Rio De Janeiro gun control massacre - one year anniversary

With all of the talk of yesterday's one year anniversary of the Ismail Ax murders at Virginia Tech, the MSM/DNC seems to have forgotten about another anniversary.

Today is the one year anniversary of what I call the "Rio De Janeiro Gun Control Massacre," in which 19 people were gunned down despite Brazil's draconian gun control laws.

Read last year's story, in which I provided details of the gun control laws as well as the police department's fear of being outgunned by heavily armed criminals. This is the utopia envisioned by our own gun control advocates.

Quote of the day - Ed Morrissey [Charlton Heston]

Hollywood turned its back on one of its biggest icons for the sin of becoming Republican and of supporting gun rights. Of course, while Hollywood rejected Heston for his stand on the 2nd Amendment, it churned out more and more films dedicated to mass shootings and indiscriminate violence. Heston couldn’t have fired more bullets in his entire lifetime than in a year of Hollywood movies.

Ed Morrissey

Jeanne Assam; New Life Church shooting; Colorado Springs;

Jeanne Assam





We have all heard the story of how Jeanne Assam saved the lives of possibly 100 people in Colorado Springs over the weekend. She saved these lives by shooting the gunman intent on massacre. Most importantly, Assam's heroics would have been impossible had the gun control advocates been successful in banning guns in church. The madman intent on murder was not deterred by any laws. Gun control laws would only have prevented Jeanne Assam from repelling the attack.

Some questions are in order:

Is it only a coincidence that the same people who want to remove all mention of "Christmas" from public life want to disarm Christians in the face of demented attackers?

How many of the 30+ Virginia Tech victims would still be alive if a Jeanne Assam had been permitted to carry a gun on that campus last April?

How many Columbine victims would still be alive if a Jeanne Assam had been present with a gun at that High School in April 1999?

How few leftists will learn the lessons of the New Life shooting and stop trying to disarm innocent Americans?

Jeanne Assam





Apparently not content with the death toll at the New Life Church (and elsewhere around the country), Pennsylvania politicians are proposing new gun control laws. My prediction is that we will never have enough gun control laws to satisfy anti-gun leftists. But we can get enough guns to stop the next shooting.









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update - Michelle Malkin has more.

You can bet that leftists everywhere are right now trying to dig up dirt on Jeanne Assam. They are hoping to find a criminal record or a history of "homophobia." Failing that, they may accuse her of being gay.

By the time they are through, she will feel like a potential rival to Hillary Clinton for some elected office. They will never forgive her for using a gun to save lives.

Quote of the day - Ann Coulter

"When you need a gun, nothing else will do."

Ann Coulter, commenting on sexual assaults on 37 women during the Puerto Rican Day Parade in 2000, including a female kick boxing instructor who said, "I never felt in my entire life that I couldn't protect myself until then."

Quote of the day - Thomas Sowell

One of the many hard facts that get overlooked by those impressed by visions and rhetoric is that mass shootings almost invariably occur in gun-free zones like schools, workplaces, or houses of worship.

When has a mass killer opened fire on a meeting of the National Rifle Association or fired on a group of hunters?

Thomas Sowell - 4-24-07

More guns = less crime

G-Man has a good post summarizing the gun control debate and recent proposals.

And he has the right idea here. We should be prepared for the worst.

Quote of the day - Joe Sobran (Donna Dees-Thomases)

"Somehow the major media neglected to mention
that the "housewife" who organized the Million Mom March for
gun control, advertised as a "grassroots" movement, was
actually an employee of CBS News (she works for Dan Rather)
and a friend of Hillary Clinton. It just goes to show that we
need more investigative reporting on journalism."

Joe Sobran, June 2000


Donna Dees-Thomases

Quote of the day - Joe Sobran

The worst thing I ever had to worry about in school was being beaten up by bigger kids. Nobody even thought about bringing a gun to school. We had fewer laws, but they were enforced. Today the people who don't want to enforce existing laws are always eager to make new ones.

Joe Sobran

Miss America 1944; Venus Ramsey; 82 year old woman uses gun to stop robbery

From Kentucky and Yahoo news comes the story of Miss America 1944 - Venus Ramsey - and how she used a .38 to foil a robbery this week.

Miss America 1944






The now 82 year old Ramsey shot out the tires of the assailants' vehicle as they attempted to rob her farm:

She had to balance on her walker as she pulled out a snub-nosed .38-caliber handgun.

"I didn't even think twice. I just went and did it," she said. "If they'd even dared come close to me, they'd be 6 feet under by now."

Venus Ramsey this week





The implications of this story are obvious. Should we have disarmed Ms. Ramsey? Should she have been content to wait for the police?

If an armed 82 year old woman can stop two men while leaning on a walker, imagine how many lives could have been saved if only a couple of the Ismail Ax victims had been armed.

Quote of the day - Barbara Oakley

Yes, in a perfect world, there would be no guns, no mental illness and no Cho Seung-Huis. But the world is very imperfect. Consider that Britain’s national experiment with gun-free living is proving to be a disaster, with violent and gun crime rates soaring.

Barbara Oakley, professor of engineering at Oakland University writing in the NY Times on April 19, 2007

The Today Show interviews the gun dealer; Cho Seung-Hui; Ismael Ax

This morning on the Today Show I saw a piece of the interview with the gun dealer that sold a gun to Cho Seung-Hui. He really didn't seem to have much to say.

The best statement he could make would be something like this:

I wish I could have sold a gun to every student in those classrooms. Maybe then most of the 32 victims would not have died.

I play Monday morning quarterback with that interview because we are all going to have to decide what to do and how to respond when the subject of gun control comes up. We are being slowly disarmed in the face of danger. If we want to avoid being killed by some lunatic, we must be armed when the time comes. We must protect our Second Amendment rights now, which means being prepared when friends, relatives, associates, etc. ask about the Ismael Ax Massacre.

Gun control in Brazil - does it work?; Rio De Janeiro Gun Control Massacre v. Ismail Ax Massacre

Brazil has one of the world's strictest gun control laws.

Permits will be issued only to police, security guards and others in high-risk professions - but they must be at least 25 years old.

Anyone else caught carrying a firearm will face up to four years in prison.

So Brazil should not suffer from incidents like Virginia Tech's Ismail Ax Massacre, right? But yesterday I noted a mass shooting in which 19 people were killed in Rio De Janeiro.

But police say they are terrified of being outgunned by heavily armed and well-financed gangs that control the cocaine trade in the seaside city, a favorite of tourists.

Gun control doesn't work any better in the U.S. than it does in Brazil.

On this blog, April 17 will always be remembered as the anniversary of the Rio De Janeiro Gun Control Massacre.

Virginia Tech shooting

This is one post I really don't want to write. I hate to consider the political implications of any tragedy before the facts are known, but the MSM/DNC leave us little choice. It is unknown how many people have died today or what motivated this horrific crime, but ABC news is already discussing the implications for one of their favorite pet projects - gun control. ABC also has a poll on their website asking about gun control. I don't feel like linking to it. You will just have to take my word for it.

We will hear more about gun control as the presidential campaign heats up. Virginia Tech will become as much of a rallying cry as "Columbine." In fact, Virginia Tech will push "Columbine" right out of the national discussion, except as an historical footnote. The propaganda campaign is already getting started. MSM/DNC will not let Friday's (April 20) 8th anniversary of Columbine pass without using that occassion to draw dubious parallels. Michael Moore is planning a movie about Virginia Tech. Rosie O'Donnell is planning even more insane rants than those she has spewed about 9-11. Jesse Jackson wants to know if minority students were targeted disproportionately by the shooter.

We cannot surrender the field to those who would use this tragedy to restrict more of our freedoms.

Please remember that if the victims had guns in their possession at the time of the shooting, the casualty total would have been much smaller. If stricter gun control is enacted, shooters will have an even freer hand in killing the innocent.

When you are confronted with inanities pouring from your TV tonight, remember this phrase, "More Guns, Less Crime."


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update - Michelle Malkin includes links to self-defense bills that have been rejected in the legislature.

Sulejman Talovic - Muslim shooter in Salt Lake City

Yesterday, the top story after the bitter weather was the Salt Lake City shooter and the heroic officer who stopped him. When the MSM/DNC thought it had another random shooting and an opportunity to promote gun control, the story received a lot of attention. But now that the shooter is revealed to be a muslim, the story does not exist, despite the multiple deaths. Normally a mass shooting will serve as red meat to reporters who like little more than a chance to talk about "gun" violence and the need to "do something." But when the shooter belongs to the Religion of Peace, the gun control opportunity takes a back seat.

This story and the sudden silence reveals something about MSM/DNC priorities. The MSM/DNC prefers to enable terror more than it wants to disarm Americans.

Thomas Sowell, Chris Muir, firing range humor

Friday's Day-by-Day cartoon -



- reminded me of some anecdotes from Thomas Sowell in Dr. Sowell's autobiography, "A Personal Odyssey." See Chapter 4 (particularly pages 102-104) for Sowell's personal stories from the firing range of the U.S. Marines during the Korean War. He includes stories of civilian employees and women handling military weapons. [Although the stories, being true, aren't quite as interesting as Muir's imaginative cartoons.]



I also enjoyed an interview with Dr. Sowell reported in the Wall Street Journal on Saturday. The interview discussed education, Dr. Sowell's experiences with writing over the years and his objectives for new projects. Sowell's (approximately) 30th (and latest) book was recently published by Yale University:



I haven't read the book, but the interview provides fresh insight:

Free-market economics, a legacy of the classical school, is thought of as an old conservative doctrine. But Mr. Sowell explains that it was in fact one of the most revolutionary concepts to emerge in the history of ideas. Moreover, "the thinking of the classical economist was not only a radical break from landmark intellectual figures like Plato and Machiavelli but also from mainstream thinking to this day." The notion of a self-equilibrating system--the market economy--meant a reduced role for intellectuals and politicians, he says. "And even today many still haven't accepted that their superior wisdom might be superfluous, if not damaging."

Excellent 60 second video

click here

Quote of the day - Justice Janice Rogers Brown

Curiously, in the current dialectic, the right to keep and bear arms – a right expressly guaranteed by the Bill of Rights – is deemed less fundamental than implicit protections the court purports to find in the penumbras of other express provisions. (citations omitted) But surely, the right to preserve one’s life is at least as fundamental as the right to preserve one’s privacy.

Justice Janice Rogers Brown

[Concurring opinion in Kasler, 2 P.3d at 602]

I Don't Know What Salt Thinks About Guns, but...

This will even make Yankees want to buy one.

Quotes of the day - Mark Steyn and Hugh Hewitt

MS: . . . [T]he more the people are self-reliant, and take control for themselves, the more they're likely to be able to withstand these things. If you entrust yourself to the government, then you will be vulnerable. . . . You've got to have a situation where people are encouraged to be self-reliant, and exercise responsible choices themselves.

HH: I'll tell you. It's the best commercial for owning a gun I've ever seen.

MS: Absolutely. And I would say that the last thing...anyone who wants to talk about gun control these days, I'll tell you something. If I had property in New Orleans, and I was there, the one thing I'd want to do, when some of these people come a-callin' is make sure I was armed.


H/T Radioblogger