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If you look at the news, it would seem that all Black Americans are for gun control or at least the Mayors of the major cities (most of which are black) seem to want no guns in the hands of the average citizen. This ignores the history of Black Americans in the country where gun laws were used to control them. It also denies the experience of New Orleans where guns were taken by force from legal owners who were trying to protect their property. The Second Amendment is color blind. If you are a law abiding person you have the right to own any weapons that you want. No city, state or Federal government should be able to take that right away. We are proud of our Black fellow citizens who are speaking out and taking a stand against all moves to take away our right to own guns. We welcome everyone to join this movement. Conservative Tom
P.S. The following are additional links for similar articles.
The Rev. Kenn Blanchard, a faith leader at Washington D.C.’s Historic Berean Baptist Church, is unabashedly supportive of gun rights. The African American preacher has repeatedly called for fewer firearms restrictions, stating that he believes laws have historically been used to restrict specific ethnic groups.
Blanchard, who wrote the book “Black Man With a Gun” and who hosts “The Urban Shooter Podcast,” admits that many in his congregation don’t agree with his views on firearms, but that hasn’t stopped him from being an outspoken advocate.
In an interview with NPR on Thursday, he explained why he’s in favor of more expansive gun rights and shared his background, which includes a past stint as a firearms trainer and an ongoing penchant for studying history.
Photo Credit: Rev. Kenn Blanchard
As he’s examined past U.S. laws to crack down on gun violence, he said he’s noticed a troubling pattern — an intent to target specific ethnic groups.
“Gun laws have started in this country since 1640 — since we were colonies, and it’s always been against a group — it’s always been to control somebody,” he told NPR host Michel Martin. “It was the Chinese, it was the Native Americans, it was the Africans.”
He continued, noting that every 30 years a new gun control initiative is implemented.
“In 1925, it was against Italian immigrants — the Sullivan Law was to prevent them from having long-barreled or short-barreled guns,” he explained.
Rather than ignoring guns and pushing them out of society, Blanchard argues that Americans should be educating their children about firearms. The real problem that’s raging in society, the preacher believes, is a “loss of hope.”
As far as his congregation goes, Blanchard’s views on guns are less-than-heralded.
“They actually don’t like it,” he said of parishioners when asked about how they react to his stance. “They don’t like it at all. It’s probably the only issue — as long as I preach the gospel…and stay away from the gun issue they’re fine.”
Listen to Blanchard describe his views on firearms, below:
Earlier this month, the preacher joined other African American leaders in a push against gun control. According to CBN News, Blanchard told reporters that politicians cannot save children’s lives with legislative action and that self-defense and preparedness are the best way forward.
“How many of you would put in front of your house a sign that says gun-free zone?” he asked, highlighting his belief that gun-free zones are ineffective and aren’t a viable answer for securing safety.
Michael Freund - The Jewish Press, March 20th, 2013
As I write these words, a Jewish toddler injured in a Palestinian terror attack is lying in a hospital bed struggling for her life.
Shortly after 6 p.m. on March 14, Adwa Biton and her three young daughters were driving along Route 5 near Ariel in Samaria. They were on their way home after the girls had paid a visit to their grandmother when a group of Palestinians along the side of the road began hurling stones at Israeli vehicles.
Our ostensible peace partners scored a direct hit when one of their projectiles struck a truck, which swerved off course and collided with Biton's vehicle. The car was crushed under the weight of the truck, and it took rescue workers nearly half an hour to extricate the family.
When they did, they discovered that two-year-old Adelle Biton was not breathing and required mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Somehow, they managed to revive her, though she was in critical condition. Her two sisters, six-year-old Naama and four-year-old Avigail, as well as her mother, were all moderately injured.
This horrific incident, which left an innocent child on the brink of death, was nothing less than an act of terror. No bullets were involved nor were any bombs detonated, but that does not in any way make it less cruel or heartless.
After all, when a Palestinian picks up a stone and throws it at an Israeli vehicle, he is not expressing outrage or protesting against some perceived wrongdoing. He is making a conscious decision to grab hold of a potentially deadly object and send it hurtling through the air in order to cause bodily harm.
This is not about a group of kids tossing pebbles on the water at the beach. It is a group of thugs trying to terrorize people and intimidate them from making safe use of the roads. And it must be stopped.
Indeed, in recent weeks there has been a sharp upswing in the number of Palestinian rock-throwing attacks against Israelis, though you would never know it from reading the mainstream press, much of which has spoken vaguely of “growing tension” in the region without bothering to mention the attacks.
At around the same time as the attack on the Biton family, Palestinians near the Jewish community of Eli in Samaria stoned an Israeli vehicle and injured a one-year-old baby boy, causing him light injuries from which he is expected to recover.
And in a third rock attack that same evening, Palestinians stoned an Israeli bus heading to Tel Aviv. When the windows smashed, glass went flying through the air, wounding Aviva Hazan, the wife of a former Likud Knesset Member, in the eye.
This situation is simply intolerable and cannot be allowed to continue. Stone throwing may be low-tech terrorism, but terrorism it most assuredly is. And it is time for the Israeli government and army to treat it as such.
To begin with, Israel should impose harsher sentences on Palestinian stone-throwers and classify their actions not as “disturbing public order” but as “terror.” Likewise, the rules of engagement need to be revised in order to give Israeli troops greater freedom to use force against Palestinians hurling rocks.
And video cameras should be installed along key routes throughout Judea and Samaria in order to make it easier to identify the perpetrators and bring them to justice swiftly.
Such measures will deter Palestinians from taking to the roadside, amassing an armory of rocks, and targeting innocent Israelis. If they know their actions will be taken seriously and punished acutely, they will think twice before engaging in such brazen acts.
Israel must take steps to ensure that those who raise a hand against Israelis, whether holding a rifle or a rock, will be dealt with accordingly.
It is about time that the UN gets off its butt and starts investigating countries other than Israel. In the following posting about North Korea, it makes one ill to see people treated the way the North is treating its political (??) prisoners--which can be grand-children of those men and women who are supposed to have been against the Regime.
This, our friends, is what hell on earth looks like. If you will take time to view the "60 Minutes" piece that is included, you will never look favorably at the North or its rulers ever again. It is disgusting and if you are easily upset, we would recommend you not listening to it.
We also have included some background pieces from CNN and NY Times.
[Authors’ note: The following images are disturbing. Please proceed with caution.]
Rumors of North Korea’s allegedly Holocaust-style concentration camps have long been the source of concern and outrage for some in the West.
Indeed, between firsthand accounts from supposed escapees and disturbing satellite photos that seem to prove the existence of labor camps, it appears North Korea has a terrifying amount of control over its people. And now, a collection of drawings that has seen a recent surge in Internet traffic is drawing attention to the issue once again.
Detailed satellite photos reveal the existence of camps North Korea says don’t exist. (Daily Mail).
As reports of torture and unspeakable inhumanities continue to leak out of the Hermit Kingdom, a portrait of murder and suppression has slowly emerged — one that has the United Nations Human Rights Council considering an inquiry into possible crimes against humanity.
But although an “inquiry” sounds like a good first step, it may not be enough. If reports from those who say they managed to escape North Korea’s prison system prove accurate, perhaps something stronger than an “inquiry” will be required from the international community.
Of North Korea’s 24 million people, roughly 150,000-200,000 have mysteriously “disappeared,” according to the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea. (Screen grab).
And speaking of supposed first-hand accounts, CBS News’ “60 Minutes” in December sat down with Shin Dong-hyuk, an escapee who claims he was born, raised, tortured, and starved in Camp 14, the most notorious of North Korea’s “political prisons.”
Shin Dong-hyuk says he was kept prisoner for 23 years because of “political crimes” his grandfather may or may not have committed. (Screen grab).
His story is terrifying:
In case you don’t have time to watch Dong-hyuk recount his life as a prisoner, here are some illustrations from another alleged escapee that seem to corroborate his claims (note: the source of these drawings has not yetbeen confirmed):
Imgur.
Imgur.
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IImgur.
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Meanwhile, Kim Jong-un, North Korea’s new ruler, lives a life of splendor, apparently unmoved by the alleged campaign of brutality and “thought correction” waged against his people.
Kim Jong Un, Dennis Rodman share a laugh at basketball game in Pyongyang. (Jason Mojica/ VICE Media/AP).
For those who think that guns do not save their owners or that a gun will be used by the knuckle-dragger against the owner, the following story belies both false assumptions.
Conservative Tom
‘I JUST PUT THREE ROUNDS IN HIS A**’: DRAMATIC 911 CALL CAPTURES OKLAHOMA MAN SHOOTING HOME INTRUDER AFTER POLICE COULDN’T ARRIVE FAST ENOUGH
A dramatic 911 call recorded a Oklahoma man’s confrontation with an intruder who broke into his Ponca City home early Thursday morning. The homeowner ended up shooting the intruder several times when police didn’t arrive in time.
The roughly five minute 911 call begins frantically enough: “You better get these (expletive) here or they will die,” the man told a 911 dispatcher.
The homeowner stayed on the line with 911 as he waited for the police to arrive. However, the police didn’t arrive before the intruder found his way into the house.
“They’re beating on my front door right now,” he said.
“Okay, we’ve got them on the way,” the dispatcher replied.
“They better hurry up, because I will blow these (expletive) away.”
A short time later, the home intruder managed to gain entry into the home. It was at this point that the homeowner fired several shots at the suspect.
“I just put three rounds in his ass,” he informed the dispatcher.
Ponca City Police say the incident took place at around 4:30 a.m. Thursday. The intruder was transported to a nearby hospital by ambulance and then airlifted to another Tulsa hospital. His condition was unknown Friday and police have not identified the suspect.
“The case is under investigation. Ponca City Police say once they complete the investigation the case will be turned over to the DA,” KOKH-TV reports.
Finally some of our legislators are starting to ask questions. We hope they give us the answers we need, however, that is doubtful. If our paranoid fears are on target, all we will get is more stonewalling. Time is going to tell. Conservative Musings
OBAMA ADMIN STONEWALLING ON BIG AMMO BUILDUP
Lawmaker: 'They refuse to let us know what is going on'
Garth Kant is a WND staff writer. Previously, he spent five years writing, copy-editing and producing at "CNN Headline News," three years writing, copy-editing and training writers at MSNBC, and also served several local TV newsrooms as producer, executive producer and assistant news director. He is the author of the McGraw-Hill textbook, "How to Write Television News."More ↓
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Members of Congress are demanding the Obama administration explain why it is stockpiling a huge arsenal of ammunition and weapons.
The Department of Homeland Security bought more than 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition over the last year, as well as thousands of armored vehicles.
Rep. Timothy Huelscamp, R-Kan., wants to know what DHS plans to do with all that firepower, but he can’t get an answer.
A reporter for We Are Change asked Huelscamp at the Conservative Political Action Conference last week why DHS needs weapons of war.
“They have no answer for that question. They refuse to answer to answer that,” Huelscamp said.
“I’ve got a list of questions of various agencies about multiple things. Far from being the most transparent administration in the world, they are the most closed-nature, opaque and they refuse to let us know what is going on, so I don’t have an answer for that. And multiple members of Congress are asking those questions,” he added.
Huelscamp said he plans to apply pressure to get an answer: “It comes down to during the budget process, during the appropriations process, are we willing to hold DHS’s feet to the fire? We’re going to find out. I say we don’t fund them ’til we get an answer.”
Rep. Leonard Lance, R-N.J., also wants answers, and WND has reported that he is demanding an explanation of DHS’s bullet buys from Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.
“I think Congress should ask the department about both of those issues, and I would like a full explanation as to why that has been done, and I have every confidence that the oversight committee … should ask those questions,” said Lance, adding that he shared a belief “that Congress has a responsibility to ask Secretary Napolitano as to exactly why these purchases have occurred.”
As WND reported, the Department of Homeland Security has argued that it is buying in bulk to save money, explaining it uses as many as 15 million rounds a year for training law enforcement agents.
But the 1.6 billion rounds of ammo would be enough for more than 100 years of training, or, more ominously, enough to fight a war for more than 20 years. It would also be enough to shoot every American more than five times.
Forbes columnist Benko, who worked for two years in the U.S. Department of Energy’s general counsel’s office in its procurement and finance division, doubts the government’s explanation.
“To claim that it’s to ‘get a low price’ for a ridiculously wasteful amount is an argument that could only fool a career civil servant,” he writes.
Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said she believes the federal government is building an arsenal to prepare for the day the country goes bankrupt. Last month, she wrote on her Facebook page: “If we are going to wet our proverbial pants over 0.3% in annual spending cuts when we’re running up trillion dollar annual deficits, then we’re done. Put a fork in us. We’re finished. We’re going to default eventually and that’s why the feds are stockpiling bullets in case of civil unrest.”
The prospect of civil unrest puts a chilling spin on an ominous remark then-candidate Barack Obama made in a Colorado campaign speech in July 2008.
“We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded,” said then-candidate Obama.
Even the far-left is worried by the feds’ growing power.
WND reported four days ago that Medea Benjamin, co-founder of Code Pink, a left-wing “peace and social justice movement” known for its colorful marches and protests, told WABC host Aaron Klein the potential for the Obama administration to abuse its growing domestic police power is “extremely troubling.”
Klein asked Benjamin, author of “Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control,” if she was concerned that military-style drones now authorized to fly over U.S. skies could be used against American citizens, the same question that prompted U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., to filibuster in the Senate earlier this month.
“Very much so,” Benjamin replied. “We see a militarization of the U.S. police forces here in the United States, and it’s a very troubling tendency.”
Furthermore, Benjamin charged she was “upset” that liberal Democrats – who might question and fight the federal government’s growing police powers under a Republican administration – “have been very quiet when this is happening under Obama.”
Klein asked if concerns that federal agencies are buying for 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition over the last year meant America is heading toward some sort of military-style control.
“I think the potential is there,” Benjamin replied, “and the fact that 10 years after 9/11 the U.S. is still keeping the American people in the state of fear about terrorism and using that to take billions and billions of our tax dollars to use to set up these kind of facilities and equip our local law-enforcement agencies with military equipment and potentially really be turning us into a society where Big Brother is watching us all the time, I think is extremely troubling.”
The astronomical growth in federal firepower comes at a time when Democratic lawmakers and President Obama are trying to reduce the availability of guns for American citizens, following the Dec. 14 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.
A law went into effect in the state of New York on Jan. 15 banning so-called assault weapons and limiting ammunition magazines to seven rounds.
Just yesterday, Colorado’s governor signed into law a measure expanding requirements for background checks and another putting a 15-round limit on ammunition magazines.
Gun-rights supporters are fighting back in both states.
Weld County Sheriff John Cooke said he and many other county sheriffs “won’t bother enforcing” the new laws, because it would be impossible to keep track of whether gun owners are meeting the new requirements.
He says the laws are “feel-good, knee-jerk reactions that are unenforceable” and would “give a false sense of security.”
As WND reported, similar sentiments have been expressed by Maricopa County Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio and sheriffs in Missouri, California, Kansas, Montana and in dozens of counties in several states across the country.
Weld has joined the list of at least 340 sheriffs who have vowed to uphold the Constitution against gun-control measures that violate Americans’ Second Amendment rights.
The sheriffs’ push-back against the gun measures is significant because, “The bills are a model for what they’ll try to push in Congress,” said Independence Institute research director and Denver University law professor Dave Kopel.
“Colorado is a pawn for the Obama-Biden plan,” he added.
That plan is moving forward in Congress, although not even Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid could get Democrats to go along with banning “assault weapons.”
Earlier this week, Reid told Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., that her measure to ban those weapons would not be part of a sweeping bill restricting gun rights. She said Reid decided the ban had little chance of surviving a vote in the Senate.
Feinstein said she will be able to offer the ban as an amendment instead. But AP suggested that by pushing it back to that level, Senate leaders believe it will have a hard time passing.
All of these gun-control measures have some concerned about outright confiscation of guns.
WND reported three weeks ago that the City Council in Guntersville, Ala. proposed to give police officers the authority to “disarm individuals, if necessary,” during an emergency or crisis. The council quickly backed down after an outcry when the story hit the Internet.
Such blatant grabs for guns are not new in the U.S. Less than a year ago, the Second Amendment Foundation fought a court battle over a North Carolina regulation that banned firearms and ammunition outside the home during any declared emergency, and won.
As Seattle Times columnist Danny Westneat reported, the “Orwellian” measure would allow the county sheriff to inspect the homes of owners of so-called “assault weapons” to ensure the weapons were stored properly.
In the post-Newtown debate, Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke speaks for many of the nation’s sheriffs in saying such firearms seizure plans are flat-out unconstitutional and they won’t enforce them.
Authorities confiscated firearms in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Thousands of weapons – legally obtained and owned – were simply grabbed from citizens after New Orleans Police Superintendent P. Edwin Compass III announced, “Only law enforcement are allowed to have weapons.”
In a series of videos, the NRA has documented the stunning weapons grab by police in New Orleans, assembling videos that show them physically taking weapons from individuals, including one woman who was stunned when officers threw her against her kitchen wall because she had a small handgun for self-defense.
The not-to-be-forgotten images, Part 1:
Part 2:
The police actions – many of the victims describe the gun confiscation as out-and-out theft – left New Orleans’ residents, who had been prepared to stand their ground and defend themselves from thugs and looters running amok, completely defenseless.
WND reported this week a new poll indicated only one in five gun owners would be willing to give up their firearms if the government demanded it.
“In other words, the government has a huge fight on its hands if it tries to implement a gun confiscation program,” said pollster Fritz Wenzel of Wenzel Strategies.
Nearly half of the nation’s households have at least one gun, according to a 2011 Gallup poll. The 2010 U.S. Census counted nearly 115 million households. Since President Obama took office in 2009, more than 65 million background checks have been conducted on gun purchases.
The push to limit the gun-rights of citizens comes as the federal government seeks to expand both its firepower and its reach. WND has reported on growing federal police power across dozens of government agencies for more than a decade and a half.
Also in 1997, as part of an ongoing series on the militarization of the federal government, WND reported armed, “environment crime” cops employed by the Environmental Protection Agency and a federal law enforcement program had trained 325,000 prospective federal police since 1970.
WND also reported on thousands of armed officers in the Inspectors’ General office and a gun-drawn raid on a local flood control center to haul off 40 boxes of paperwork.
WND further reported a plan by then-Delaware Sen. Joe Biden to hire hundreds of armed Hong Kong policemen in dozens of U.S. federal agencies to counter Asian organized crime in America.
In 1999, Farah warned there were more than 80,000 armed federal law enforcement agents, constituting “the virtual standing army over which the Founding Fathers had nightmares.” Today, that number has nearly doubled.
Also in 1999, WND reported plans made for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, to use military and police forces to deal with Y2K.
In 2000, WND CEO Joseph Farah discussed a Justice Department report on the growth of federal police agents under President Clinton, something Farah labeled “the biggest arms buildup in the history of the federal government – and it’s not taking place in the Defense Department.”
A 2001 report warned of a persistent campaign by the Department of the Interior, this time following 9/11, to gain police powers for its agents.
In 2008, WND reported on proposed rules to expand the military’s use inside U.S. borders to prevent “environmental damage” or respond to “special events” and to establish policies for “military support for civilian law enforcement.”
