Lexington proposes gun confiscation
Fascists: The town of Lexington, Massachusetts, where the American Revolution was started by Minutemen armed with rifles, has proposed confiscating legally owned firearms from its citizens.
One such town meeting member, a Harvard professor named Robert Rotberg has taken it upon himself to enact, what he hopes will be “a movement against assault weapons that would capture the state and therefore maybe explode to reach the country.” He has seized upon the recent ban enacted in Highland Park, IL, and has modeled his own ban, almost copying the language verbatim. Filing it to the town meeting warrant as Article 34.
Among other things, Article 34 includes any firearm that is semi-automatic and can accept a magazine that will hold more than 10 rounds. It also includes any magazine that holds more than 10 rounds. The article also has a provision in which Lexington’s licensed gun owners who own firearms included in the ban would be forced to sell, render inoperable, or have them seized and destroyed by the police department
It doesn’t seem to occur to this Harvard professor that this ordinance would violate both the second amendment (“the right to bear arms shall not be infringed”) and the fifth amendment (“nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation”). But then, who cares about some old document called the Bill of Rights written by some white guys more than 200 years ago? We are Progressives! We know better!
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Fascists: The town of Lexington, Massachusetts, where the American Revolution was started by Minutemen armed with rifles, has proposed confiscating legally owned firearms from its citizens.
One such town meeting member, a Harvard professor named Robert Rotberg has taken it upon himself to enact, what he hopes will be “a movement against assault weapons that would capture the state and therefore maybe explode to reach the country.” He has seized upon the recent ban enacted in Highland Park, IL, and has modeled his own ban, almost copying the language verbatim. Filing it to the town meeting warrant as Article 34.
Among other things, Article 34 includes any firearm that is semi-automatic and can accept a magazine that will hold more than 10 rounds. It also includes any magazine that holds more than 10 rounds. The article also has a provision in which Lexington’s licensed gun owners who own firearms included in the ban would be forced to sell, render inoperable, or have them seized and destroyed by the police department
It doesn’t seem to occur to this Harvard professor that this ordinance would violate both the second amendment (“the right to bear arms shall not be infringed”) and the fifth amendment (“nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation”). But then, who cares about some old document called the Bill of Rights written by some white guys more than 200 years ago? We are Progressives! We know better!
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
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You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
The best action to take here is for a sign to be created and posted in front of Mr. Rotbergs house saying:
“There are no firearms in this house”
If you remember a while ago an editor who published the names and addresses who owned guns, did not want any sign indicating that he did not have a gun.
https://youtu.be/wt1Zy_ASNyA
Say What?
Do these people even know anything about handguns, rifles, or our Constitution?
“Assault Weapons,” no such animal. It’s an adjective, not a noun. (erroneously applied to any weapon that looks scary or used by the military.)
“Semi-Automatic,” means one trigger-pull and one-shot. (all weapons that are not full-automatic, are by definition semi-automatic. (But, it sounds scary.)
And full-automatic weapons have been illegal since the 1930’s. (You can get a license but it costs around $20K to legally posses what we call “machine-guns.”)
–Typical Academic. I would wager he has never fired a weapon, doesn’t have any, doesn’t know anyone who does, and doesn’t know HOW guns work.
(for my military friends– I realize “gun,” “weapon,” “sidearm,” etc., all have precise meanings but in public discourse, we long ago dropped the distinctions, which is part of the problem.)
As Mr. Z noted, “We are Progressives! We know better!”
Wayne
One small correction: almost all MODERN weapons are either fully automatic or semiautomatic. There are a lot of old (mostly WW II and prior) weapons out there that are bolt action, or that otherwise require the shooter to do something to load the bullet into the chamber before pulling the trigger.
But overall you’re right; the professor is using this language in order to confuse (or is confused himself). in practical terms, banning semiautomatic weapons would ban everything except the odd relic that few people would use to defend their property.
Sherriff’s demo of how magazine size makes very little difference
https://youtu.be/MCSySuemiHU
Rocco -thanks, interesting video, proves the absurdity of magazine size restrictions.
Gary– you are correct Sir! And, as Lee Harvey Oswald (a Marxist btw) demonstrated, even a bolt-action weapon is capable of pretty quick fire.
Anyone know the average rate of fire, for a muzzle-loaded type weapon? (Our Founders beat the British, one of the best military forces on earth at the time.)
One thing I am glad to see; people are waking up to the fact that the 2nd Amendment isn’t about hunting deer, it’s about individuals having the ability to protect themselves, from other people or a tyrannical government.
Unfortunately, I think we’ve lost the “language-game” the left plays oh so well. “Semiautomatic” just sounds scary to people who aren’t aware of how weapons work.
Rocco,
Always keep in mind that only the law abiding will limit their magazines. The law breakers will break the law and remain better armed than the law abiding. Not only will a reload not give much time to tackle an attacker — it is rare that it happens, and now we know why — but the law breaker will still carry the higher capacity magazines. In essence, gun and magazine restrictions punish the law abiding and embolden the law breakers.
It is kind of like releasing terrorists from Guantanamo Bay and having Secretary Kerry pretend to be surprised when they go back to terrorism. Of course the law breaker breaks the law. It is what he does.
Law breakers also tend to favor softer targets and avoid targets with large concentrations of armed personnel. Very few police stations are attacked, but many gun-free zones and homes are attacked — the places where fewer people can be expected to try to tackle an attacker.
When talking about how hard it is to stop an intruder, I am reminded about this incident, in which the intruder was shot five times in the face before he withdrew:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/georgia-mom-shoots-home-intruder-face-article-1.1234400
“there have been other examples where having a gun around, has, in fact, protected the user of the gun from something terrible.”
“There are probably tens of thousands of cases a year where a lawful possession of a firearm would prevent a crime from occurring or continuing … That doesn’t mean the firearm has to be discharged, but just the lawful possession of it can be enough to have this effect.”