“We can either live in a paranoid politically correct world frantically trying not to offend the Hitlers and Mohammeds, and blaming their victims when they kill, or we can be free men and women who have chosen to take the power to defend our rights into our own hands.

While a thousand organizations use the Holocaust as a platform for speeches about tolerance, Children Of Jewish Holocaust Survivors [Jews Can Shoot] is conducting firearms training… Freedom is not defended with empty idealism easily perverted into appeasement of evil, but with the force of arms.”

Daniel Greenfield / Sultan Knish blog

All too many of the other great tragedies of history - Stalin's atrocities, the killing fields of Cambodia, the Holocaust, to name but a few - were perpetrated by armed troops against unarmed populations. Many could well have been avoided mitigated, had the perpetrators known their intended victims were equipped with a rifle and twenty bullets apiece... If a few hundred Jewish fighter in the Warsaw Ghetto could hold off the Wehrmacht for almost a month with only a handful weapons, six million Jews armed with rifles could not so easily have been herded into cattle cars.

Alex Kozinski, Chief Judge, Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals
Silveira v. Lockyer, 2003

Habah l'hargecha hashkem l'hargo -- "If someone is coming to kill you, rise against him and kill him first."

Second Amendment

How Magazine Bans Thwart Self-Defense

by Doris Wise Montrose on February 6, 2024

Proponents of bans on standard firearms magazines claim that the bans do not affect lawful self-defense, and do impair mass shooters. Supposedly, victims will be able to escape or fight back during the “critical pause” when a mass shooter is swapping magazines. The claims are not plausible, as explained in an amicus brief I filed on Nov. 30 in the U.S. District Court in Colorado. The case is Gates v. Polis, which challenges the Colorado legislature’s 2013 ban on magazines over 15 rounds.

The brief was on behalf of Sheriffs and law enforcement training organizations: the International Law Enforcement Educators and Trainers Association, the Colorado Law Enforcement Firearms Instructors Association, the Western States Sheriffs Association, 10 elected Colorado County Sheriffs, and the Independence Institute (where I work).

Below are excerpts from the brief explaining how magazine bans endanger the innocent, and do not impede mass shooters.

Law enforcement officers carry standard capacity magazines—up to about 20 rounds for handguns, and 30 rounds for rifles—for the same reason that law-abiding citizens often should: they are best for lawful defense of self and others. When defenders have less reserve ammunition, they fire fewer shots, thus increasing the danger that the criminals will injure the victim. . . .

By David Kopel

THE TORAH AND SELF-DEFENSE (SHMIRAT HA GOUF)

Washington State Democrats: Using Ammo A 'Privilege' That Needs To Be Taxed

"All too many of the other great tragedies of history—Stalin’s atrocities, the killing fields of Cambodia, the Holocaust, to name but a few—were perpetrated by armed troops against unarmed populations. Many could well have been avoided or mitigated, had the perpetrators known their intended victims were equipped with a rifle and twenty bullets apiece, as the Militia Act required here. ... If a few hundred Jewish fighters in the Warsaw Ghetto could hold off the Wehrmacht for almost a month with only a handful of weapons, six million Jews armed with rifles could not so easily have been herded into cattle cars." — Silveira v Lockyer, (9th Cir. 2003) (Kozinski, J. dissenting.)