This afternoon TICS received a phone call from a person who could not get his firearm out of pawn at a Tennessee pawn shop because when the background check was run and the firearm information was included, the firearm turned up a STOLEN GUN entry in the FBI’s NCIC Stolen Gun File. Of course, TICS dispatched law enforcement to the pawn shop to verify the firearm as being stolen and the responding officer confiscated the firearm.

The man himself had passed the TICS/NICS check but could not get his gun back. He called TICS to complain and told TICS that he had been paying the pawn shop on the gun for two years.

This is a great example of two things:

1) It is never a good idea to purchase a firearm from someone if you are not absolutely certain of its provenance and that it is not a stolen gun.

2) If the pawn shop had checked the firearm BEFORE taking it into pawn, this problem would have been averted by all. Now, the pawn shop probably has a disgruntled customer to deal with.

Use of the new online Stolen Gun Check function included in the TICS upgrade put into operation on January 9, 2012, can help eliminate this kind of problem.

Shared by Jack.

Among the slick, million-dollar ads for the likes of Pepsi and Honda during the Super Bowl this Sunday, viewers in New York and Boston will see a far more modest spot. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino will be sitting on a couch touting an issue most politicians avoid like the plague: gun control.

No, actually, what they want is people control.  Control people, be a dick-tater.

The two mayors, whose local teams face off in the big game, are making the pitch for Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG), the organization they co-founded in 2006.

I don’t suppose both teams could lose, just to give both morons a black eye?  No, didn’t think so.  I won’t be watching the game anyway….I’ll be at church…”Lord willing and the creek don’t rise”!

Murder has been on the decline in New York and other major American cities for years, but the mayors say they still see too many dead cops and teens. On Tuesday night, Bloomberg was at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan visiting a New York police officer who had just been shot in the face in Brooklyn.

“We have someone who’s dedicated his life to protecting all of us, who has had a much too close brush with death tonight because of what appears to be an illegal gun,” Bloomberg told a news conference. He added that more Americans have been killed by illegal guns since 1968 than were killed in World War II.

I’m guessing Bloomberg doesn’t see the irony of that statement?  ILLEGAL guns.  Not law abiding LEGAL gunowners, but criminals, who can get their hands on guns about anytime they want….ILLEGALLY!  Perhaps the weasel should reconsider allowing law abiding citizens to arm themselves, and push back against the thugs?  Naw….that makes WAY too much sense.  What the clown is doing, is violating the citizens of New York’s Constitutionally protected right to “keep and bear arms”.  But that’s what libs do!

Blacklist (n.): a list of persons who are disapproved of or are to be punished or boycotted.

The definition above, from an old Webster’s dictionary, was common parlance in the late 1940s and early 1950s as the U.S. House Un-American Activities Committee investigated subversive activity, Soviet espionage and pro-communist propaganda. The committee unearthed spies and traitors — Alger Hiss among them. But when the HUAC turned its attention to Hollywood writers, directors and actors, civil libertarians cried foul. The American Civil Liberties Union and others insist those on the “Hollywood blacklist” were unfairly persecuted for exercising their constitutionally protected rights to freedom of assembly and speech.

Now there’s a new-millennium blacklist for American patriots who fail today’s political correctness test. Retired Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin, a highly decorated special operations soldier with 36 years of service in uniform, is the newest name on the roster. The silence from the “civil liberties lobby” is deafening.

It often is said that our soldiers, sailors, airmen, guardsmen and Marines serve to “protect our freedoms” and “defend our liberties.” All true. Now consider what took place this week at the United States Military Academy at West Point — an institution responsible for training young men and women to protect America from those who mean us harm. West Point cadets take an oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic,” and to “bear true faith and allegiance to the same.” Many West Point graduates will deploy to fight radical Islamists who commit acts of terror against Americans and our allies.

Read the entire column here.

I expressed my disgust, as politely as I could, here.  Organizations like CAIR and the ACLU are working overtime to destroy a once great, and Godly, nation.  Unless we reverse this trend, there will be no United States of America.  The erosion of our 1st Amendment rights may provoke the use of our 2nd Amendment rights!

Gov. Scott Walker has signed a bill that allows homeowners to legally kill intruders.

The bill, nicknamed the “Castle Doctrine,” creates a presumption of legal immunity for someone who kills or injures a person breaking into his or her home, vehicle or workplace. The measure requires a judge to presume that the use of deadly force was necessary.

IMHO, this should never even be an issue.  If someone is breaking into your home, it’s a pretty safe bet they aren’t there for tea and crumpets!

Exodus 22:2 If the thief is found breaking in, and he is struck so that he dies, there shall be no guilt for his bloodshed.

Ezekiel 33:5 He heard the sound of the trumpet, but did not take warning; his blood shall be upon himself. But he who takes warning will save his life.

I had a very dear friend who was attacked in her own bedroom by a man with a knife.  His intent was to kill her after….. If she had had a weapon, odds are, she would not have come so close to death, and lost a kidney. She is now permitted to carry at weapon at all times, even before carry was allowed in the state where she was living at the time, but if she had been able to prior to the attack?

Shared by Jack.

A: Guns have only two enemies rust and politicians.

B: Its always better to be judged by 12 than carried by 6.

C: Cops carry guns to protect themselves, not you.

D: Never let someone or something that threatens you get inside arms length.

E: Never say “Ive got a gun.” If you need to use deadly force, the first sound they hear should be the safety clicking off.

F: The average response time of a 911 call is 23 minutes, the response time of a .357 is 1400 feet per second.

G: The most important rule in a gunfight is: Always win – cheat if necessary.

H: Make your attacker advance through a wall of bullets . . . You may get killed with your own gun, but he’ll have to beat you to death with it, cause it’ll be empty.

I: If you’re in a gun fight:

1- If you’re not shooting, you should be loading.
2- If you’re not loading, you should be movin,
3- If you’re not movin’, you’re dead.

J: In a life and death situation, do something . . . It may be wrong, but do something!

K: If you carry a gun, people call you paranoid. Nonsense! If you have a gun, what do you have to be paranoid about?

L: You can say ‘stop’ or ‘alto’ or any other word, but a large bore muzzle pointed at someone’s head is pretty much a universal language.

M: You cannot save the planet, but you may be able to save yourself and your family.

Shared by Jack.

Gun rights advocates in Tennessee are embracing an Arizona law that does away with a requirement that handgun owners get a permit before carrying their weapons in public — part of a more aggressive push to loosen state gun laws next year.

After being shut out last spring, gun rights supporters are planning to step up pressure on the Republican-led legislature to ease at least some of the state’s rules on carrying a handgun before they leave to campaign for re-election next year.

Their wish list includes opening all parks in the state to handguns and making it easier to carry guns into school and workplace parking lots. Advocates also plan to test the water for legislation modeled after a law passed in Arizona in 2010 that would make a handgun carry permit optional, in what would be the broadest change to Tennessee’s gun laws in nearly 20 years.

What part of “shall not be infringed” is so hard to understand?  Will criminals and crazy people get a hold of a gun?  They do now, so why not have armed citizens that could take down the bad guy?  The cops aren’t going to do much good if the bad guy is pulling the trigger while you are pulling out your phone!  Bad guys are less likely to harass a person they KNOW are packing.  Self defense is a right.  It doesn’t come from the government, on any level.  The right to protect yourself and your family, is a God given right.

I will add, for those who are going to get their knickers in a twist….I do believe anyone who buys a handgun SHOULD take safety glasses, and learn how to actually use their weapon safely before carrying it around with ‘em. 

‘Sec. 926D. Reciprocity for the carrying of certain concealed firearms

‘(a) Notwithstanding any provision of the law of any State or political subdivision thereof, related to the carrying or transportation of firearms, a person who is not prohibited by Federal law from possessing, transporting, shipping, or receiving a firearm, and who is carrying a government-issued photographic identification document and a valid license or permit which is issued pursuant to the law of a State and which permits the person to carry a concealed firearm, may carry a concealed handgun (other than a machinegun or destructive device) that has been shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce, in any State, other than the State of residence of the person, that–

Sounds pretty good, right?  Well, I’m all for reciprocity, but I have an issue with a national list of CCP.  Isn’t it bad enough that the state already has such a list, and news agencies freely publish that list?  I don’t think I like the Feds being involved in our 2nd Amendment rights.  “Certain concealed firearms”? What if they decide my little Walther P22 shouldn’t be on that ‘certain firearms’ list? Or my itty bitty 5 shot derringer? There is nothing to stop them from listing all sorts of carry weapons. Not to mention, they could make it almost impossible to get a permit. What government giveth, government can also taketh away! 

The high rate is difficult to explain. Officials at the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation declined to comment, saying they didn’t collect that data and couldn’t comment on analysis the agency hadn’t performed.

Academia doesn’t offer much help, either.

“You would almost have to go in and look at every individual crime report across the nation,” said Don Green, executive director of the University of Tennessee’s Law Enforcement Innovation Center.

But Green offered three possibilities for the high rate: better police reporting, a large number of gang and drug-related crimes, or perhaps Tennessee’s high rate of gun ownership.

I’ve no doubt I’ll be accused of being racist.

I don’t know how much goes on Nashville, but we get the news out a Memphis, and I can tell you, 9 out of 10 shootings they show on the news, the accused is rarely white.  And there is at least one shooting on the news nightly.  Memphis is a totally Democrat run city.  From little I know, it seems that Nashville is pretty much run by the Dems as well.  Just sayin’.

The majority of legal gun owners are extremely responsible.  We are less likely to attempt robberies, or assault strangers on the street for wearing the wrong color shirt.  Anyone who tries to relate gun violence with legal gun owners are looking in the wrong direction.  Gangs have become a major problem in the larger cities in our state.  Drugs as well, especially meth, are a state wide problem.  Combine gangs, drugs, and guns, you are going to find a serious upswing in violence.  The statistics don’t seem to include how many of those involved in gun violence are legally qualified to buy and carry a gun.

Perhaps if our courts would use the death penalty more often, criminals would think twice about committing crime.  Many times we hear about juveniles being used to do the dirty work because juveniles will get sentences a few years, and then they’re out.  If a kid murders another human being, they should be sentenced the same as an adult.

Too many citizens have decided to be victims.  It’s a conscious choice.  Perhaps more legal, law abiding citizens should make the choice to NOT be a victim.  If folks in certain high crime neighborhoods would join together, they could make the streets safer for their children.  Instead, many have been so cowed by the gangs, they’re afraid to stand up. We should all remember, there are more of us than there are of them. Together we could make a big difference, and watch the crime stats decrease.

It’s now illegal for police in Tennessee to destroy guns they seize, thanks to legislation that became law last year. Some states, such as Kentucky, have been auctioning such firearms for years, bringing in an estimated half-million dollars a year. But instead, most police departments in the Nashville area hoard the guns, unwilling to sell them to the public, to the dismay of some legislators.

“Guns don’t pull their own trigger,” said state Sen. Stacey Campfield, R-Knoxville, who sponsored a stalled bill in the last legislative session to force authorities to sell seized weapons to the public. “There’s nothing wrong with them, they’re functional. This would just put it in law-abiding people’s hands.”

Rep Campfield states the obvious. But you wouldn’t know that if you listened to the anti gun rights people.  Why shouldn’t the police make money to support their efforts by selling confiscated weapons to law abiding citizens?

Though his bill failed, Campfield said it “most definitely” will be pushed during the next session.

That prospect worries Jacci McGee-Russell. Her son, Marcus, 19, was shot and killed in 2008 during a robbery at a gas station where he worked.

“You’re putting back on the street guns that may have killed somebody,” she said. “Whether the crime has been solved or not, I think they should be destroyed. There are too many guns available to potential criminals.”

I’m really sorry she lost her son to gun violence, but it wasn’t a law abiding citizen that killed him. And the gun didn’t pull it’s own trigger. No, that was a bad person, with no respect for life or law, and no matter what, such animals will find a way to get a weapon to commit their crime. Criminals don’t give a damn about the law. You can pass all the 2nd Amendment violating laws you want, and that will NOT stop the evil. Law abiding citizens, who own firearms, don’t go around robbing convenience stores and shooting innocent clerks.

“We don’t want more weapons on the street. We don’t want to be the ones providing them,” said Williamson County sheriff’s spokesman Hugh Tharpe, whose agency has been warehousing firearms since it cannot destroy them. “If we could either destroy them or turn them in to state or federal governments so they could give us money for them, that’s what we’d like to see.”

Excuse me Sheriff, but where do you think the money would come from if either the state or the federal government paid you for them? Must be a flippin’ Democrat!

Kevin Cecil, a gun owner from Arrington, said a gun’s history is irrelevant.

“A gun is an inanimate object, incapable of action in and of itself. A ‘crime gun’ sold to a buyer that undergoes a standard background check poses no more risk of being used in a crime than any other gun,” he said. “The police sell the cars seized in drug raids, and cars are used more often in crimes than guns are.”

So, why not sell the guns too? The revenue could be quite impressive. And he’s right, the history doesn’t matter. It was the criminal who perpetrated the crime, not the gun.

Sell them!

With a stroke of the governor’s pen, Florida is positioned to become the first state in the nation to prohibit physicians from asking patients if they have guns in their homes, a move some doctors say will interfere with health care.

The Florida Senate passed House Bill 155 last month by a 27-10 vote and the measure now awaits the signature of Republican Gov. Rick Scott. If signed, it would ban doctors from asking about the presence of guns or ammunition in the home.

Republican State Rep. Jason Brodeur, a sponsor of the bill, proposed the legislation following an incident in which a Florida pediatrician told a mother to find another doctor when she refused to answer questions about guns in her home.

Supporters of the legislation, including the National Rifle Association, say they’re seeking to stop doctors from invading their privacy. Critics of the bill, however, claim that doctors need to ask patients about guns to ensure their safety and to make sure they remain out of the reach of children.

Odd.  I don’t see anything in either the classical or modern Hippocratic oaths that says anything about such an intrusion.  As a matter of fact, just the opposite:

I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. (emphasis mine)

Respecting the privacy of others would include not intruding into their privacy.  Not to mention that little thing called the 2nd Amendment, which gives citizens the RIGHT to keep and bear arms.  Didn’t see anything in that either that states I, or anyone else, would have to answer such a question from a doctor.  Frankly, it’s none of their damn business.   Contrary to what many doctors would like to believe, they are NOT God.  Whether or not there are weapons in a home has nothing to do with “compassionately and effectively care for children“.

“It very much scares me, as a faculty member, that the person in the office next door to me might be carrying a gun,” said Debbie Ingram, a professor of physical therapy at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and the mother of a University of Tennessee-Knoxville student.

Well ma’am, as a faculty member, which would you rather have?  A fellow faculty member, armed and trained, or a crazed shooter, with NO ONE TO SAVE YOUR LIBTARD ASS?

“An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life.”
~ Robert Heinlein ~

Fresh off of blaming Jared Loughner’s killing spree in the Tucson mall on Sarah Palin, liberals are now blaming it on high-capacity magazines. They might as well imprison everyone named “Jared” to prevent a crime like this from ever happening again.

During the presidential campaign, Obama said: “I don’t know of any self-respecting hunter that needs 19 rounds of anything. You don’t shoot 19 rounds at a deer, and if you do, you shouldn’t be hunting.” It would have been more accurate for him to end that sentence after the word “hunter.”

It’s so adorable when people who wouldn’t know a high-capacity magazine from Vanity Fair start telling gun owners what they should want and need.

In fact, high-capacity mags put a predator like Loughner at a disadvantage because they are so long, unwieldy and difficult to conceal. This may be why the Tucson shooting appears to be the first spree killing involving a high-capacity magazine. It would have been easier for Loughner to bring two guns.

On the other hand, for a homeowner who is a poor marksman, a large-capacity clip could be a lifesaver.

But after every multiple murder, liberals come up with some crackpot idea to “do something” that invariably involves infringing on some aspect of our Second Amendment rights.

The ACLU won’t let us put nuts in mental hospitals and Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik wouldn’t lock up Loughner even after he had broken the law several times.

In an open society that includes Sheriff Dumbnik and the ACLU, deranged individuals may explode into murder and mayhem now and then. The best we can do is enact policies that will reduce the death toll when these acts of carnage occur.

There’s only one policy of any kind that has ever been shown to deter mass murder: concealed-carry laws. In a comprehensive study of all public, multiple-shooting incidents in America between 1977 and 1999, the highly regarded economists John Lott and Bill Landes found that concealed-carry laws were the only laws that had any beneficial effect.

And the effect was not small. States that allowed citizens to carry concealed handguns reduced multiple-shooting attacks by 60 percent and reduced the death and injury from these attacks by nearly 80 percent.

When there are no armed citizens to stop mass murderers, the killers are able to shoot unabated, even pausing to reload their weapons, until they get bored and stop. Some stop only when their trigger fingers develop carpal tunnel syndrome.

Consider just the school shootings — popular sites for mass murder because so many schools are “gun-free zones.” Or, as mass murderers call them, “free-fire zones.”

At Columbine High School, two students killed 12 people before ending the carnage themselves by committing suicide. They didn’t need high-capacity magazines because they were able to stop and reload.

At the Amish school shooting in 2006 in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, the deranged killer murdered five little girls and then committed suicide.

In 1998, two students in Craighead County, Arkansas, killed five people, including four little girls, before the killers decided to stop and attempt an escape.

And in 2007, a deranged student killed 32 people at Virginia Tech — 30 of them in a very short period of time in one building. He didn’t need high-capacity magazines because he had two guns and reloaded.

There was no one to stop him.

School shootings that have been halted were almost always stopped by the happenstance of an armed citizen on school property.

In 2002, an immigrant in Virginia started shooting his classmates at the Appalachian Law School in Grundy. Two of his classmates retrieved guns from their cars, forcing the killer to drop his weapon and allowing a third classmate to tackle him.

Three dead.

In Santee, Calif., in 2001, when a student began shooting his classmates, the school activated its “safe school plan” — as the principal later told CNN — by sending a “trained campus supervisor” to stop the killer.

Possibly not realizing that he was in a gun-free zone, the killer responded by shooting the trained campus supervisor three times. Fortunately, an armed off-duty San Diego policeman happened to be bringing his daughter to school that day. With a gun, he stopped the killer and held him at bay until more police could arrive.

Two dead.

In 1997, a student at Pearl High School in Pearl, Miss., had already shot several people at his high school and was headed for the junior high school when assistant principal Joel Myrick retrieved a .45 pistol from his car and pointed it at the gunman’s head, ending the slaughter.

Two dead.

In 1998, a student attending a junior high school dance at a restaurant in Edinboro, Pa., started shooting, whereupon the restaurant owner pulled out his shotgun, chased the gunman from the restaurant and captured him for the police.

One dead.

See the pattern?

In response to Columbine, schools adopted “anti-bullying” policies; in response to Virginia Tech, eBay ceased selling magazines online; in response to the Tucson shooting, liberals want to ban the particular magazine Loughner used.

And then the next killer will come along with a different arsenal and a different motive, and the only way to stop him will be with an armed citizen with a gun.