, which would in turn end with police at the citizens door demanding he hand over his weapons or face violence from the state.

ABC’s Andy Fies, on the other hand, apparently wants Americans to see the orders differently, painting a more friendly picture of the ERPO’s while quoting two different left-wing gun control groups as seemingly unbiased experts on gun violence.

As of now, only Washington, California, Connecticut and most recently Oregon have ERPO laws (while Indiana and Texas have modified risk warrant statutes). Over the past year, however, spurred by a string of mass shootings beginning with the Pulse Nightclub attack that killed 49 in June 2016, legislatures in 19 states and Washington, D.C., have taken up 32 separate ERPO bills for consideration, according to Everytown for Gun Safety, a nonprofit organization that advocates for gun control.

 

Everytown’s deputy legal director, William Rosen, told ABC News that list will grow. “We expect to see at least as much interest in 2018,” he said.

 

“There is a growing consensus,” added Lauren Alfred of the gun violence prevention group Sandy Hook Promise, “that this is the first step we should be taking when we are talking about people who are at risk of hurting themselves or others.”

 

Current laws barring gun ownership are limited. Generally, a person with a long history of mental health issues can still legally buy or possess firearms if they don’t fall into specific statutory categories such as having been adjudicated mentally ill or under a domestic violence restraining order. But, as was the case with Texas church gunman Devin Kelley, even these restrictions may not work if the person’s troubled past is not recorded on a background registry.

 

With an ERPO, however, if family members or police can show a gun owner to be an imminent danger to themselves or others, they can force the person to surrender their weapon(s).

Keep in mind that Everytown for Gun Safety is a Michael Bloomberg funded, left-wing gun control group that was created as part of a rebranding effort by the billionaire gun grabber after his previous group, Mayors Against Illegal Guns, was outed by multiple former members as actually pushing an agenda of full-scale gun confiscation.

The Extreme Risk Protection Orders scheme seems to be nothing more than another attempt at slowly eroding the right of lawful Americans to own firearms.

As AWR Hawkins reported in an April 2017 article about a similar law being pushed in Oregon, “Oregon state Sen. Brian Boquist is pushing a confiscation bill that would broaden the number of prohibited gun purchasers as well as require certain individuals to hand over any guns in their possession.”

At the time, gun rights activist and NRA member Keely Hopkins rightfully described the law as an attempt to remove your Second Amendment rights by using a third-party who would need little evidence to declare you unfit to own a firearm. (Imagine a vengeful ex-wife/husband)

“This bill allows for a protective order to remove your Second Amendment rights, not because of a criminal conviction, but based on third-party allegations using an evidentiary standard that falls far below what’s normally required for the removing of fundamental rights.”

It is also important to note that gun control advocates and the mainstream media are using The Las Vegas Massacre, which the authorities are openly lying about (there were at least 7 different shooters) as a pretext to further take away Americans right to bear arms. This is, and has always been, the modus operandi of the power elite.

There"s No Such Thing As An "American" Homicide Rate

Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,

In September, the FBI released new homicide data, and the overall US homicide rate rose for the second year to an eight-year high. 

According to the report, the nationwide homicide rate in the US in 2016 was 5.3 per 100,000, up from 2015"s rate of 4.9. 

The homicide rate in 2014 - 4.4 per 100,000 - had been a 51-year low, and comparable to rates not seen since the 1950s. 

Homicide rates still remain well below where they were in the 1980s and 1990s, when homicide rates sometimes exceeded 9 per 100,000. 

When it comes to making any serious analysis, however, nationwide homicide rates for a place as large as the United States are next to useless. When we look at numbers on a state-by-state basis, we find that homicide rates vary from 1.3 per 100,000 in New Hampshire to 11.8 per 100,000 in Louisiana. 

To offer some additional context, I"ve included rates from Canadian provinces (using Canada"s 2015 stats) side by side with US states:

Presented as a map: 

There are clear regional differences in many cases. States in the far north and far northeast of the United States report very low homicide rates while certain homicide "hotspots" apparently in Missouri, Maryland, Illinois, and the deep South are driving up US rates. 

These details emphasize the mistake of speaking of the nationwide US homicide rate as if it were in anyway descriptive of any single trend or legislative reality in the US. 

We often hear about homicides are rampant in "America" - presumably caused by high levels of private gun ownership - but any serious look at the numbers forces us to refine our question and instead ask why some parts of the US have some of the lowest homicide rates on earth, while the situation in other areas is considerably different. 

What Are the Important Factors in Homicides? 

Some places largely free of gun restrictions - like the Dakotas, Utah, Idaho, Minnesota, Vermont, and New Hampshire - have very low homicide rates. But other places with similar or more restrictive laws - such as Missouri, California, and most of Latin America - have much higher rates. Obviously, homicide rates are not simply a function of gun laws. 

Even researchers on the political left are increasingly coming to terms with the fact that homicide rates are not simply a matter of passing prohibitionist laws. 

One of the most recent examples of this is new research described by Leah Libresco at the Washington Times. Libresco noted that few, if any, of the gun bans being floated by policymakers is likely to be effective. Libresco notes: 

…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...

 

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...

 

…no gun owner 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, a rocket-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. … [S]ilencers 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...

 

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.

What Libresco did conclude, was that a host of societal issues are driving much of what we hear about in terms of so-called gun violence. Mental illness, suicide, gang violence, and domestic violence are all important factors that drive gun violence. The problem, Libresco admits, is that simply prohibiting certain types of guns doesn"t really address these issues. 

(For similar articles, see Jeffrey Goldberg at The Atlantic and Justin Cronin at The New York Times.)

Other factors we"ve covered here at mises.org include sky-high incarceration rates in the United States, and how the history, residential mobility, and cultural heterogeneity of the Americas make the US and Latin America quite different from Europe and East Asia in terms of homicide and violence. 

To understand the current trends, then, we have to look beyond a few headlines about rare mass shootings and look at larger demographics and societal trends. A focus on legislation, by contrast, tends to substitute wishful thinking for an understanding of the the complex reality.

 

Two Americas

Authored by Michael Owen,

No amount of statistics or facts will sway either side in the gun control debate, because they are all looking for simple solutions to complex problems.

The facts of those complex problems are uncomfortable and nobody really wants to come to grips with them.

For example, we don’t really have a single America with a moderately high rate of gun deaths.

Instead, we have two Americas, one of which has very high rates of gun ownership but very low murder rates, very comparable to the rest of the First World democracies such as those in western & northern Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Japan, South Korea. The other America has much lower rates of gun ownership but much, much higher murder rates, akin to violent third world countries.

The tough questions are those like, why do we have these two Americas?

But that’s an uncomfortable discussion to have. So instead those on the left favor simple minded restrictions that target first world America, with its high gun ownership but very low murder rate, but don’t address the root causes of third world America’s violence at all. Meanwhile those on the right correctly feel their civil rights are constantly threatened, so they are constantly in a state of “better stock up before they finally ban it” and the guns and ammo fly off the shelves. The left’s constant gun control rhetoric is the greatest thing ever for arms manufacturers.

Meanwhile, over the past 40 years, while the number of guns in private hands has doubled, the murder rate has dropped by half. The left are constantly prattling about “assault weapons” which are almost never used to commit murders (about 1% of gun murders; all rifles combined are around 3%). More murders are committed with baseball bats than “assault rifles”; the vast majority of gun homicides are committed with handguns, but it’s easier to sell restrictions that target “assault weapons”, even though such restrictions, even if 100% effective, would make no detectable change in the murder rate (especially because of substitution effects). They favor ridiculous measures such as bans on “high capacity magazines”, as if magazines weren’t cheap and easily swapped out in a fraction of a second.

The uncomfortable fact is that roughly 80% of the US homicide rate is associated with the drug trade, and the drug trade is violent because the drug war reserves it for violent criminals.

We have a system in place where the government subsidizes poverty in urban areas, imposes economic blight in those same areas through heavy taxes and regulations, renders the residents permanently unemployable via the “criminal justice” (sic) system, and creates a lucrative black market in drugs by restricting supply (not to mention increasing demand as people are desperate to escape their circumstances by getting high), meaning the only game in town is often entering the drug trade. The drug trade is violent because those in it have no access to courts to settle disputes. Powerful industries lobby to keep the drug war going; the top spenders are law enforcement unions, the prison industry, big alcohol, tobacco, and pharma.

Guns are not the proximate cause of gun violence in the US. Childlike magical thinking and simple “fixes” to complex problems will not work. But it is comfortable, and self-righteousness feels so good. So I expect it to continue indefinitely.

"The 'Ghost Gun' Threat Is Real & Growing" - CA Senator Warns Weapon Can Be 3D-Printed In An Hour

Via StockBoardAsset.com,

The story starts with Cody Wilson, an American crypto-anarchist, free market anarchist, and gun-right activist. He is the founder of Defense Distributed, a non-profit organization that develops and publishes open source gun designs.

The about section on Defense Distributed describes the company as an ‘anti-monopolist digital publishing’. 

Back in 2013, Defense Distributed gained international attention after it published the world’s first fully 3D-printed gun called the Liberator. Almost immediately, the Statement Department under the Obama administration demanded Mr. Wilson takedown the 3D-printable gun files for possible export control violations. In the first two days, downloads for the 3D-printable gun exceeded 100,000.

Wilson argued that he’s legally protected, and says Defense Distributed “is excluded from the ITAR regulations under an exemption for non-profit public domain releases of technical files designed to create a safe harbor for research and other public interest activities”.

Mr. Wilson eventually had to remove the Liberator files from the internet, due to State Department pressure.

Jumping to 2014, Mr. Wilson received the title as ‘Ghost Gunner’ and was described as a gun manufacture by some for creating AR-15 frames without serial numbers. Defense Distributed offered the internet a package including a CNC milling machine that can turn an aluminum block into an AR-15 lower receiver, the components regulated  by state and federal authorities. The machine called ‘Ghost Gunner 2’ (3D-printer) and 80% AR-15 lower receivers are still being sold on Defense Distributed’s website.

Under the Gun Control Act of 1968, it is illegal for an unlicensed person to make a firearm for sale or distribution. But in Defense Distributed case producing blueprints or just manufacturing 80% of the component is perfectly legal.  

In 2015, Fedex and UPS refused to ship a digital CNC milling machine out of Defense Disturbed. Fedex spokesman told WIRED, “this device is capable of manufacturing firearms, and potentially by private individuals. We are uncertain at this time whether this device is a regulated commodity by local, state or federal governments. As such, to ensure we comply with the applicable law and regulations”.

The Spectre of homemade firearms prompted California in 2016 to ban ‘Ghost Guns’ but there is no law on the federal level prohibiting anyone from downloading gun blueprints.

On Sunday, Mr. Wilson’s group announced a new software for his computer-controlled milling machine to carve out the aluminum frame of an M1911 handgun. According to WIRED, “the latest model of the milling machine can finish a handgun’s frame in about an hour, with minimal human interaction”.

In a pistol, the frame is the only regulated part and anything else can be purchased online without questions. Defense Distributed has decentralized the entire process of assembling a workable weapon without identification, background check, and serial tracking number. Let’s assume the State Department has read this article and is now in a full blown panic.

Anyone in America now has the ability to own a handgun thanks to Defense Distributed. Highlighted above, California is the only state that has outlawed ‘Ghost Guns’ and it shows how the federal government and even state governments are failing to keep up with technological advances.

Per WIRED,

“The ghost gun threat is real and growing,” says Kevin De Leon, the California state senator who introduced the statewide ghost gun ban.

“Are they being made by gang members? Are they being manufactured to sell to individuals who are prohibited from possessing firearms? Technologies that make it possible for the general public to manufacture guns raise serious questions.”

Mr. Wilson’s passion to let every American build an industrial quality gun at home is nothing new. Gun part vendors have been selling 80 precent frames and unfinished parts for quite some time.

But its the method of creation through 3D-printers, which has the United States government in a panic.

Gun control talk will once again become a national subject with Class 3 weapons in focus following today’s tragic mass shooting in Las Vegas. Reports of 58 deaths and 515 injured marks the worst mass shooting in US history.

Gun Control Laws Have Failed Latin America

Authored by Jose Nino via The Mises Institute,

It’s no secret that Latin America is rife with violence. A recent ranking from the Citizen"s Council for Public Security and Criminal Justice (CCSPJP) further illustrates this point with the top 10 most violent cities in the world being exclusively located in Latin America. Additionally, Latin America has the dishonor of having 43 of the 50 most violent urban centers located in the region.

These shocking levels of violence can be attributed to several factors - corruption, failed drug war policies, and the lack of rule of law in the region. 

Source.

But there is one elephant in the room that is largely ignored in the discussion of crime in Latin America: the stringent gun-control laws present in these countries.

While the previously mentioned factors cannot simply be discounted, the lack of coverage on Latin American gun control policy is rather alarming.

Countries like Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, and Venezuela feature some of the most draconian gun control policies in the region. With crime rates at already high levels, gun control simply makes matters worse for law-abiding citizens fearful of criminals.

A more detailed look at the countries’ gun laws is necessary to understand the degree of gun control that is prevalent in these countries.

Brazil

Brazil has some of the most violent cities on the planet, with 19 of them in the CCSPJP’s top 50 rankings. Brazil’s notoriously high crime rates have spurred the Brazilian political class to enact all sorts of heavy-handed attempts to curb crime. Since the 1990s, Brazil has passed over a dozen pieces of gun control laws and regulations.

To own a firearm, Brazilians must be 25 years of age, hold a gun license, pay registration fees, and go through extensive background checks. Prior to 2004, only 3.5% of the Brazilian population legally owned firearms, all thanks to the country’s onerous registration system. Despite Brazil’s gun control status quo, crime rates have continued to rise without end.

Colombia­­

Colombia is no stranger to violence. Violent encounters with the brutal guerilla forces of the FARC and drug cartels have been the norm in Colombia over the past few decades. While former Colombian President Álvaro Uribe’s security measures did play a considerable role in curtailing organized crime and guerilla warfare in the first decade of the 21st century, Colombia remains among the most violent countries in the region. Colombia features four cities in the CCSPJP’s top 50 most violent cities rankings.

Although the Colombian Constitution of 1991 does allow for civilians to possess and carry firearms, they still must go through considerable amounts of red tape to exercise their right to self-defense.

Civilians 18 and older are limited to the purchase and carry of small caliber handguns and shotguns with a license. However, higher caliber handguns and semi-automatic guns are prohibited, and can only be possessed under “exceptional circumstances.” Additionally, all guns must be registered with the military, which has a monopoly on the sale of weapons and issues all gun permits.

A 2014 study revealed that there are more than 500,000 legal guns in the hands of over 400,000 owners, with private security making up more than half of the ownership. This comes as no surprise when factoring in the aforementioned regulations.

Mexico

One needn"t look any further than across the border in Mexico to comprehend the failures of gun control in curbing crime. Like Brazil and Colombia, Mexico has some of the most stringent gun control policies in the region.

With only one official gun store in the country, located in the capital of Mexico City, law-abiding citizens have very little options for attaining weapons. Potential buyers must not only submit references and demonstrate that their income was legally earned, they also must be photographed and fingerprinted. And once they’ve successfully jumped these hoops, they can only purchase one firearm.

Despite all the red tape in acquiring a firearm, Mexico is awash with guns in criminal hands.

This has not served the Mexican people well, as they are frequently at the mercy of powerful drug cartels.

Venezuela

While extreme, the Venezuelan case can shed light on the effects of gun control. The late Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro’s socialist policies have not only impoverished millions of Venezuelans, but they have also completely ripped the social fabric of Venezuelan society apart.

As a result, Venezuela has 10 of the most violent cities in all Latin America according to the CCSPJP’s ranking, with Caracas at the top of the list.

In response to the rampant levels of crime, the Venezuela government started by banning the private ownership of firearms in 2012. Studies show that while Venezuelan crime rates were already high before the ban, Venezuela’s gun control measures did not seem to make a dent on crime

With the Venezuelan government"s recent call to mobilize armed militia members, it makes sense for Venezuelans to be allowed to carry weapons for self-defense not only to protect themselves from common criminals, but from a government that has a proven track record of tyrannical behavior.

A Modest Proposal

What can be done in the short term to ameliorate the rampant degree of violence in Latin America?

For starters, it would behoove Latin American policymakers to consider tackling these problems from a self-defense angle. A good first step would be to allow law-abiding citizens to freely own and carry firearms for self-defense.

These policies would come in handy in a region where the integrity of law enforcement and military forces is frequently called into question. The harsh reality is that in many Latin American countries the lines between the political and criminal classes are blurry at best. Thus, counting on public entities to deliver security services in these countries is simply a fool"s errand.

Eighteenth-century Americans understood the importance of private gun ownership as a bulwark against potential tyranny. But gun ownership has also served as a practical means of self-defense for numerous citizens, especially when considering the inefficiency of police agencies in providing security.

All in all, Latin America would benefit from policies that allow law-abiding citizens to exercise their right to self-defense. While this may not be a cure-all for the region’s rampant violence, it at least gives the citizenry a fighting chance in the face of organized crime and authoritarian regimes.

The Last Frontier For Gun Control: Washington Court Rules In Favor Of Seattle's "Gun Violence" Tax

Authored by Daniel Lang via SHTFplan.com,

Two years ago, the president of the Seattle City Council offered a rather ludicrous proposition. He wanted Seattle to place a new tax on the sale of firearms and ammunition within the city limits. Ammo would cost an additional 2-5 cents per round, and a firearm would cost an extra $25.

But what was even more absurd than the tax itself, is what the money would be going toward. The tax was supposed to pay for gun violence prevention programs and research.

The way City Council President Tim Burgess explained it, this “gun violence” tax would help offset the costs the city pays to treat gunshot victims. Essentially, it was a tax levied on responsible law abiding gun owners, to pay for the actions of violent criminals.

Despite how utterly stupid that sounds, the proposal passed.

However, it didn’t have the desired effect. To the surprise of no one who actually understands the relationship between private firearm ownership and crime rates, the violent crime rate in Seattle has dramatically increased since the tax was put in place. It also brought in only a small fraction of the revenue that the city council was expecting. In short, the tax was a total failure.

So it’s no surprise that the tax has faced a lawsuit over the fact that Washington has a law that prevents municipalities from regulating firearms. Unfortunately, the Washington Supreme Court recently ruled against the lawsuit on the grounds that taxes aren’t the same as regulations, and cities are well within their right to levy sales taxes.

Regardless of whether the court’s decision was right or wrong, it certainly sets a dangerous precedent. As an article from Breitbart recently pointed out, it opens a new avenue for gun control activists to hamper the Second Amendment.

On August 10 Washington’s high court sided with the City of Seattle, which adopted a “gun violence tax” in a strategy to slither around the state preemption law that placed exclusive authority for regulating firearms in the hands of the State Legislature. And this new scheme could be coming to any city that has an anti-gun rights Mayor and City Council.

In Seattle’s case, the tax is $25 on the sale of each firearm, plus two to five cents for each round of ammunition sold. This threat takes on even more sinister dimensions when one considers the potential for cities to simply up the fee. Seattle started with $25 per gun, but what if they want to raise that to $100, $500 or even $1,000?

It opens the door wide to making gun ownership prohibitively expensive for average citizens. Essentially, Washington’s Supreme Court just handed the gun prohibition lobby and its allies in government a new strategy: If they can’t ban or regulate gun ownership out of existence, they will simply tax it into oblivion.

I think deep down we all know that this is probably the real intent behind Seattle’s gun tax.

The left has tried many times to regulate privately owned firearms out of existence, and in America they have failed far more often than they have succeeded. They’re always looking for a new underhanded approach to gun control and this is it. Firearm and ammunition taxes aren’t about reducing gun violence and saving lives. They’re about exploiting a legal loophole to make firearms too expensive for ordinary people to own.

The 2nd Amendment Comes To Europe: Czech Republic To Enshrine Right To Bear Arms Into Constitution

Authored by Daniel Lang via SHTFplan.com,

Most people inside and outside of the US believe that this country’s gun ownership rate is unique, but that’s not exactly true. Though America has the most privately owned guns per capita, there are other countries that aren’t too far behind us, such as Serbia, Yemen, Cyprus, and many Western nations like Finland and Switzerland. In most cases, these countries don’t have access to the same kind of firearms that we do, but nonetheless there are a ton of guns floating around in these places.

What really separates the US from every other country in the world, is that we have the right to bear arms preserved in our constitution. Technically, Honduras and Mexico have the same right in their constitutions, but in both cases it comes with a lot of restrictions. Their right to bear arms doesn’t have any teeth. The Swiss are known for letting many of their citizens own guns, but gun ownership for most Swiss citizens is more of a duty than a right.

America stands alone in this regard. We’re the only country with a constitution that gives civilians a clear and explicit right to own and carry firearms. In every other nation, civilians don’t own firearms unless their governments let them.

That however, is about to change. While most EU governments are eyeing more restrictive gun laws, the Czech Republic is about to add the right to bear arms to its constitution.

Czech Lawmakers have passed legislation in the lower parliament that would see the right to bear firearms enshrined in the country’s constitution in a move directed against tighter regulations from the European Union.

The legislation was passed with 139 deputies agreeing to the amendment to the constitution with only nine deputies voting against. The amendment will now be considered by the Czech Senate where it will require a supermajority of three-fifths of the members in order to pass into law, Die Presse reports.

Similar to the U.S. second amendment to the Constitution, which gives Americans the right to keep and bear arms, the Czech legislation reads: “Citizens of the Czech Republic have the right to acquire, retain and bear arms and ammunition.”

The amendment also notes that the right is there to ensure the safety of the country, similar to the provision of a “well-regulated militia” in the American amendment.

After the bill passes through the senate, it’s expected to be signed into law by President Milos Zeman, who changed his mind on privately owned guns last year.

“Earlier I spoke often about limiting the ability to have large quantities of weapons. But after the terrorist attacks, I have changed the idea.”

Though the Czech Republic has always had loose gun laws compared to its neighbors, this law represents a major shift in the European public’s stance on firearm ownership. If anything, it could be just the tip of the iceberg. All across the continent, as migrants grow more violent and as terror attacks become more frequent, we’re seeing Europeans buy more firearms. In some cases, firearm sales have spiked by 350%.

If there’s any silver lining to the massive influx of migrants into Europe over the past few years, it’s that it has taught ordinary Europeans how important it is to let civilians own firearms.

Florida Sheriff Declares "This Is War!!", Tells Americans To Arm Up

Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

A Florida Sheriff’s video, which urges civilians to arm themselves and prepare for war, is quickly making the rounds on social media.  But he has a point when one listens logically.  He warns that when a mass murderer strikes, the government won’t immediately be there to save you; it’ll be your job to save yourself.

Brevard County Sheriff Wayne Ivey posted the controversial video message on Facebook Wednesday, two days after a deadly workplace shooting in nearby Orlando claimed the lives of five people.  The Florida sheriff urged citizens to arm themselves in self-defense saying “this is war.”

He doesn’t mean war in the sense that nukes will be flying, but the war against mass homicides and sociopaths who only seek the destruction of human life.

“What’s next is to fully understand that this is war, and you better be prepared to wage war to protect you, your family, and those around you if attacked,” he said. Ivey stressed that attackers rely on people running, hiding, and waiting for help, rather than fighting back.  

And they will use guns, knives, bombs, and even trucks to kill innocents. “What they don’t count on is being attacked themselves, having to become defensive to save their own lives,” Ivey argued.

Become the first line of defense to prevent the loss of life, and protect yourselves and others.  That was the underlying message the sheriff sought to convey.

Ivey’s video is irritating anti-gun lobbyists and politicians who seem content with letting people die with a minimal chance of survival.  Ivey encouraged people to take self-defense classes and urged those with concealed weapons permits to carry their guns with them at all times. “No matter who you are or what your position is on guns, there’s no denying the fact that the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun or a knife is an armed and well-prepared citizen or law enforcement officer,” Ivey said.  Ivey is simply stating the obvious.  Yet, he’s being called “controversial.”

Ivey’s being accused of “fear mongering” and riling up vigilantes for refusing to toe the line. As those in government, police included, continue to lean toward more gun control, (for everyone but themselves, of course) it’s becoming obvious that those in charge want us to suffer at the whims of the sociopathic mass murderers. Leonard Papania, the police chief in Gulfport, Mississippi, spoke out against weakening gun regulations to the New York Times, saying, “Do you want every incident on your street to escalate to acts of gun violence?”

Gun control is a sensitive issue for most, as the logical in society understand that gun ownership doesn’t make one a mass murdering homicidal maniac or terrorist.  But the emotional side of people inhibits their brain from understanding that a gun can be used in self-defense, and may even prevent the loss of innocent life. When guns become outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.  An old saying, but one the hoplophobes seem to continue to forget.

Here's Why Liberals Are Suddenly Embracing The 2nd Amendment

Submitted by Shaun Bradley via TheAntiMedia.org,

Bureaucrats in California are ringing in the new year by doubling down on their failed policies to stop gun violence. As of January 1st, six new bills are being phased in that close the so-called ‘bullet-button’ loophole and require background checks to buy ammunition. Another policy would have banned magazines that hold over ten rounds, but in a surprise move, the magazine restriction was repealed on December 29th, just ahead of the deadline. Although California has always been a poster child for the progressive agenda, support for these extreme measures seems to have faded — especially since the result of the presidential election.

These new standards were signed by Governor Jerry Brown in the wake of the San Bernardino attack last December, and in many ways, they mimic the registry created in Connecticut after Sandy Hook. Even though the changes solidify California’s status as the most draconian state when it comes to gun rights, public opinion may be at a turning point.

The reality of a Trump administration has shocked many Californians into a newfound appreciation for the 2nd Amendment. Since November, there has been a record number firearms sold in the Golden State — and many of those buying them are liberals. Hopefully, instead of being blinded by identity politics, this can be a moment for both parties to realize gun ownership is a necessary check on centralized power. The 2nd Amendment has long been a point of contention between the left and the right, but perhaps a year like 2016 is what was needed to find some common ground.

Regardless of one’s beliefs, when the president has far-reaching, violative power, concerns of authoritarianism will inevitably come from both sides of the political spectrum. An armed populace, though, has much less to fear from the whims of a dictator, whether they are a fascist or a socialist.

Yet if the original magazine ban hadn’t been repealed, thousands of innocent people would have been turned into felons overnight. Those who don’t comply with the numerous other new stipulations are still at risk.

For this reason, those who oppose the drug war should empathize with gun owners who find themselves in the crosshairs of the State. People who have experimented safely with marijuana or psychedelics understand that when used responsibly, they can be important tools in improving quality of life. That’s why it’s infuriating to see politicians who have never experienced the benefits of these substances make laws that put people in jail for simply possessing a plant.

But why isn’t there the same anger when politicians who have never been in a fight or shot a gun (yet are protected by armed bodyguards) create laws criminalizing individuals’ choices on how they defend themselves? The drug war uses law enforcement on non-violent people to enforce arbitrary victimless crimes, but it is just as immoral when law-abiding gun owners are targeted by the State at the behest of a fearful public.

This targeting amounts to the collectivization of millions of people, the vast majority of whom will never harm anyone. In the same way, the majority of cannabis or psychedelic users do not harm others — let alone themselves — proving blanket bans unreasonably violate the rights of non-violent individuals.

Further, instances where firearms are used in self-defense are almost never covered by the press —  but lives saved by guns should carry significant weight in the discussion. Taking away legal firearms only limits options for those who become victims when the police aren’t close enough to intervene. Obviously, not everyone has the desire to carry a firearm, just as there are many people who have no interest in using drugs, but entrusting government as the mediator of what is reasonable and ethical is a fatal mistake that has been highlighted throughout history.

The well-known tactics of doublespeak and problem-reaction-solution have been deployed on the public to link society’s perception of gun ownership to criminality. Terms like bullet-button, high-capacity, automatic rifle, and ghost gun are all manipulative words that have been used to confuse those who aren’t assimilated into American gun culture. With little personal experience on which to base their opinions, many liberals unquestionably accept the State’s assertions that guns are to blame — accusations that inevitably follow these tragic scenarios.

Unfortunately, the government has a poor track record of addressing the root cause of the issue and not just a symptom of the disease. There is no amount of laws that can be written to solve the underlying societal problems driving the violence, and like it or not, the weapons of millions of Americans are here to stay. When crucial information from the media is being intentionally omitted, the result can be just as deceptive as an outright lie.

Even the infamous false claim that there were 355 mass shootings in 2015 made its rounds and was regurgitated on major networks. But deliberate wording was used to skew the data and guide the public’s reaction. Out of those 355 incidents, only a handful resulted in any loss of life, even though the audience associated mass shootings with the few mass murders they had seen broadcast non-stop.

The source of the data is a site called Mass Shooting Tracker, and their calculations are vastly different than most would assume. The organization clearly states how they define mass shootings on their web page:

“The current FBI definition of mass murder, commonly accepted by the media as a proxy for ‘mass gun violence,’ is three or more people murdered in one event. We believe this does not capture the whole picture. Many people may survive a shooting based on luck alone…Our definition is this: a mass shooting is an incident where four or more people are shot in a single shooting spree. This may include the gunman himself, or police shootings of civilians around the gunman.”

The statistics echoed throughout the mainstream media to convince the public that we’re in the midst of a mass shooting epidemic — and that assault rifles are largely to blame — has been a spectacle. Even something as simple as the number of gun deaths is consistently inflated by the rate of suicides, which are often included in tallies. The gun control position would at least have some integrity if they went after the weapons that are used in 68% of all murders — handguns. But instead of standing on the values they preach, gun control advocates turn to emotional manipulation that undermines logic to target rifles, which account for only 3% of all murders. FBI reports have consistently shown an overall decrease in violent crime, but only cities that have instituted the strictest gun control, like Chicago, have fallen victim to unprecedented turmoil — turmoil that, if state gun laws worked, would be avoided.

The democratic nature of the United States is only valuable if it remains representative of all opinions without marginalizing the rights of the minority. The rise of the Calexit movement has created a unique opportunity to open up the debate on the issue of state rights, which until now has mostly been associated with right-wing parts of the country.

Hopefully, the perfect storm of political upheaval and government overreach can bring people together behind individual freedom. The new laws being implemented in California exemplify a failed solution to a complex problem. If 2016 did one thing, it highlighted the differences in values and vision that separate the ideologies of the nation. In the pursuit of diversity, the differences in ideas have been placed on the back burner, but if progress that is more than skin deep is going to be made, then all views — even the unpleasant ones — need to be heard.