Another Contradiction of the Left

...trying to make it illegal for law abiding citizens to own guns while at the same time advocating for porous open borders whereby criminal organizations can smuggle guns into the country from Mexico. 

Guns and Goldilocks

The left wants to ban so-called AR-15 "military style assault weapons" (to use the arbitrary PC term designed to scare fellow hoplophobes).  Here is mine.

I pose the following dilemma for the left:

1. Either so-called assault weapons in the hands of many citizens would have the desired effect of making the government seriously think twice about tyranny or not. 
2. If it would, then the legality of so-called assault weapons is justified for putting a check on tyranny.
3. If it would not, then there is no justification for banning so-called assault weapons (without also banning many other guns.)
4. So either way the legality of so-called assault weapons is justified.

What the left needs is that these so-called assault weapons are just right.  They are too lethal for self-defense but not lethal enough in the hands of many law abiding citizens to thwart tyrannical aggression.  But if they are military style assault weapons, they sure sound like they'd have the desired effect of (e.g.) checking the FBI from going door to door and confiscating everyone's guns.  No doubt the U.S. military could obliterate all citizens with its massive military might, but no government set on being tyrannical over its citizens would do so.

Kids Should Have Guns

...if they're like this kid.  Nice job, Chris! 

Chris Gaither was home alone “petting the dogs” on Wednesday morning when he heard a noise upstairs.

The 11-year-old boy from Talladega, Ala., told NBC affiliate WVTM-TV that he was scared, so he grabbed a knife and steadied himself.  Chris said that a man appeared on the stairwell, but when confronted, he ran back up upstairs. When the man reappeared moments later, the boy told WVTM-TV, the individual was holding a gun.

“When he was coming down the stairs, that’s when he told me he was going to kill me, f-you and all that,” Chris said.

Instead of running, Chris told the station, he upgraded his weaponry, picking up a 9mm handgun that was in the home.

Read the rest.

Preston Sprinkle on Good Guys With Guns

The last time I wrote a critique of Preston Sprinkle's pacifist argument was a couple years ago, regarding his book on the issue.  Now Preston is taking on gun ownership and gun control, so perhaps it's time to dust off the old critical canon and fire off a blog post or two.

The latest is an exchange with Doug Wilson (I know nothing about Mr. Wilson other than what is posted in the exchange).  I think Sprinkle is on more solid ground than Wilson with respect to some of the Biblical passages discussed, e.g., the sword passage in the Bible described here, though I think Sprinkle ultimately has an unseemly dispensationalist view on killing and violence when dealing with the Old Testament.  At any rate, I don't have much to say about that post on Bible passages other than this. As with science, so with Biblical exegesis: theory is underdetermined by data.  What that means in science is that there is always more than one possible explanation for the data.  Determining the best explanation cannot be done solely by looking at the data.  The same is true with Scriptures.  Doctrine cannot simply be read off of Scripture.  Rather one has to take all of one's available evidence including evidence for how one ought to interpret Scripture.  Sprinkle does this in practice, in fact, appealing to law enforcement officers and FBI statistics elsewhere to make his case.  Yet he hasn't engaged in many philosophical critiques of pacifism.

I do have a few things to say on this post on good guys with guns stopping bad guys with guns which goes beyond the Biblical data.  It's short, so the interested reader should read the whole thing first.  Commentary below the fold.

"I'm an Evangelical Preacher. You can't be pro-life and pro-gun."

Read the whole thing if you think I'm being unfair in my comments below the fold.  It's short, thankfully, since it's mostly bad.  If this were a paper in class I'd give it a D for having no thesis and poor argumentation.  A difference between right and left will shine forth from this piece.  In spite of how badly this Evangelical Preacher argues, the left will praise him because he means well and it feels good.

In the United States, evangelicals are among the biggest supporters of gun rights. They are the major religious group least likely to support stricter laws. Evangelical Larry Pratt, who directs Gun Owners of America, even argues that all Christians should be armed.
For most of my adult life, I agreed. I believed that we had a God-given right to defend ourselves. I also believed that the Second Amendment guarantees a right to bear arms, and that anyone should be able to obtain a gun.

Obama to Ban AR-15 5.56 mm Ammo With Executive Action

Here and here.

But now [The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives] says that since the bullets can be used in semi-automatic handguns they pose a threat to police and must be banned from production, sale and use...Federal agencies will still be allowed to buy the ammo.

Well, uh, that is sort of the point.  The Second Amendment wasn't put in place to make sure that hunters can still have guns for hunting--no 18th Century fool would have thought otherwise.  It was put in place because the Founders put the brakes on governments' tyranny and complete monopoly on the use of force.  The well regulated militia ain't the National Guard.

Defending the Oppressed: Grandfather Saves Granddaughter From Rape

This is the sort of story that happens all the time that you also NEVER hear about in the mainstream media.  It goes hand-in-hand with this dismantling of Adam Gopnik's STUPID rant about gun-control at the New Yorker.

The granddad (who is not named in any news report) is a hero.  And he got his stolen Cadillac back to boot!

The last line below is priceless.

ARMED SELF-DEFENSE IN NORTH CAROLINA

Via Robert Stacy McCain, an inspiring story from North Carolina:

A Lumberton man traded gunfire with three men who forced their way into his home, robbed the family, tried to rape his granddaughter and stole his car Monday, Robeson County authorities said.

One of the men, identified as Jamie Faison, 20, was shot and found dead in the stolen Cadillac parked at his home on the 600 block of Singletary Church Road, Sheriff Kenneth Sealey said in a news release.

The two other men turned up at area hospitals with gunshot wounds. … The homeowner, Kenneth Byrd, 67, was shot multiple times, the release said. …

The family told them that a man came to the door and said he was having problems with his vehicle and needed water.

Here are the three criminals. I’m not sure which of the three rang the doorbell, and of course no one would ever recommend profiling of any sort, but if any of these guys came to your door, you should probably keep it locked:

Two men wearing black clothing, ski masks and gloves forced their way into the home and demanded money, Sealey said. All three of the men had guns.

The Byrds were pushed to the back of their home and instructed to open a safe.

When the men tried to rape the couple’s granddaughter, Byrd grabbed a gun and exchanged shots with the assailants, Sealey said.

The grandfather was shot multiple times, but prevailed. Hats off to him. I am pretty sure the granddaughter is thankful that he had a gun in the house and knew how to use it.

McCain adds this priceless observation:

Feminists had no comment, as these would-be rapists were not members of Phi Kappa Psi fraternity.

George Harrison's Death

I watched HBO's documentary on the Beatles' George Harrison last night.  Pretty interesting.  I guess I never realized that he died partly as a result of a knife attack (this is according to his son who said that he never fully recovered from the punctured lung and 40 plus stab wounds which complicated his cancer recovery). 

 On 30 December 1999, 36-year-old Michael Abram broke into the Harrisons' Friar Park home.  He and his wife heard glass breaking downstairs.  His wife went to looked and was attacked by Abram as he ran up the stairs.  Harrison came to her aid and Adams took after Harrison with a kitchen knife, puncturing a lung and causing head injuries before Olivia Harrison incapacitated the assailant by striking him repeatedly with a poker and a lamp.^[Following the attack, Harrison was hospitalized with more than forty stab wounds. He released a statement soon after regarding his assailant: "[he] wasn't a burglar, and he certainly wasn't auditioning for the Traveling Wilburys."

I'll bet Harrison wouldn't have gotten his lung punctured if he had had one of these in his bedroom:

My Favorite Christmas Present

Thanks Aunt Melody!  You are the best!