Greetings to all of our readers and "should-be" readers for a happy and prosperous 2016, to culminate in a victory for freedom and our Constitution on November 8. We hope that you have just passed a joyous holiday season.
For our part, my wife and I spent a week vacationing in the beautiful neighboring state of Arizona. There we experienced encouraging signs that not all of the country has gone mad or is a lost cause. The city of Tucson is harmoniously integrated into the natural beauty of the lush Sedona desert, with its dense forests of saguaro, cactus, mesquite, palo verde and dozens of other charming species of plants, animals and birds that we don't see in L.A. Regular gasoline may be had for $1.79 a gallon, and we never saw a traffic jam (indicating that the low price of gas was NOT starving the highway fund).
But the pièce de resistance, of course, is Arizona's commitment to the Second Amendment. How strong is it? The answer may be exemplified as follows: the only reason Arizona has a Concealed-Carry Permit system is so that Arizona residents may carry unharrassed in other states with which Arizona has reciprocal agreements. Otherwise, it's superfluous, because any adult, whether state resident or visitor, as long as he or she is not a convicted felon, officially declared mentally impaired or otherwise restricted due to action which required a burden of proof on the part of the state, may carry openly or concealed in most public places.
Gun and ammunition sales have broken records this season, and that's not a bad thing (except for the inability to purchase ammo when the shelves cleaned out). Responsible citizens, many of whom may never have fired anything more deadly than a water pistol in their lives—and even that not without excruciating pangs of guilt—are rediscovering the virtues of self-reliance, tradition and civic duty, as well as a deeper appreciation for the Constitution and its protections of individual and state's rights.
Liberals and leftists from Barack and Hillary on down may lament or even condemn this "irrational and prejudicial overreaction" to the recent Jihadist attacks in Paris, San Bernardino and elsewhere, and the catastrophic overrun of Europe by ostensible "refugees" from the Middle East; but those events, while terrible, are in fact only secondary causes of the distress of the people. It is the lack of leadership, indeed the contempt shown to the American people by members of the ruling class's reactions and statements in regard to those events, that has the people realizing that they are being abandoned if not betrayed at a time of unprecedented peril.
We stayed at a resort close to the Safeway supermarket where a mentally disturbed man shot Arizona representative Gabrielle Giffords and several others in 2011, killing six. Liberal efforts to rally around Giffords for the purpose of more stringent gun control laws backfired, as her former seat is now held by retired Air Force pilot and pro-Second Amendment Republican Martha McSally, sponsor of the pending Mental Health and Safe Communities Act. McSally's campaign got an assist from the NRA but also faced the stiff headwinds from money donated by New York liberal Michael Bloomberg to her opponent.
Liberal efforts to Californicate Texas have likewise been rebuffed. As of January 1, holders of Concealed Carry permits in Texas may carry openly, if they prefer.
Paris- and San Bernardino-style attacks are unlikely to happen in Arizona, or Wyoming, or Kansas or Maine or even Bernie Sanders' Vermont, because in those states, unlike, say, California, the responsible and law-abiding citizens have not been ordered on pain of prosecution to be sitting ducks or helpless emasculated bystanders. In public, Californians are required to keep their guns locked, unloaded, in the trunk of the car, with the ammo separated in the passenger compartment. Concealed Carry permits are extremely difficult to come by. The state maintains a list of "approved" firearm makes and models, and those excluded are not just "military-style assault rifles" but even ordinary handguns like Colt's once immensely popular Detective (38) Special and other similar snub-nose models, otherwise perfect for carrying in a purse and operated by women's smaller and weaker hands (so much for women's rights). We may not carry magazines holding more than ten rounds, even if the capacity of the gun is much higher, and this guarantees that some of us are going to lose some gunfights with bad guys who are operating on no such effective limitation, because we lost critical seconds (an eternity in a gunfight) reloading, if indeed we had more ammo to load after we were able to connect gun with ammo during an ambush.
And that's before the onslaught of laws taking effect in 2016, such as concealed carry permits no longer being honored on college campuses. Attorney General Kamala Harris has proposed a ballot initiative with a laundry list of further restrictions on ammo and magazines, a new fee-collecting ammo permit system and a gun owner database.
The list is too long to catalogue here. The bottom line is that, in California, we non-criminals are just not supposed to use guns to defend ourselves or other innocent people. Call 911; the cops will be here in a few minutes to mop up your blood and call the coroner.
By definition, laws affect the law-abiding both ex ante (in advance) and ex post (after the fact), while they only affect criminals ex post, if ever. This is why gun control laws only disarm innocent people and leave predators and terrorists laughing all the way to the bank, the Christmas Party, the music hall or the offices of periodicals which print things they find offensive. If enough Californians wake up to this fact through the irresponsibility of our leaders, the latter may have inadvertently done us all a favor. Unfortunately, it may require more massacres in our "gun-free zones" for the consciousness to change.
The best defense against a bad guy with a gun is a good guy (or gal—feminists, are you listening?) with a gun. May God Bless America. God bless Arizona. God help California.
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For more info on concealed carry policy and outcomes, see:
http://www.gunfacts.info/gun-control-myths/concealed-carry/
