Meet The California Special Agents Who Are “Coming For Your Guns”

This report was originally published by Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge

An oft-echoed line from the left is “No One Wants To Take Your Guns!” But as Kurt Schlichter notes, this is another classic lie.

In fact, that’s exactly what liberals want to do. How do we know? They tell us when they think we are not looking – and, with more frequency, when we are. It’s fun when they say they don’t want to take your guns, then say you have to give up your ARs. If your opponent is getting wistful about Australia’s gun confiscation, he wants to take your guns.

Let’s get serious. They all want to take your guns. Why? Two reasons. First, it takes power from the citizenry. Liberals love that. Second, gun rights are important to normal Americans because the fact we maintain arms means we are not mere subjects. We are citizens, with the power to defend our freedom. Liberals hate that we have that dignity; taking our guns would humiliate us, and show us who is boss. They want to disarms us not because of the gun crime – name a liberal who wants to really do something about Chicago as opposed to hassling law-abiding normals – but because they hate us and want to see us submit.

Even the Fredocons are getting into the act, which is no surprise since Never Trumpism is always the first step downward to active liberalism. Pseudocon Bret Stephens demanded that America repeal the Second Amendment in the New York Times in October 2017. Fellow puffcon Ross Douthat simpered something similar, and the Captain Stubing of Conservatism, Bill Kristol, tweeted his concurrence.

And, As The Washington Post reports today, there is a group of California cops whose sole job is just that – confiscating your guns.

A broad, bald Tennessean, Special Agent Sam Richardson runs a six-person team of California Justice Department agents who are coming for your guns, but only if you no longer have the legal authority to own one in this state that has tightened firearm laws in increments over the years.

His division is the only law enforcement agency in the country assigned specifically to track down and take guns from felons, the mentally ill and others whose Second Amendment rights have been curtailed in court because of public safety concerns.

Notably, WaPo points out that these are the people who even the National Rifle Association says should not have guns, a statement echoing in the aftermath of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. The program makes California’s gun-control policy perhaps the most aggressive in the nation. A dozen years ago, the state set up a database that flags law enforcement officials when a registered gun owner is convicted of a felony, deemed mentally ill, has received a restraining order or committed one of about 37 qualifying misdemeanors.

The list is known as the Armed Prohibited Persons System, and while it has failed to prevent mass shootings in San Bernardino, Isla Vista and other cities in the state, it has taken tens of thousands of guns out of the hands of people prohibited from having them.

The work of Richardson’s agents is overwhelming, with the number of guns and “prohibiteds” growing faster than the under-resourced teams can take them off the street. So is the ingenuity of those selling guns, and those making guns, and those owning guns, legally or not.

There are 10,226 people on the list statewide. Of those, about 2,000 are in Los Angeles County, a vast urban desert covered by only Richardson’s team and one other.

“All of this takes time and real resources,” said Xavier Becerra (D), California’s attorney general, who said he is requesting more money for the program this year. “As quickly as we get these guns off the street, others are getting guns.”

Not once has a target fired on them, but WaPo reports that they are threatened — some extreme gun rights websites seek to identify them and expose them online — so all except Richardson, who has appeared publicly, spoke to The Washington Post on the condition that only their last names be used .

“We don’t have black helicopters, but we drive black cars and wear black uniforms,” Richardson said. “It plays into the mind-set of some of these people.”

Last year, state Justice Department agents seized 3,999 pistols and long guns, investigating more than 8,500 people in the process. The list has never dipped beneath 10,000 people since its earliest days.

*  *  *

The timing of this ‘promotional’ piece from WaPo is fascinating, coming just a day after The White House said it is considering the idea of using restraining orders to take firearms away from people considered “dangerous” as part of its response to last week’s massacre at a Florida high school, two people familiar with the matter said.

It’s Getting Deep: Dem Says Russians Promoted 2nd Amendment so Americans Would ‘Kill Themselves’

Not understanding that maybe Americans actually want to be free and armed to ensure it stays that way, one Democrat is instead employing mental gymnastics. Adam Schiff thinks that the Russians promoted the second amendment because Americans would “kill each other.”

Pulled right out of the “You can’t make this stuff up file,” Schiff made his latest absurd remarks last week at a University of Pennsylvania event where he claimed that Russians were posting content “designed to pit us against each other, to exploit our divisions.” Those pesky Russians must have nothing more to do than interfere with the lives of individual Americans…

According to the Daily Wire, Schiff made some rather mentally deranged comments that will have your sides sore with laughter. “They also trumpeted the Second Amendment,” Schiff said. “Apparently, the Russians are very big fans of our Second Amendment. They don’t particularly want a Second Amendment of their own, but they’re really glad that we have one. The Russians would be thrilled if we were doing nothing but killing each other every day, and sadly we are.”

Schiff recently went on two national TV shows to suggest that another Oklahoma-City style bombing is also going to happen because President Donald Trump and the Republicans released the House Intelligence Committee’s memo on Friday.

 Watch video

Ryan Saavedra ✔@RealSaavedra

Democrat Adam Schiff: Russians Promoted 2nd Amendment So Americans Would ‘Kill Each Other’

Although funny, several Democrats in the comments agreed with Schiff’s assessment.

5 Feb

Ryan Saavedra 

✔@RealSaavedra

Democrat Adam Schiff: Russians Promoted 2nd Amendment So Americans Would ‘Kill Each Other’ pic.twitter.com/WW5P1K70pm

𝔼𝕋𝕖𝕩ℂ𝕠𝕟𝕤𝕖𝕣𝕧𝕒𝕥𝕚𝕧𝕖@mlemons1970

Lay off the Tide pods #SchiffForBrains.

We couldn’t have said it better ourselves.

The post It’s Getting Deep: Dem Says Russians Promoted 2nd Amendment so Americans Would ‘Kill Themselves’ appeared first on The Sleuth Journal.

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.

 

Mass Shootings, Mass Psychology And Self-Defense

This report was originally published by Brandon Smith at Alt-Market.com

There is an unfortunate correlation between crises and catastrophes and mass psychology. For those with a decent long-term memory, you may have noticed that the frequency of attacks and tragedies taking place today around the world is far above and beyond what occurred 10 years ago. So much so that many in the public have moved beyond the point of outrage and have now embraced complacency.

The mass shooting issue, for example, once inspired fevered debate over gun rights. Not so much anymore. While I am happy that the relentless attempts by leftists to exploit every shooting as a tool for their gun grabbing agenda have taken a backseat, I see a trend in another direction which is equally dangerous. That trend is a move towards acceptance that “these things happen,” instead of a healthy discussion on real solutions (and no, more gun control is not one of them).

A decade ago the Vegas shooting would have inspired media and social discussion for at least a year. Now, the story disappears in two weeks and is replaced with 10 others. I will be surprised if the latest church shooting in Texas in which 26 people were killed stays on the news feeds for more than a few days.

Where does this complacency come from?

It is a complex problem, but one that I think relates to the state of decline within any particular society. In Carl Jung’s The Undiscovered Self, Jung mentions a consistent element of latent sociopathy and psychopathy within most cultures. Perhaps 10% of people within a society are latent sociopaths and psychopaths, and around 1% or less represent full blown sociopaths/psychopaths. Most of the latent people will never become truly dangerous if they are living within a culture that is healthy and morally balanced. In fact, those with inherent sociopathic traits can become very high functioning human beings who are adept at careers that many other people avoid (surgeons and career soldiers are two examples).

However, in the event that there is cultural rot and a degradation of principles, environmental influences come into play and latent sociopaths/psychopaths have the potential to mutate into something far more dangerous. Jung examines this dynamic as an explanation for the sudden and accelerated decline of Germany in the 1920s and 1930s into totalitarianism and moral relativism. When the mentally disturbed 1% turns into 10% or more, entire nations can be dragged along into the abyss.

As a litmus test I find it valuable to look at popular culture when trying to determine if a society is on the brink of collapse into a singularity of moral relativism, because popular culture often reflects these elements more honestly than the supposed “experts” will. When examining Germany before its fall, I recommend studying the films of Fritz Lang; particularly his movie ‘M’ released in 1931, which depicts a serial killer with a penchant for children being put on trial by a group of underworld criminals, not because they abhor what he does on moral grounds, but because his activities are drawing too much unwanted attention from authorities on their own criminal enterprises. If the dark world of ‘M’ doesn’t perfectly showcase the decline of Germany, I don’t know what does.

Today, we are constantly surrounded by popular culture which leans towards the morally relative; stories in which the heroes must become monsters in order to defeat other supposedly worse monsters. At another level, our popular culture tells us that it is only the fantastical, the super powered and the government contracted heroes that have the ability to affect change and disrupt disaster. Underlying all of this seems to be a narrative of defeat; the notion that there is nothing the average person can do. And, of course, we are also bombarded with stories in which gluttony and decadence are applauded while anyone that takes a more responsible path is portrayed as unhappy or joyless in the long run.

Translate this to the developing trend of mass shootings around the world and the public reaction to them. On one end of the spectrum, in the past it was the sociopathic left that saw mass death as an opportunity to enforce political control over gun rights advocates, with the goal of eventually achieving total disarmament. These people do not care about the dead, let alone logic, they only care about furthering their agenda. They see government power as the answer to every problem.

If you were to hold up examples like the Paris or Mumbai attacks to gun grabbers and point out that disarmament only makes mass shootings EASIER for criminals and terrorists, they would not listen. Obviously, if any of the citizens including the off-duty police officers had been armed in Paris, the attack might have been stopped much sooner.

In the case of the church shooting near San Antonio, that attack WAS interrupted by an armed neighbor of the church who used his rifle to fend off Devin Kelley, forcing him to escape in his vehicle. Had that neighbor not been armed, the massacre might have gone on much longer. Had one of the people within the church been armed, the attack might have ended in seconds, as we saw in Denver in 2007.

Now, as I said earlier, there are sociopathic members of the political left that seek to take advantage of these scenarios, but these people have fallen by the wayside recently. On the political right, sadly, I have seen another brand of sociopathy rising, with some arguing that all the people within the San Antonio church that were unarmed “deserved to die.” This is just as dangerous a mentality as the exploitations of the left. If the liberty movement itself sets aside empathy and resorts to sensationalist or morally relative methods to drive forward a political agenda, then we are only hastening the fall of our culture, not protecting it. And, we become no better that the leftist disarmament thugs we abhor.

In between these two extremes sits a coagulated mass of people who simply don’t care much as long as a particular disaster doesn’t involve them. These are the folks who are uninterested in solutions and don’t really want to hear anything about it. It is these people who tend to become wreckage floating on the tides of history; their lack of concern eventually comes back to haunt them in the future.

So, if these are the wrong ways to approach the mass shooting problem, then what are the right ways?

I think it is vital that Americans in particular maintain our care and concern for the victims of these events. The solution to mass shootings is clearly a responsibly armed populace. According to all the stats on active shooters, defense by citizens is the only factor that seems to make much difference. But to convince more and more people of this requires a level of conscience and empathy that inspires confidence, and perhaps brotherhood. When people know that you give a damn and aren’t simply pursuing an agenda like the political left does, it is more likely that they will listen to what you have to say.

As I noted in my article How To Stop All Future Mass Shootings, the Vegas attack was organized by someone who was smart enough to avoid a point-blank engagement in a city and state in which concealed-carry firearms are more common. Point-blank attacks are by far the most common because they are generally attempted by people who have minimal training or because the attackers are relatively certain that their victims will be disarmed in the area they have chosen (gun free zones).

The Vegas attacker (or attackers) chose to use sniper-like tactics to prolong the massacre. However, what this shows is that an armed citizenry is a factor or barrier in how an attack is planned. With properly trained and armed security overwatching major events along with an armed population, there may never be another mass shooting again.

This is what Americans should be talking about, yet, there is no practical discussion on solving the problem. Is this a symptom of impending collapse within our society? Possibly. If there was ever an honorable task for the liberty movement today, it is to inspire solutions and to maintain moral balance. These shootings and other crisis events should not be forgotten within a week. They should at the very least be a learning process, a means by which we evolve our way of life and become more self reliant and by extension more safe.

If you are not a conceal- or open-carry proponent, then you should be. If you understand that the majority of shooting events that are stopped are stopped by average citizens that are armed, then it should only follow that you should become one of those armed citizens. In the meantime, it is not for us who are consistently armed to admonish disarmed victims as if they “deserve what they got.” Their failure is our failure as well. For if we are not working diligently to convince others of the importance of citizen self defense, then we have contributed to the conditions that led to these massacres taking place.

There are methods of stemming the tide of social collapse. There are in fact solutions. They begin with each individual acting in small ways and big ways everyday. Complacency and zealotry are the enemy, as well as those that would encourage such mentalities.

If you would like to support the publishing of articles like the one you have just read, visit our donations page here. We greatly appreciate your patronage.

You can contact Brandon Smith at: brandon@alt-market.com

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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.