Unasked Questions

The murder, last week, of the school children in Minnesota was a tragedy beyond belief.  Every parent has to shudder at the thought.

Of course, the anti-2A leftists immediately sounded the call for more gun control as if that was the only solution.  This confirms that the left’s ultimate purpose is not safety but to remove all civilian gun ownership from the United States.  If their goal was safety, they would also look at equally legitimate issues. 

For instance:

Isn’t it legitimate to question whether having Gun Free School Zones (GFSZ) is effective and questioning whether GFSZ is even a good idea?

Gun-free zones began with the Gun-Free School Zone Act (GFSZA) Of 1990  which was declared unconstitutional by the U S Supreme Court in United State v Lopez.  So, in 1995, Congress amended the GFSZA to apply only to firearms that had moved in interstate commerce, which is, effectively, almost all firearms.  This reinstated the gun-free zone framework.

Because of the GFSZA, every school shooting since 1995 has happened in a gun free zone. 

The Minnesota shooter wrote: “I recently heard a rumor that James Holmes, the Aurora theater shooter, may have chosen venues that were “gun-free zones.” I would probably aim the same way… Holmes wanted to make sure his victims would be unarmed. That’s why I and many others like schools so much.”

In 2018, the Crime Prevention Research Center released a study showing that 97.8% of mass shootings that occurred over a 68-year period were carried out in GFSZA’s. The Crime Prevention Research Center also found that armed civilians ended 33.8% of active shooter incidents between 2014 and 2021, when they were present and legally able to respond.

Isn’t the issue of gender change and mental illness also deserving of further exploration?

The shooter was a biological boy who changed his name to a girl.  In his writings, he expressed regret at assuming another gender. 

‘Transitioned’ and ‘non binary’ murderers were responsible for murders at the Covenant School in Nashville Tennessee, in a Colorado Springs LGBTQ nightclub, at a Denver-area charter school and at a Rite Aid warehouse in Aberdeen, Maryland.  Some would say that these are a small percentage of mass murders.  But transgender people are a small percentage of the population. 

The Minnesota boy’s mother signed off on the name change to a girl.  Would results have been different if gender change had been treated as a mental illness instead of validating it?

Should the issue of developing ‘Red Flag’ laws that are constitutional have been raised?

The Minnesota murderer left writings which indicated, as one person put it, he hated everybody.  There were probably lots of other signs that this person had severe mental / antisocial issues.  All the more reason for ‘Red Flag’ laws?  But most ‘Red Flag’ laws are only fronts for ignoring the Constitution in the drive to disarm all Americans.  If the goal was really safety, why don’t the anti 2Aers develop laws that don’t trample the Constitution?   

Why wasn’t there security at the school?

Many people believe blue state governments are controlled by teachers’ unions and the union leaders campaign against any school system other than public schools.  Since the Minnesota murders happened at a nonpublic Catholic School, where was the security? 

The Minnesota Catholic Conference wrote Governor Tim Walz twice in two years for a small security grant to protect against school shootings because nonpublic schools were excluded from Minnesota’s $50 million Building and Cyber Security Grant Program and Minnesota’s Safe Schools Program.  Their 2023 letter to Walz wrote: “There are approximately 72,000 students enrolled in Independent, Catholic, Jewish, Christian, and Muslim nonpublic schools in our state.”

Shouldn’t someone be asking why 72,000 students were not included in a Safe Schools Program?

What impact did the shooter’s use of marijuana have in this tragedy?

It's reported that the Minnesota shooter wrote: “Gender and weed f*cked up my head. I wish I never tried experimenting with either.”

A Canadian study of 14 million shows how the risk of schizophrenia attributable to cannabis rose from 4% to 10% with legalization of cannabis (in 2018):https://t.co/Zc84KlPYnl pic.twitter.com/QRA9oyGVRF

 In another cohort study of individuals aged 14 to 65 years in Ontario, Canada, the proportion of incident cases of schizophrenia associated with Cannabis Use Disorder (CUD) almost tripled during a period of substantial liberalization of cannabis policy. Changes in Incident Schizophrenia Diagnoses Associated With Cannabis Use Disorder After Cannabis Legalization - PubMed

Thoughts and prayers

Tennessee State Representative Justin Jones said something others on the left have echoed: “…you have all these people who want to give thoughts and prayers after a shooting, but I was a minister, and that is a form of theological malpractice when you pray for something that you have the power to change.”

He’s right in that that it’s theological malpractice to do nothing when he and other legislators have the power to change things.  But he ignores that he and others like him let their drive to eliminate legal gun ownership blind them to addressing the real causes of these tragedies.

And criticizing prayers for those killed and injured and the bereaved families is one of the few ways most of us can react when liberal legislators in Blue States, like him, block the road to real solutions. 

Conclusion

After every tragedy, anti 2A leftists want the one and only issue to be gun control.  But the real issues are untreated mental illness, societal isolation, the failure of existing systems to intervene before violence erupts and on-line radicalizations.

Mass murders will always be exploited by anti-gun activists to push for restrictive laws that infringe on law-abiding citizens’ rights, rather than address the many causes of these issues.

86 Years Ago

The most effective ‘mouthpiece’ of those who would take away our 2nd Amendment protected rights is the New York Times (NYT).  The leadership on the left swear by it.  (The rest of us swear at it!)  The NYT repeats anti-2A propaganda and many readers unquestioningly believe whatever the NYT prints.

A favorite tactic of the left is to try and destroy the credibility of those that oppose them by highlighting even the smallest issue.  It’s time 2A defenders went on the offense and highlighted something that was no small issue; the NYT got it wrong and it contributed to 20 million people being killed.         

Below is a cautionary tale about unquestioned belief in the NYT that is reprinted from Legal Insurrection.

‘In 1939, Hitler and Stalin concluded secret negotiations, which resulted in the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact on August 23 of that year, to bring about their desired division of Eastern Europe, beginning with Poland. This pact allowed Hitler to invade Poland with the Soviets’ blessing, which, as is well known, set into motion the Second World War.’

‘What is much less well known is that the New York Times reported on the start of the War by repeating and reinforcing the Nazi propaganda. The renowned author and journalist Ashley Rindsberg elaborates on this fact in his recent bestseller The Gray Lady Winked: How the New York Times’s Misreporting, Distortions and Fabrications Radically Alter History (p. 27): The New York Times bought the Nazi dupe without flinching. Underneath its famous banner, “All the News That’s Fit to Print,” the paper reported that, according to “Chancellor Hitler,” Germany had been attacked. Already in the second paragraph of the Times’s front-page article, the reporter … reprint[ed] verbatim Hitler’s infamous war speech to the Reichstag, which the Führer used to justify to the world, as much as to the German people, his invasion of Poland….’

‘Rindsberg describes this New York Times article as “what likely constitutes the single biggest, yet least recognized, journalistic failure on record.” (p. 26)  Eighty-six years later, American socialists and progressives, and even numerous liberals, still swear by the content and narrative promoted by the Times. They consider reading and trusting the paper a matter of intellectual refinement, social awareness, and moral superiority.’ (Emphasis added)

What Legal Insurrection did not talk about was that the NYT had a history of misrepresenting what was happening in the USSR.  Walter Duranty was a New York Times reporter, living in relative comfort in Moscow with his mistress, while Duranty covered up Stalin’s crimes, including the Ukrainian famine / genocide. 

He was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting. 

Malcolm Muggeridge, a British journalist of note, later described Duranty as “the greatest liar of any journalist I have met in fifty years of journalism.”

But no editor at the NYT thought to question Duranty’s reporting.  Could it be that the NYT’s ideological sympathy was in line with socialism just as it is in line, today, with the anti-2A movement?

Gun grabbers use every opportunity to tell the general public of the awfulness of civilian gun ownership.  As defenders of 2A, we are well informed of the counter arguments, but those who exclusively read the NYT probably never read those counter arguments.  And those same readers put the NYT on a pedestal that it does not deserve.

Animal Farm

Ronald Reagan once joked:   A woman was getting married for the 4th time and was looking at wedding dresses.  The salesgirl was concerned that the bride was only looking at white dresses and hesitantly said: “White is generally reserved for first timers.”

“Oh, it’s my first time,” the bride replied.

“But you’ve been married three times?”

“Yes, but my first husband and I got into a terrible fight on the way to the reception.  We never spoke again and got divorced.”

“My second husband got too excited as we were undressing on the wedding night and died of a heart attack.”

“And my third husband, he was a socialist and all he did was sit on the edge of the bed and tell me how great it was going to be!

Socialists always tell us how great tomorrow will be under their leadership - but tomorrow never comes.

This month is the 80th anniversary of Animal Farm, which was published in August 1945. 

It exposed the myths surrounding socialism / communism and big government, where tomorrow never comes.

Animal Farm tells the tale of revolutionary farm animals overthrowing the human farmer, only to find themselves governed by a cabal of pigs who prove even more cruel and oppressive than the human they replaced.  

Those ruling pigs continually promise a new utopia, tomorrow, in which all animals enjoy equality.  Instead, the governing pigs ruthlessly consolidate power, distort the truth and live lives of luxury while the animals under their rule toil harder than ever.  Orwell famous line, “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others” gets to the very root of socialism / communism.  

The working animals on Orwell’s fictional farm learned too late that they’d been duped.  Their sacrifices merely paved the way for a new elite class repeating egalitarian slogans. 

Orwell’s central message was that revolutions promising equality rather than individual freedom will devolve into a system of privilege and abuse.  Castro in Cuba, Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran, Mao in China and Stalin in the USSR provided equality; all but the elite were equally poor.  

Animal Farm exposes the corruption and privilege that ensue when government becomes too powerful and leaders impose their will on others, while rationalizing that hypocrisy.  It provides a cautionary tale about human nature and excessive government power. 

Those leaders who rail most loudly against alleged privilege and inequality often indulge in privilege after they gain power themselves.  For instance: Lyndon Johnson (War on Poverty) and Bernie Sanders (“millionaires and billionaires aren’t paying their fair share) were born poor and spent their life in ‘public service’ and became multi-millionaires. 

The reality remains the same.  Socialist rulers thrive within the system while excusing themselves from the standards they preach.  For example: they want to do away with citizen ownership of firearms while surrounding themselves with armed guards. 

About crime in Washington D.C., New York’s anti-gun Senator Chuck Schumer recently said, “I walk around all the time (in D.C.)…And I feel perfectly safe."  Omitted by Schumer is that he enjoys the comfort of full-time, taxpayer-funded armed security details, provided by the U.S. Capitol Police.  

Hypocrisy, thy name is Schumer.

Orwell’s warning thus remains:  Beware of leaders who preach most loudly of equality, because they typically make themselves “more equal” than the rest of us, when given too much power.  

On a related note, N Y State Senator Tom O’Mara has spoken to SCOPE chapters and said that when he first joined the NY legislature, twenty-one years ago, if he called a Democrat a Socialist, they would have vehemently denied it.  Now, the Democrats in the NY legislature embrace that title.

Not Coming After Hunting Rifles - Yet

Hunters, notoriously, don’t vote.  One study said that, nationwide, only between 30% and 50% of hunters vote.

Why don’t they get involved since Democrats have been coming after 2nd Amendment gun rights in increasingly radical fashion?  One answer is that some hunters feel the Democrats are not coming after their guns.  That’s no longer true (actually, it never was true but now there is proof.)

Connecticut State attorneys are arguing before the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit that hunting rifles, particularly semi-automatic ones like the AR-15, are not protected by the Constitution.

Background:

The National Association for Gun Rights (NAGR) and co-plaintiffs are suing the state of Connecticut to overturn their assault weapon and magazine bans as infringing on Second Amendment rights.

As well, NAGR seeks a preliminary injunction to stop enforcement of these laws. 

In a 2nd Circuit appeals court hearing as to the preliminary injunction, the Connecticut Attorney General’s office raised a surprising new issue; it argued that the Second Amendment only protects guns commonly used for self-defense but does not protect hunting rifles, particularly semi-automatic ones.  Connecticut is saying the AR15 is a hunting rifle, NOT a self-defense weapon and, therefore, Connecticut has the authority to regulate it.

Connecticut based their position on a previous Supreme Court ruling (Heller) which stated that the Constitution guarantees the right to self-defense but does not offer blanket protection for all weapons. 

NAGR counterargued that the AR-15 is the most popular rifle in the U.S. (in common use) and is neither dangerous nor unusual and, counter to media hype,  are rarely used in mass shootings.

The eventual decision will only involve the preliminary injunction to stop enforcement of the law while the actual suit over the law is being heard.  The issue of 2A not protecting hunting rifles is likely to be a big issue when the actual suit against the laws is heard.

For now, hunting rifles remain legal in Connecticut since existing law has not banned them.

A circuit-level victory here will establish legal precedent throughout the entire 2nd Circuit, which includes New York State.  NAGR losing would open the door to NY State banning AR-15’s as non self-defense weapons.    

Democrat leaders are always looking for any opportunity to further extend their war on guns, no matter how slight.  Hunters might want to reconsider not voting while using the excuse that Democrats aren’t coming for their guns.  As seen in Connecticut, it’s not a question of IF but WHEN they are coming.

SCOPE Banquet:  Attorney General candidate to be at SCOPE banquet New York Attorney General Letitia James has ridden rough shod over the judicial system in New York, using it to punish those of which she does not approve, using what is now called ‘lawfare.’ A Grand Jury is investigating her for using her office to deprive Donald Trump of his rights as she ran for NY State Attorney General on the platform of ‘getting’ Donald Trump and the NRA.  She also accused Donald Trump of real estate fraud but she is now being investigated for real estate fraud, herself.  James has actively defended NY’s Concealed Carry Improvement Act as well as proposing a law to make it illegal to purchase ammo in another state without going through NY’s background check. Without question, she is an enemy of 2A. At the SCOPE annual banquet on September 27th,* a 2026 election challenger to James will be there.  Mike Henry is running for the Republican nomination for NY Attorney General.  Henry leaves no doubt about where he stands on Letitia James.  “The time for politicized justice is over. The NY Attorney General's office under Letitia James, has turned into a partisan weapon and has to be defeated.” We are familiar with Letitia James and her stance on 2A but the banquet will give you a chance to learn more about Mike Henry in face-to-face meetings and discussions. The 2026 Attorney General election is vitally important to the future of 2A in NY State and this gives you an opportunity to ‘scope out’ a candidate. The banquet Emcee will be Canisteo native Bob Lonsberry.  Lonsberry is a conservative American radio talk show host, columnist, and author. Also, an Army veteran and marathon runner.  His frank opinions are often controversial and always interesting. Lonsberry has been a newspaper reporter, columnist, photojournalist and editor, as well as a magazine writer and commentator on radio (Radio talk-show host at WHAM, WSYR, WGY and WAIO) and television.  He has also been a TV reporter and manager. Lonsberry has spoken at SCOPE chapter meetings and he will make the evening interesting. The SCOPE banquet is on September 27th at the Palmyra VFW, 4312 NY Rte-31, Palmyra, NY.  It starts at 5:00 PM. Tickets can be found either online at scopeny2a.org, in the newest Firing Lines, or you can download an order form. Deadline to RSVP is September 12th.

The July/August edition of the SCOPE newsletter, The Firing Lines, is now available.

DO GUN FREE ZONES SERVE A PURPOSE?  by Bohdan Rabarsky 

On Saturday afternoon, July 26th, at a Traverse City Michigan Walmart, a knife wielding attacker stabbed 11 shoppers before he was stopped by a good guy with a gun. Former Marine Derrick Perry, a veteran and well trained in the use of firearms and having a State of Michigan conceal carry permit, used his personal firearm to stop the attacker from committing further carnage. According to County Sheriff Michael Shea, from the time the 911 call came in until the attacker was stopped by the Marine Veteran, it took all of one minute.

Once again, a good guy with a gun stops a bad guy from harming more citizens.

The attacker will be charged with 1 count of terrorism and 11 counts of assault with intent to murder.

On Monday, July 28th, a shooter with preplanned motives, who had driven from Nevada to New York City, double parked his car 20 to 30 yards away from the targeted building that he planned on entering. He walked through a busy area of New York City for 15 to 20 seconds, openly carrying an AR-15 style rifle, without any resistance, into the Manhattan office building where he planned his mass murders.

With New York City being a perpetual “Gun Free Zone”, who was going to stop the shooter who was defiantly openly carrying his rifle? Definitely not a good guy with a gun, as it’s virtually impossible to get a conceal carry permit in New York City. The City is an investigative journalistic newsroom covering New York City.  According to it, in 2023*, 5,000 people applied for concealed carry permits and 503 were approved. In a city of 8.5 million citizens, the chances of someone being there to stop the shooter were slim.

Once again, a Gun Free Zone is nothing more than a feel-good measure that serves no purpose but it does embolden those that don’t follow the laws and leaves the rest of us helpless.

*The latest numbers available

$4,706

The ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ lowered the tax stamp fee from $200 to $0 for suppressors, short-barreled rifles (SBRs) and short-barreled shotguns (SBSs). It takes effect in January 2026.

During negotiations over the bill, Senator Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, proposed a $1 tax stamp fee instead of a $0 charge (It was defeated.)  Why would an anti-2A Senator propose a $1 tax?   Because he wanted to be sure the path to increasing the tax stamp charge was kept open.  A tax must have a revenue-raising purpose to be constitutional. Since a $0 tax stamp generates no revenue, the government will struggle to defend the tax stamp in court; the entire tax stamp idea could be thrown out.

In for a penny, in for a pound.

That same Senator Murphy has proposed an amendment to H.R. 3944, (the 2026 appropriations bill for military construction and the Department of Veterans Affairs,) that would raise the tax to $4,709! It would also impose a $55 tax on actions currently exempt under the code.

"If we want to save lives in this country, we have to find a way, come hell or high water, to stop mass legalization of silencers in this country," said Murphy in a press conference last month.  But Senator Murphy failed to quote any statistics as to how many people are killed in any year by a suppressed firearm. 

Suppressors are now legal in 42 states, (New York not being one of them.)  A study of Criminal Use of Firearm Silencers by Paul A Clark states: “The data indicates that use of silenced firearms in crime is a rare occurrence, and is a minor problem.”  That’s why Senator Murphy isn’t quoting any statistics!

Socialism says it creates equality but every socialist society in history has created a two-tiered system; the elites (government and the rich) and everyone else.  This proposal is right in line with those principles.  Murphy would establish a two-tiered system for the Second Amendment, where the rich will be able to exercise rights that the middle class and those in poverty cannot financially afford.

There is a reasonable chance that this amendment may be rejected on technical grounds.  But Murphy’s amendment is a warning to all gun owners as to what will happen if he and his anti-2A cohorts ever get back in the Senate majority.  They can’t repeal 2A but they can price it out of the reach of ordinary law-abiding Americans.

H R 4676 On July 23rd, proposed bill HR4676 (the Modern Firearms Safety Act) was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives and referred to its Judiciary Committee. The bill’s official summary of purpose reads: “To prohibit the imposition of requirements that handguns have certain features generally absent from firearms in common use, and to restore the civil and natural rights of Americans in States hostile to liberty, and for other purposes.“ “States hostile to liberty” sounds like it is describing New York State!  (And California, Massachusetts, Illinois, etc.) HR4676 would preempt any requirements that exceed those imposed by Federal statute.  It would make it illegal for any state or political subdivision to pass a law or regulation which mandates: “any design feature, functionality, safety mechanism, or performance standard that is not required by Federal statute.”  (Emphasis added.)  It won’t stop NY State from passing these laws but they would be immediately voided by any reasonable court since the wording is very clear. In particular this law would ban state laws requiring microstamping, among other things.  (Microstamping is not required by federal law.) Why is this law necessary?  The bill explains: “State and local governmental requirements for handgun design that mandate features not ordinarily present on the affected models: limit the selection of handguns available to law-abiding citizens in these jurisdictions; artificially inflate the price of constitutionally protected arms; present safety concerns by altering the intended design and function of the affected models; violate the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States; pose an unacceptable restraint on interstate commerce.“ That last comment is necessary since Congress – not the states - regulates interstate commerce.  This should prevent any challenges based on the 10th Amendment.   As usual, any proposed bill that is good for 2A has Claudia Tenney as a cosponsor and this one is especially good for New York gun owners. We are done playing defense and this bill definitely puts us on the offense and is well worth your time in contacting your Representative and encouraging their support of it.

US Representatives

Microstamping

Microstamping is a technology in which the gun’s firing pin imprints each fired cartridge with a unique microscopic identifying code.  This is touted as a tough on crime measure.

Maybe not.

In 2023, California passed a law requiring microstamping of firearms, once it becomes feasible. California’s Department of Justice (DOJ) studied its feasibility and, this year, issued a report saying that it’s viable.

One of the many problems with microstamping is that the firing pin coding wears down after multiple uses.  But California’s DOJ’s report says it won’t wear down, even after thousands of rounds are fired.  Of course, most of the studies the DOJ relied on came from companies that stand to profit from selling microstamping components. 

By January 2026, companies can start applying for licenses to produce the microstamping parts and by mid-2026, California will begin signing contracts with them. On January 1, 2028, only pistols equipped with these components will be allowed to be sold in California.

First, what if the studies that California’s DOJ has relied upon turn out to be wrong, as we suspect?

Second, lawful gun owners have no reason to file-down or otherwise destroy the imprint but criminals would certainly do that.  So, if this will only impact law-abiding owners, is it really a crime prevention issue? But the lie of microstamping being tough on crime will still be trumpeted by the left-wing media. 

Attorney William Kirk recently made some interesting observations about this.

If only California was to require this, the cost and complexity of retooling every pistol model with unique microstamping components might make it unprofitable for most manufacturers. “You are not going to go through the expense of producing unique firing pins just for one state,” Kirk said. Would most manufacturers stop selling pistols in California, leaving very few models available?  Is that, in fact, the real purpose of this law?

Adding a unique firing pin to every single handgun line, just for California, does not make business sense. But what happens when the same requirement pops up in other states?  If other states follow suit, how many states must require it in order to make the retooling worthwhile?

California will have full control over which brands and models get approved.  An anti-gun state government will be picking winners and losers in the retail gun market.  What could go wrong? 

It will be a bureaucratic mess: reports, standards, deadlines, and licensing rules, mostly invisible to the non-gun buying public as only gun owners will feel the pain. 

The microstamping approach avoids passing handgun bans and running afoul of our 2nd Amendment freedoms, while producing the same result. Kirk described it as: “They have absolutely thwarted any reasonable opportunity you have to arm yourself with a handgun.”

New York State has had laws proposed regarding microstamping of firearms for several years.  The current versions are S02158 and A03021 and they rest in committees, but could be activated once the Democrat controlled legislature comes back in session in January.

It’s important that New Yorkers stand firm against S02158 and A03021 to protect our 2nd Amendment rights.