The Right Lane 1.12.13

In pursuit of Constitutionally grounded governance, free markets and individual liberty

"There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily." --George Washington

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"I ask, Sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people. To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them."

--George Mason, Speech at the Virginia Ratifying Convention, 1788

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Why The Sudden Crisis About Guns?  Why Now?  Why Not Then?

Newtown, Conn. Shooting:             Timeline of Mass Killings Since Columbine

Dozens of mass killings have occurred in the United States since two teenagers went on a rampage at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado in April of 1999, killing 12 of their fellow students and a teacher.
The deadly school shooting at a Newtown, Connecticut elementary school was the latest in a series of shooting crimes in the United States this year. The following is the list of mass killings in the United States since Columbine compiled by Reuters and the Telegraph:
April 1999 - two teenage schoolboys shot and killed 12 schoolmates and a teacher at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, before killing themselves.
July 1999 - a stock exchange trader in Atlanta, Georgia, killed 12 people including his wife and two children before taking his own life.
September 1999 - a gunman opened fire at a prayer service in Fort Worth, Texas, killing six people before committing suicide.
October 2002 - a series of sniper-style shootings occurred in Washington DC, leaving 10 dead.
August 2003 - in Chicago, a laid-off worker shot and killed six of his former workmates.
November 2004 - in Birchwood, Wisconsin, a hunter killed six other hunters and wounded two others after an argument with them.
March 2005 - a man opened fire at a church service in Brookfield, Wisconsin, killing seven people.
October 2006 - a truck driver killed five schoolgirls and seriously wounded six others in a school in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania before taking his own life.
April 2007 - student Seung-Hui Cho shot and killed 32 people and wounded 15 others at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia, before shooting himself, making it the deadliest mass shooting in the United States after 2000.
August 2007 - Three Delaware State University students were shot and killed in “execution style” by a 28-year-old and two 15-year-old boys. A fourth student was shot and stabbed.
December 2007 - a 20-year-old man killed nine people and injured five others in a shopping center in Omaha, Nebraska.
December 2007 - a woman and her boyfriend shot dead six members of her family on Christmas Eve in Carnation, Washington.
February 2008 - a shooter who is still at large tied up and shot six women at a suburban clothing store in Chicago, leaving five of them dead and the remaining one injured.
February 2008 - a man opened fire in a lecture hall at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Illinois, killing five students and wounding 16 others before laying down his weapon and surrendering.
September 2008 - a mentally ill man who was released from jail one month earlier shot eight people in Alger, Washington, leaving six of them dead and the rest two wounded.
December 2008 - a man dressed in a Santa Claus suit opened fire at a family Christmas party in Covina, California, then set fire on the house and killed himself. Police later found nine people dead in the debris of the house.
March 2009 - a 28-year-old laid-off worker opened fire while driving a car through several towns in Alabama, killing 10 people.
March 2009 - a heavily armed gunman shot dead eight people, many of them elderly and sick people, in a private-owned nursing home in North Carolina.
March 2009 - six people were shot dead in a high-grade apartment building in Santa Clara, California.
April 2009 - a man shot dead 13 people at a civic center in Binghamton, New York.
July 2009 - Six people, including one student, were shot in a drive-by shooting at a community rally on the campus of Texas Southern University, Houston.
November 2009 - U.S. army psychologist Major Nidal Hasan opened fire at a military base in Fort Hood, Texas, leaving 13 dead and 42 others wounded.
February 2010 – A professor opened fire 50 minutes into at a Biological Sciences Department faculty meeting at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, killing three colleagues and wounding three others.
January 2011 - a gunman opened fire at a public gathering outside a grocery in Tucson, Arizona, killing six people including a 9-year-old girl and wounding at least 12 others. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was severely injured with a gunshot to the head.

2013 to date:
April 2 - A gunman kills seven people and wounds three in a shooting rampage at a Christian college in Oakland.
July 20 - A masked gunman kills 12 people and wounds 58 when he opens fire on moviegoers at a showing of the Batman film "The Dark Knight Rises" in Aurora, a suburb of Denver, Colorado.
Aug. 5 - A gunman kills six people during Sunday services at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, before he is shot dead by a police officer.
Aug. 24 - Two people are killed and eight wounded in a shooting outside the landmark Empire State Building in New York City at the height of the tourist season.
Sept. 27 - A disgruntled former employee kills five people and takes his own life in a shooting rampage at a Minneapolis sign company from which he had been fired.
Oct. 21 - Three people are killed in a Milwaukee area spa including the estranged wife of the suspected gunman, who then killed himself.
Dec. 14 - A shooter opens fire at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, killing 26  people including children.

So, now after 14 years, we have a National crisis worthy of defeating or throwing out the second amendment?  Did you notice the numbers while Obama has been in office? Don't be fooled. There is an agenda - but it is not about protection from deranged or evil people.

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Obama Wants Your Guns but Signs Bill Giving Him Armed Protection for Life

Despite launching a gun control agenda that threatens to disarm the American people, President Obama has signed a bill that would afford him armed Secret Service protection for life. “The legislation, crafted by Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy of South Carolina, rolls back a mid-1990s law that imposed a 10-year limit on Secret Service protection for former presidents. Bush would have been the first former commander in chief affected,” reports Yahoo News. The new bill, which will cost American taxpayers millions of dollars, is a re-instatement of a 1965 law which will see presidents protected for life as well as their children up to age 16. The irony of Obama seeking to surround himself with armed men for the rest of his life while simultaneously working to disarm the American people via a gun control agenda that is likely to be enforced via executive decree represents the height of hypocrisy.

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NRA Calls Biden Meeting ‘Attack on Second Amendment’  By: Todd Beamon

The president of the National Rifle Association on Thursday said there was no negotiation with the Obama administration on gun rights in an effort to stem violence in the wake of the shootings at a Connecticut elementary school last month. “There isn’t on guns,” NRA President David Keene told CNN. “There is not on guns, not that I can see.” Keene’s remarks came as Vice President Joseph Biden on Thursday said he saw a growing consensus for the federal government to seek universal background checks for gun buyers and a ban on high-capacity ammunition magazines [ I assume he has added "mind reading" to his numerous skills]. But the NRA president told CNN that the association could work with the White House in trying to get those who have been determined by law to be mentally ill into a national registry of those who are barred from purchasing firearms. “That would make a difference, because the people who have been involved in these shootings have been people who are severely mentally ill,” Keene said, referring to the Dec. 14 shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., in which 20 children and six adults died. “We don’t think you should demonize everybody who’s got a mental problem, but the fact is that there are people who are not in the gray area,” Keene told CNN. “They should not be allowed to buy firearms.” Earlier on Thursday, the nation’s largest gun lobby said it was “disappointed” at a meeting a representative attended with Biden’s task force seeking solutions to end gun violence in the nation. The NRA said the session, which included five other gun-rights organizations and other Obama administration officials, amounted to a strategy session on how to thwart the Second Amendment. “We were disappointed with how little this meeting had to do with keeping our children safe and how much it had to do with an agenda to attack the Second Amendment,” the NRA said in a statement after the session. “While claiming that no policy proposals would be ‘prejudged,’ this task force spent most of its time on proposed restrictions on lawful firearms owners — honest, taxpaying, hard-working Americans.”

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Obama Admin Defended Agents Putting Gun To Little Girl’s Head by Tim Brown

While acting as if they are holier than the rest of us when it comes to gun control, the Obama administration defended agents of the Drug Enforcement Agency’s use of force against the 11-year-old and 14-year-old daughters of Thomas and Rosalie Avina. The “excessive” force included putting a gun to the youngest girl’s head. Attorneys for the Obama administration defended the actions of the agents arguing that “the DEA agents’ conduct was plainly reasonable under the circumstances,” under the Bush administration in 2007. What kind of circumstances would lead one to think it was “reasonable” to put a gun to an 11-year-old girl’s head?

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The Second Amendment Is the Nuclear Option By Skip Coryell

The year was nineteen-sixty-two. The President was John F. Kennedy. The Cuban missile crisis began on 15 October and continued on for thirteen days after an American U2 aircraft took photographs of missile sites under construction on the communist island of Cuba. The Soviet Union was about to place medium-range and intermediate-range ballistic nuclear missiles just ninety-four miles off the Florida Keys. It is generally regarded as the closest the world has ever come to total annihilation. For thirteen tense days the world balanced on the apex of the knife. Fall to the left – we die. Fall to the right – we’re enslaved. President Kennedy didn’t flinch. Premier Khrushchev backed down and nuclear war was averted. But the strategy of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) was born.  Fast forward to January 9, 2013. Vice President Joe Biden bangs his shoe on the table and says: “The president is going to act … There are executive orders, there’s executive action that can be taken. We haven’t decided what that is yet. But we’re compiling it all with the help of the attorney general and the rest of the cabinet members as well as legislative action that we believe is required.” The Second Amendment is now under attack like never before. Joe Biden’s words were the proverbial “shot across the bow” as a precursor to all-out war on American gun owners. Have the anti-gunners overstepped? Or, will they succeed in killing American freedom for generations to come? Isn’t that up to us, the American people? And hasn’t it always been so? We are at a crossroads in history, and we can choose to buy peace at the price of chains and slavery, or we can stand up and fight for the liberty of our children and our children’s children. There’s a lot at stake. What the Obama administration is proposing is nothing short of MAD. It’s the Cuban Missile Crisis of our generation, and how we respond to it will define us. Yet they seem so cock-sure, so confident that it’s unnerving. But arrogance is a weakness that cries out for exploitation. I say we give it to them. If this is a trial balloon, then we blow it out of the sky, thereby sending them a message once and forever that Americans will not go quietly into the night. We will not bow and accept the noose. Instead, if you come to take our guns, then we will fight. The phrase “Molon Labe” ( “come and get them”) has never been more relevant.

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Executive Order Banning Guns Prohibited by…Obamacare?

Many on the right have been focusing on a provision hidden deep within the 2,800 page Obamacare legislation that prohibits the Feds from regulating guns and ammo and collecting data on legal gun-owners. CNN called it a “gift to the nation’s powerful gun lobby.” But does it really prohibit Obama from issuing a sweeping executive order banning guns? There is a small provision in Obamacare entitled, “Protection of Second Amendment Rights” in Section 2716, part c. In fact, it was included courtesy of Harry “NRA” Reid. It was his way of preventing the NRA, one of his big contributors, from fighting Obamacare, which they threatened to do unless they got a provision in it that they could brag about to their members. Here’s what that section says:

A wellness and health promotion activity implemented under subsection (a)(1)(D) may not require the disclosure or collection of any information relating to—(A) the presence or storage of a lawfully-possessed firearm or ammunition in the residence or on the property of an individual; or (B) the lawful use, possession, or storage of a firearm or ammunition by an individual.

• None of the authorities provided to the Secretary under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act or an amendment made by that Act shall be construed to authorize or may be used for the collection of any information relating to—(A) the lawful ownership or possession of a firearm or ammunition; (B) the lawful use of a firearm or ammunition; or (C) the lawful storage of a firearm or ammunition.
• None of the authorities provided to the Secretary under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act or an amendment made by that Act shall be construed to authorize or may be used to maintain records of individual ownership or possession of a firearm or ammunition.

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NRA Membership Explodes as Gun Grab Talk Escalates By: David A. Patten

What can we draw from the behavior?  Are these deranged people buying guns?  No, they are law abiding citizens acting out of fear of their own government! The National Rifle Association reports that its membership is rapidly swelling even as Democrats and the Obama administration gear up for a major push to enact new gun-control laws. The NRA reports it has added more than 100,000 members in the past 18 days. Membership of the pro-Second Amendment organization now stands at 4.2 million. “Our goal is to get to 5 million before this debate is over,” an NRA source told Politico.  NRA officials are meeting Thursday with the Obama administration’s emissary on the issue, Vice President Joe Biden. NRA leaders say they are willing to discuss any “reasonable proposals and plans,” but will not compromise on Second Amendment rights. The NRA and other pro-Second Amendment organizations are fighting to counter a growing PR push that appears intent on using the Newtown tragedy to fuel a major push for gun control. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in his State of the State address Wednesday called for a sweeping rewrite of the Empire State’s gun laws. The Democrat is rumored to be positioning himself for a run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016. Biden, meanwhile, is facing strong pushback on Capitol Hill for his statement Wednesday that President Obama could issue an executive order restricting gun-owner rights -- without congressional input. “Vice President Biden would do well to read the Second Amendment and revisit the meaning of the phrase ‘shall not be infringed,’” Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., said. “Bypassing Congress to implement radical policies is never acceptable.”

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Lawsuit: Obama Steered Tens of Millions to Green Energy Cronies By: Tom Schoenberg

President Barack Obama’s administration played favorites on clean-energy loans while improperly blocking a carmaker and a related technology company from receiving millions in aid, according to two lawsuits.  XP Vehicles and Limnia filed complaints against the U.S. and the Energy Department today in two federal courts in Washington, seeking damages for what they say were abuses of the $25 billion Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing loan program. XP Vehicles, which has dissolved, and Limnia are asking for $450 million in a case filed in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims and at least $225 million in U.S. District Court. “Defendants used the ATVM loan program as nothing more than a veil to steer hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to government cronies,” according to the district court complaint. He was also counsel for Republican U.S. Representative Darrell Issa’s House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which is leading a probe of the department’s loan programs. XP Vehicles, or XPV, said it applied in 2008 for a $40 million loan in an effort to mass produce an SUV-style electronic vehicle with doors and other parts made from foam. The starting price for the vehicle was The Energy Department has made five loans under the advanced-vehicles program — none since the 2011 bankruptcy of Solyndra — and $16 billion remains undistributed.

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Biden Compares Gun Control to Car Air Bags: 'We're Saving Lives' By Fred Lucas

Vice President Joe Biden on Thursday compared restrictions on guns to auto safety regulations such as air bags, by saying neither the gun nor the auto industries wanted regulations to save lives. “Well they didn’t want to have air bags. Well, guess what? We have air bags. We’re saving lives,” Biden told reporters before a meeting with several stakeholders on the gun-control issue, as he plans to craft a set of proposals for President Barack Obama by Tuesday, Jan. 15. The proposals are expected to include a renewed ban on so-called assault weapons, and beefed-up background checks.  Get the message?  The left will use any rationalization no matter how nutty to attempt to sell subverting the Second Amendment.

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Panetta on Sequestration: 'We Have No Idea What the Hell's Going to Happen' By Susan Jones

"Fiscal uncertainty" is the most immediate threat confronting the Defense Department, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said on Thursday. He said a "perfect storm of budget uncertainty" -- including "additional meat-axe cuts as a result of sequestration" -- could seriously harm military readiness and result in civilian furloughs, a hiring freeze and the delay of some Defense contracts. Panetta noted that the recent fiscal cliff deal has delayed sequestration (deep and automatic Defense Department budget cuts) from taking effect until March 1st, which is less than 50 days away. "While we appreciate the fact that both parties came together to delay sequester, the unfortunate thing is that sequester itself, and the sequester threat, was not removed.  So the prospect of it happening again is undermining our ability to responsibly manage this department in the current fiscal year.  

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Banning Weapons A Feel-Good Gesture… ‘Unless You’re Prepared to Confiscate’

The man who joined forces with Ralph Nader in the 1970s to virtually invent the consumer-interest lawsuit said Thursday that an outright ban on “assault weapons” might make some people feel better, but it would do nothing to curb violence at schools. George Washington University Law Professor Alan Morrison says gun confiscation is the way to go. “Now obviously, we all want to stop the killing in the schools. But how are we going to do that? Gun registration, if that happened – (is that) enough? After all, the killer’s mother had a registered gun. It was properly locked up. He was able to get hold of it and take it to the schools,” he said. “So suppose we outlawed assault weapons? Harsh as it may seem, would it have deterred this person from going to the school if he could only fire six rounds at a time? I doubt it,” he continued.  Another blatant rationalization, don't buy it.

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Is the U.S. Temperature Record Reliable? By Anthony Watts

Global warming is one of the most serious issues of our times. Some experts claim the rise in temperature during the past century was “unprecedented” and proof that immediate action to reduce human greenhouse gas emissions must begin. Other experts say the warming was very modest and the case for action has yet to be made. The reliability of data used to document temperature trends is of great importance in this debate. We can’t know for sure if global warming is a problem if we can’t trust the data. The official record of temperatures in the continental United States comes from a network of 1,221 climate-monitoring stations overseen by the National Weather Service, a department of the national Oceanic and atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Until now, no one had ever conducted a comprehensive review of the quality of the measurement environment of those stations.

During the past few years I recruited a team of more than 650 volunteers to visually inspect and photographically document more than 860 of these temperature stations. We were shocked by what we found. We found stations located next to the exhaust fans of air conditioning units, surrounded by asphalt parking lots and roads, on blistering-hot rooftops, and near sidewalks and buildings that absorb and radiate heat. We found 68 stations located at wastewater treatment plants, where the process of waste digestion causes temperatures to be higher than in surrounding areas. In fact, we found that 89 percent of the stations – nearly 9 of every 10 – fail to meet the National Weather Service’s own siting requirements that stations must be 30 meters (about 100 feet) or more away from an artificial heating or radiating/reflecting heat source. In other words, 9 of every 10 stations are likely reporting higher or rising temperatures because they are badly sited. It gets worse. We observed that changes in the technology of temperature stations over time also has caused them to report a false warming trend. We found major gaps in the data record that were filled in with data from nearby sites, a practice that propagates and compounds errors. We found that adjustments to the data by both NOAA and another government agency, NASA, cause recent temperatures to look even higher. The conclusion is inescapable: The U.S. temperature record is unreliable. The errors in the record exceed by a wide margin the purported rise in temperature of 0.7º C (about 1.2º F) during the twentieth century. consequently, this record should not be cited as evidence of any trend in temperature that may have occurred across the U.S. during the past century. Since the U.S. record is thought to be “the best in the world,” it follows that the global database is likely similarly compromised and unreliable. This report presents actual photos of more than 100 temperature stations in the U.S., many of them demonstrating vividly the siting issues we found to be rampant in the network. Photographs of all 865 stations that have been surveyed so far can be found here, where station photos can be browsed by state or searched for by name.  Always be wary when you read or hear the term "...experts say...."