Michigan House Votes to Repeal Right-Infringing Handgun Requirements by 2-1 Margin

Success! Even with attempts by some lawmakers to use the Trayvon Martin case in Florida to pander to anti-gunners in our state, the Michigan House has voted 72-36 in favor of repealing the permit-to-purchase and registration requirements for handguns. Instead, these outdated practices will be replaced by using the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System which made these requirements obsolete in 1998.

I outlined some of the main changes that will occur in a previous post, but two points of interest are (via NRA-ILA):

  • “Repeal the state requirement to seek police permission to purchase a firearm by traveling to a local police station and obtaining a permit to purchase.
  • Repeal the requirement to register a completely legally purchased and owned firearm by a law-abiding citizen to be registered with the government through the police.”

Now the bill goes to the Senate. Visit the Michigan Senate page to find contact info for your senator to urge the support of HB 5225.

Michigan Democrats Want to Repeal Michigan’s Stand Your Ground Law

Representative, Tim Bledsoe (Democrat – Grosse Pointe) wants to trample on the self-defense rights of Michigan citizens. Our Stand Your Ground Law went into effect in 2006. Bledsoe recently introduced House Bill 5644 which would re-establish a duty to retreat to Michigan’s Castle Doctrine. This would require a citizen to first consider retreating during an incident when a criminal is attempting to harm them in public.

Twelve of his fellow Democrats are co-sponsoring the bill, seven of whom represent Detroit.  I use the term represent lightly. If there was ever a town where more citizens need to arm themselves and stand their ground against criminals, it’s Detroit. Apparently, this move was prompted by the Trayvon Martin case in Florida. These people fear there will soon be vigilantes crawling the streets of Detroit.  So instead of empowering people, they want to create more fear not just of the crime but of legal retaliation if they happen to defend themselves against it.

Supposedly this won’t impact our Castle Doctrine law. But if this bill gets passed by
hug-a-thug (Rob Taylor’s fave phrase) lawmakers, and even with the strides we’re making in other areas, more officials with this mindset will be emboldened to infringe on our rights to defend ourselves in our own homes.

To quote the NRA’s statement on self-defense laws:

“It’s a natural right. No law “gives” it or can take it away. It’s yours. It works. And its only alternative – the idea that distant, disinterested third parties can dictate after the fact that “you must retreat” – will never be accepted by the American people.”

I certainly hope it won’t be accepted by the citizens of Michigan.

Rick Ector of Rick’s Firearm Academy of Detroit is a tireless proponent of self-defense. I
urge any Detroiter or Metro Detroiter who is on the fence with this issue to at least check
out his Facebook page or his business website. He does a lot of interviews and debates with lawmakers and always posts this info on his FB page. In this video, Rick’s lawyer discusses the law we have now which will be in jeopardy with this bill.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6HDcGY9liw]

 

I first heard of this story on the Michigan Open Carry, Inc., Facebook page. They’re keeping a close eye on this issue and will be a good source for info.

The Michigan House of Representatives has listing for reps in your area if you want to contact them and ask that they shoot down this bill (pun intended).

Source.

Big Government Doesn’t Help the Poor Says … Tila Tequila?

A conservative epiphany for the reality star whose head was cleared after a stay at rehab shocked many of her fans, but comes as no surprise to me. Once people clear the drugs out there systems and start living in unfiltered reality the truth usually slaps them right in the face. Here’s a section of her most recent post on Facebook which sounds like it came right out of John Stossel’s No They Can’t:

Just because I’m in Hollywood don’t you think for a second that I forgot where I came from and how I grew up. Don’t for a second believe the hype and what you read in the media. Again, I believe in all of you so much and you have so much potential. I want to start by helping bring back hope into 1 community at a time. If the government has all the money in the world to spend 30+billion dollars a month of our tax dollars and not a dime on trying to better broke down communities and providing better education systems and more opportunities for careers, then I guess, we the people, or myself will have to do that job for them. However, I’m going to need your support more than ever now as I move forward in my fight to better mankind. I love you all too much to see our next generation go down the drain. It has to stop and now is the time. Will you stand by me to fight the good fight?

She’s almost there. The only problem is that she doesn’t seem to realize that the problems with “broke down” communities come from the government trying to help. I was a libertarian when I was young (until I grew up) and the one thing the Libertarian Party has always been right about is that private individuals and charities are much, much more effective and altruistic than the government can ever be. Government also can’t provide opportunity, only limit it by regulation. The best thing a government can do for improving the opportunities of Americans is to get out-of-the-way and allow entrepreneurs to follow their dreams – like Tila Tequila did when she built a multi-million dollar business from nothing more than some modelling shots and a MySpace page. Had the government been involved in “providing opportunity” on the web some government functionary would have cut off Tequila at the knees in the interest of “fairness” to all the other internet models.

Hopefully as she tries to launch her project and runs into government red tape she’ll use her platform to show her fans that individuals can do more good in society than bureaucrats and political interests.