Category Archives: Constitution

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Wednesday, May 8, 2019:

The shooting by two students at the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) high school in Highlands Ranch (a suburb of Denver) that left one student dead and eight others wounded, some seriously, predictably elicited calls for more gun control from a number of progressive Democrats. The fact that the school was located just seven miles away from Columbine High School, and that the shooting took place just three weeks after the 20th anniversary of the Columbine shooting, was just gravy on that red meat.

In their tweets and other public statements, the Democrats said nothing about the

This article was published by The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Monday, May 6, 2019: 

John Lott never intended to be a lightning rod in the war over the Second Amendment. He studied to be an economist, hoping to hide out in a think tank somewhere and crank out scholarly articles on economics, heavily laden with statistics. But in 1997, curious about how gun laws might be impacting violent crime, he co-authored an article with a fellow academic at the University of Chicago that concluded that the increasing presence of privately owned firearms was having a favorable impact on gun violence.

He published More Guns, Less Crime in 1998, which altered his professional life direction dramatically. Using his statistician’s mind, he proved that as more and more Americans took advantage of their right to keep and bear arms, gun violence began its decades-long decline.

Critics attacked his analysis, so Lott revised his study, republishing More Guns, Less Crime in 2010. Since then, he has written The Bias Against Guns and founded his Crime Prevention Research Center. Unwittingly, Lott has become what Newsweek called “The Gun Crowd’s Guru.”

And he’s done it again. Anti-gunners have protested that the presence of firearms on school campuses would lead to more violence: teachers should teach and not pack; students could snatch guns away from unsuspecting teachers; accidents could happen; etc., etc. With Texas and Florida proposing to expand the freedom of school teachers to carry concealed on campus, Michael Bloomberg’s anti-gun group Moms Demand Action warned that this “would make school a much more dangerous place for our children.”

The same tune was sung by the Giffords Law Center (GLC), which this writer took to task last month here, calling its study of how teachers were mishandling their firearms “laughable.” (See Sources below)

We wrote at the time:

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, May 6, 2019:

John Lott couldn’t find a single instance of a shooting on a school campus where teachers and staff were permitted to carry concealed, going all the way back to 2000.

John Lott’s latest study refutes claims by anti-gunners that the presence of firearms on school campuses increases the chances of gun violence. President of his Crime Prevention Research Center, Lott’s study answered two questions raised by former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the Giffords Law Center and others: 1) Does letting teachers carry a firearm on campus and in the classroom increase the chances of gun violence?; and 2) Does the presence of those teachers carrying legally deter mass shooters?

The study, released last month, found: “We don’t need to guess how the policy would work. There has yet to be a single case of someone being wounded or killed from a shooting, let alone a mass public shooting, between 6 AM and midnight at a school that lets teachers carry guns” since at least January 2000. Fears that a student might grab a firearm from a teacher and use it to commit gun violence are groundless as well, said Lott’s study: “Students obtaining teachers guns have not occurred at all.” Appropriately, Lott entitled his study: “Schools that Allow Teachers to Carry Guns are Extremely Safe.”

On the other hand, shootings on campuses where teachers and staff are prohibited from carrying concealed have “increased significantly — doubling [in number] between 2001 and 2008 versus 2009 and 2018.”

The study concluded:

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Tuesday, March 26, 2019: 

The 90-day waiting period for banning bump stocks ended on Tuesday for every owner of the now-illegal firearm accessory, with one exception: Clark Aposhian. With the assistance of the New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA), Aposhian obtained a temporary stay of the new administrative decree. It only protects him, but it opens the door for its eventual reversal.

Said NCLA’s lead counsel, “Today [March 22] the [U.S. 10th Circuit] Court of appeals told the ATF that it could not rush through the bump stock ban without meaningful judicial review. The court understands the stakes and is refusing to let an innocent owner be declared a felon, as scheduled [on March 26].”

What’s at stake is the very functioning of the federal government under the Constitution. The NCLA makes that clear from its mission statement:

This article was published by The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Wednesday, March 27, 2019: 

Ryan Liskey has a problem. A law-abiding citizen and gun owner living in Virginia, he happens to own a bump stock. On Monday it was legal for him to do so. On Tuesday possession became illegal. Liskey raised the key question:

Do they [the ATF] have authority to do this? No. Is it a machine gun? No.

 

So do I follow an unconstitutional edict from the Department of Justice or do we stand our ground?

If Liskey “stands his ground” and is arrested for owning the newly illegal piece of plastic, and convicted, he becomes a felon, risking huge fines and up to 10 years in federal prison.

All without Congressional assent, thanks to the burgeoning administrative state exemplified by the ATF.

But just how is that arrest going to take place if Liskey fails to comply with the new administrative edict emanating from the ATF? When Justice Department officials were asked that very question last year when the ban was being announced (albeit with the 90-day waiting period which ended on Tuesday), they waffled:

We have no plans to go door to door, nor do we have the resources. The Department of Justice primarily relies on voluntary compliance by citizens. Most firearms owners are law-abiding citizens.

Numerous lawsuits against the administrative ruling have been filed, and all but one has been tossed. The single exception affects a single individual, Clark Aposhian, who had the help of the New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA), Aposhian obtained a temporary stay of the new administrative decree. It only protects him but it opens the door for the decree’s eventual reversal.

Said NCLA’s lead counsel, “Today [March 22] the [U.S. 10th Circuit] Court of appeals told the ATF that it could not rush through the bump stock ban without meaningful judicial review. The court understands the stakes and is refusing to let an innocent owner be declared a felon, as scheduled [on March 26].”

What’s at stake is the very functioning of the federal government under the Constitution. The NCLA makes that clear from its mission statement: