Category Archives: Second Amendment

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Thursday, December 6, 2018: 

In May, in a fit of righteous do-goodism, the Boulder, Colorado, city council unanimously banned the sale or possession of so-called assault weapons along with high-capacity magazines and “bump stocks.” As a sop to those among the city’s 100,000 residents who already owned firearms, current possession of such items was grandfathered in. All that was needed was that, by December 27, a firearm owned prior to passage of the law would need to be “certified” by the local police department. A fee would be charged per weapon, and a background check run on the owner.

If the owner cleared the background check, and his check cleared the bank, he would then be issued two “certificates of ownership” showing the particulars of the firearm and the date it was issued: one to be kept with the firearm, the other to be kept somewhere safe, just in case the first one was lost or misplaced.

The city council promised

This article was published by The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Monday, September 17, 2018: 

Massad Ayoob wrote the book that put him in the forefront of authors dedicated to teaching others the enormous responsibility that comes with carrying a sidearm for personal protection, In The Gravest Extreme. In it, he wrote:

The man who wears a gun carries with it the power of life and death, and therefore the responsibility to deport himself with greater calm and wisdom than his unarmed counterpart, whose panic or misjudgment in crisis situations will have less serious consequences.

 

The power of the gun is never ignored, no matter how accustomed one becomes to the weight on his hip. A man carrying a gun for the first time is acutely, even uncomfortably, aware of its presence.

 

After a time, he ceases to notice both the weight and the responsibility, not because he has forgotten them, but because they have both been assimilated into his bearing and demeanor.

A shootout in a Chicago suburb Thursday evening began during a “routine” traffic stop (experienced police officers will say that there is no such thing as a “routine” traffic stop) when the suspect, rather than complying with orders to pull over, accelerated up an on-ramp leading onto heavily-trafficked southbound Interstate 55. The officers successfully boxed him in and he sprinted away while firing back at the officers. The suspect hit Cicero police Officer Luis Duarte four times.

His partner took off after the suspect on foot.

That was the moment when a nearby motorist, stuck in traffic, saw the incident develop, and intervened. As the Chicago Sun-Times reported,

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, September 17, 2018:  

When individuals obtain their concealed carry permit they take on an enormous responsibility. They carry the power to kill and must apply that power exceedingly judiciously.

Last week a concealed-carry permit holder was commended by police for voluntarily intervening in a shoot-out in a Chicago suburb. The incident raises the question as to when an armed private citizen should intervene — and when he should not do so.

The New American explained how the incident unfolded in our initial report on the shoot-out:

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Friday, June 29, 2018:

When Jarrod Ramos blasted his way through the front glass door of the offices of the Capital Gazette newspaper in Annapolis, Maryland, Thursday afternoon and started shooting, journalists working there dove for cover. They hid behind desks and curled up in corners so as not to be seen, holding their breaths, hoping to avoid being shot.

It took 60 seconds for armed police to arrive to subdue the shooter, but by then it was too late: Five people were killed and two others injured before he was neutralized. Phil Davis, the paper’s courts and crime reporter, explained his feelings:

I’m a police reporter. I write about this stuff … all the time. But as much as I’m going to try to articulate how traumatizing it is to be hiding under your desk, you don’t know until you’re there and you feel helpless.

He added:

There is nothing more terrifying than hearing multiple people get shot while you’re under your desk, and then hear[ing] the gunman reload.

Reporter Selene San Felice took a more active approach: She used her iPhone to text her parents to tell them that she loved them.

“When seconds count, the police are minutes away” goes the proverb. Even though the police were just 60 seconds away, it was more than enough time for the shooter to end the lives of Rob Hiassen, 59, the paper’s assistant managing editor; Gerald Fischman, editorial page editor; Wendi Winters, a features reporter; reporter John McNamara; and sales assistant Rebecca Smith. If the shooter, who had been nursing a grudge ever since the paper reported back in 2011 about a harassment case in which he pled guilty, was seeking the two responsible, they weren’t there. The columnist who wrote the original article, Eric Hartley, doesn’t work for the Capital Gazette any longer, and Thomas Marquardt, the paper’s former editor and publisher, had retired to Florida years earlier.

Media coverage focused on the motives of Ramos, calling him “recalcitrant,” angry, and uncooperative under questioning by the police. They learned that, since losing his lawsuit in 2015, Ramos had continued a long series of attacks on the paper on social media, often expressing his anger through obscenities and threats. When asked about Ramos, Marquardt said that he feared that he might be a threat to the paper, and even considered filing a restraining order against him, but ultimately decided not to.

Media reported that Ramos is being charged with murder in the first degree, as police stated that he had carefully planned the attack in advance. Bail was denied on Friday.

What the media isn’t reporting is why the journalists working Thursday afternoon at the newspaper had no means to defend themselves. Not a single one took the time to search for the real culprit: Maryland legislators who, not being bound by the state’s constitution with any protection to its citizens to own firearms (there is none), have taken it upon themselves to make it virtually impossible for anyone to obtain a concealed carry permit. Just 15,000 of the state’s six million citizens have succeeded in persuading local authorities, operating under “may issue” guidelines (instead of “shall issue” orders) to obtain one. These restrictions not only keep locals from obtaining permits but significant proof exists that police harass visitors to the state who carry concealed, thinking that their own state’s permission also applies to Maryland. They do not.

Wikipedia notes the problem: “Maryland is a ‘may issue’ state for concealed carry. Applicants must demonstrate a ‘good and substantial reason’ to carry a handgun. Permits are normally very difficult for ordinary citizens to obtain.” Once obtained, the permits must be renewed annually, providing continuing proof of the citizen’s “good and substantial reason” to carry. Personal protection against deranged and angry shooters such as Ramos is not a sufficient “good and substantial reason,” and so the journalists on Thursday were left with just desks and iPhones to defend themselves with.

Had they been allowed to exercise their Second Amendment rights (missing as noted above from the state’s constitution), the police, arriving 60 seconds too late, would have found themselves performing forensics on the likely deceased shooter and giving post-shooting interviews to most if not all of those who died on Thursday.