A flawed, but detailed, article on new gun laws from the Nevada Independent. Leftist slant or not, we appreciate journalism where someone bothers to do more than cut-and-paste press releases. The need for preemption is glossed over saying local communities have a "need" to regulate firearms at their own level; like when North Las Vegas would detain and arrest black people for open carry. 

Wait, wait...red flag laws are about suicides now? I thought they were about mass shootings and domestic violence. And the study showed in the two states in studied that people just found other ways to kill themselves? 

​I was reading in this month’s US Concealed Carry Association magazine about a truck driver who was badly beaten and unable to defend himself because he stopped carrying a pistol over a stupid rumor. What was this bad information that led this man to being defenseless? It is widely rumored in the trucking industry that federal law makes it illegal for truckers to carry a firearm.
 
Wrong! The article even talks about a guy who has a standing $1,000 bet for anyone who can show him the regulation that supposedly makes it illegal for truckers to carry. Carry laws are state laws and many states allow for some form of carry in a vehicle (commercial or not) and even more so if one has a CCW.
 
Nevada Carry exists in part due to the proliferation of rumors. People don’t ask if open carry is legal in Nevada anymore. Open carry has been normalized, not just because of my work, but because of the Las Vegas Open Carry group on Facebook that a good friend founded and runs. Throughout the almost six years I’ve been doing this, the amount of bad information out there has been slowly dying off.
 
The Internet revolution is a large part of changing the game in how people were (mis)informed about things. If one takes they time, they can dig right into the law and find out the answers for themselves, though many people who don’t read a lot or are unfamiliar with legal stuff are intimidated. Two decades ago, to get reliable information on gun laws you would have to order on of those gun law books out of a magazine or hope the gun store had a bookrack.
 
Today, sites like mine and others leave no excuse for any literate person to get quality information. Even for low-interest curious people, it’s trivial to get on Facebook and ask a question to get a variety of quality answers and source material.
 
We can’t forget the contribution of instructors. The explosive growth in people seeking CCWs has driven people to obtain knowledge where in the past they may have just broken the law and hoped for the best. Quality instructors don’t just dot the I’s and cross the T’s, they provide the how’s and why’s.
 
There is no excuse for assuming scuttlebutt is the truth today. If someone tells you something that doesn’t sound right, question it. Research it. Even if it probably is true, it can’t hurt you to check. And even if they are right, verify it yourself. You may learn something else that they didn’t tell you. Word of mouth lacks the nuance and depth that learning first hand has.
 
Your life isn’t worth a rumor.
 
If you’re interested in protecting yourself with legal defense in the event of a defensive shooting, join the USCCA today by using my affiliate link.

Reader Tom is calling for a boycott of an anti-gun establishment. See his post and emails with the business below.

PLEASE BOYCOTT Lovelady Brewery in Henderson along with not buying their beers elsewhere. They have a NO FIREARMS sign posted on their door plus their response to my email is a cop out. Here is the exchange of emails,read from the bottom up.

FYI I have OPEN carried in every brewery I have visit in Nevada and NUMEROUS bars and NUMEROUS restaurants serving alcohol and I decide that I will have ONLY one beer. That is MY decision. I have added them to my list of places to boycott.

Why don’t “red flag” laws give you a chance to be present at the hearing? (Note: the answers are my educated opinions.)
 
If you were served advanced notice and given a chance to participate in the hearing (due process), that might give you an opportunity to become violent.
 
Emergency protection orders (essentially 72 hour restraining orders) can be done outside of court hours and are usually done by police, who typically make an effort to serve it if they can find the restrainee. A temporary restraining order is approved by a judge and the person generally must be informed about it and served, but is not given a chance to appear in court until the scheduled hearing, usually several weeks.*
 
Let’s say a wife applies for a gun violence restraining order (GVRO). Judge approves in on the spot. Next thing husband knows, deputies or marshals or one of Nevada’s gazillion type of law enforcement officers are at the door. He has no opportunity to respond for several weeks.
 
Now, if he was a dangerous monster, just like the domestic violence stuff above, not knowing about the hearing doesn’t give him a chance to beat, kill, or otherwise dissuade the woman. It also doesn’t give him a chance to respond.
 
Second, if the person is a mass murderer or whatever, he doesn’t have a period of say, 72 hours, where he must engage in his plot right now before his gun disappear. Or shoot it out with the police. The denial of advance warning is for “protection.”
 
In a county where the Constitution is protected, the Fourth Amendment would stop all this. Maybe an short “keep away” order until the next court session would be appropriate, but depriving someone of the right to own firearms absent due process or probable cause is wrong. Our state Supreme Court recently ruled that misdemeanor domestic violence convictions cannot take away someone’s right to bear arms unless they have a jury trial.
 
Protection and denying a bad guy a chance to do something before the piece of paper can be perfected does not merit removing constitutional rights so easily. Restraining orders are well-known for not keeping anyone safe from determined criminals; they are laughably weak protections. Taking away someone’s guns is not any more of a protection.
 
So as a society, we the people—informed, intelligent people—must decide if we want our liberties so easily trampled upon. Do we want to force a process with no oversight and an expensive resolution process on people when it is unlikely the restrictions would work? Is due process and probable cause so cheap to us that we will trade it for a piece of paper? Legislators think they are protecting people, but “red flag” laws are merely a tool for future oppression.
 
*A deputy I worked with was going home one day from work. He saw the neighbor’s toddler playing in the street unsupervised, so he grabbed the kid, took him to his mother, and lectured the mom about how she was an unfit mother and she was lucky she didn’t arrest her for child neglect.
 
Mom didn’t like being told she was a bad mother, so she filed a complaint against the deputy saying he molested her children and gets a temporary restraining order against the deputy. Instantly, IA flies into action and almost immediately finds out the truth. However, the deputy had all his guns taken away and was put on administrative leave for several weeks until the court hearing.
 
At the hearing, the woman is forced to admit the charges were false. She was charged with perjury, filing a false police report, making a false complaint, and child neglect. Yet still the deputy had to get an involuntary vacation and lose his guns because of a lying sack of human garbage. And despite him being a deputy and the investigation, the court still took its sweet time getting to the TRO hearing.

Some good words from Herschel Smith's article at Captain's Journal.

January seems to be the only time Nevada makes the national news for guns. Yes, the NRA puts stuff out and occasionally a little blurb makes the news. Most of the major gun blog sites pretty much miss what's going on in Nevada. Our own version of Virginia last spring? No one noticed. Of course, there was that one October when we really made the news, but without that, would people be paying attention?

SHOT Show is in town and garnering all the headlines. Our favorite gun guys from online and YouTube are in town. Soon the celebrities and companies will depart. Once again, Nevada falls prey to what seems to be a universal belief the Silver State exists only between Sahara and Russell. Maybe there's a dam somewhere. Tahoe is in California, Reno is TV show, and Virginia City stopped existing in 1900.

We've accomplished a lot in Nevada. Heck, we've had probably one of the most successful open carry movements (by that I mean it has been normalized without CA or TX level blowback). We've had rallies and tragedies. We've faced down a radical legislature and at least got them to punt.

Instead, we fly under the radar, largely invisible except for your truly. Nevada Carry has had some visibility outside the state, but this was largely from people looking, media and loons after Oct. 1, and Google putting us on the first page for "open carry" for a while. Heck, even people in Nevada haven't heard of the website. At least they've stopped asking "is open carry legal in Nevada?"

Let’s be realistic; things are going to get a lot worse.
 
Voting will not help. Legislatures have been bought by a billionaire. In many states, this one in particular, the Republican Party is incompetent to mount a proper challenge. Immigration (both from inside the country and from foreigners) has and will continue to change the demographics to one that votes against guns and freedom. Too many people who would vote for conservative candidates don’t vote making “the system is rigged” into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
 
There is not voting our way out of this. Voting Republican is necessary to buy time. Time to prepare for the evil to come and time to enjoy a relatively peaceful time.
 
Protesting does little. Protesting is to scare politicians into not doing stupid things. However, the threat of not getting elected/re-elected is not a threat as the democratic process is corrupted. The lack of voter IDs, gerrymandering, voter rolls with illegal immigrants and dead people on them, etc. Bloomberg can throw lots of money into a race to get a Democrat elected. Politicians don’t have to fear the public when the system is rigged in their favor and their campaign coffers are full.
 
In Virginia, red flag legislation is advancing, despite the protest. The outcry probably killed off some of the worst bills this year, but they will keep coming back until the Left gets what it wants.
 
Second Amendment Sanctuaries? You have to be joking. Unless the sheriff and local cops flat out don’t care AND the judges and prosecutors go along, it’s meaningless. The sheriff and local officials also have to have the moxie to physically throw out any state or federal officials engaged in gun confiscation, etc. I’m talking corrupt Appalachian county during Prohibition stuff where the Revenue men disappeared in the hills.
 
Protesting can buy us time or serve a warning. Rallies can be a break on the worst of the worst legislation. As for not showing up with long-guns or combat gear at rallies; screw the haters. We’ve lost the media, so who cares what they think? Sheep voters who get weak-kneed at a dude with a Barrett rifle will not support us when violent resistance happens. Protests are to show those who might need a warning that we are out there and we do care.
 
The courts might help us, but even if the Supreme Court gives us whatever we want, eventually the Left will cheat enough to invalidate those court cases. The Supreme Court also has to enforce it’s decisions and it has not with Heller so far. Justices can be replaced by future presidents and the court can be packed, as has been threatened. States can simply ignore the court’s decisions. The Supreme Court won’t send marshals to un-arrest Californians with evil rifles.
 
We’re buying time at this point.
 
Many of the haters on the pro-gun side don’t have many good ideas. They complain about keyboard commandos bitching online…which is exactly what they’re doing. I’m not sure what they’re trying to accomplish. “The rally is going to be a death trap. The rally didn’t work.” Some times I wonder if they want someone else to start shooting because they’re cowards.
 
Me personally? I don’t believe this is 1775 and I’m not going to boogaloo or encourage anyone else to. If the boogaloo comes to you or me, that’s a different story, but I’m not playing revolutionary. If I have to go out and die for a cause, it’ll be Jesus, not a bunch of apathetic people who put themselves in this mess.
 
You want to start shooting? Prepare to live in Northern Ireland in the 1970s. That future is an ugly one. I want to exhaust all peaceful options before that happens. I’m happy to buy time and enjoy life before that happens.
 
Now would be the time to kill those involved in the destruction of America. Round up the media people, the billionaires, the celebrities, the Democrats, the Leftist lobbyists and staffers, and the useful idiots. But we won’t do it. We’re too distracted and disorganized. We’re all frogs in the pot. The time to stop being scalded to death is you’re dropped in the pot, not when the lid is on and the water is boiling.
 
History shows us that instead of nipping the problem in the bud, people will wait until they are desperate to solve the problem. By the reactions in Virginia, the time for bloodshed in California was two decades ago. Our ancestors wouldn’t have put up with this shit and engaged the literal army over gun confiscation. So we’ll have a half-dozen small incidents like the Bundy Ranch but none of it will be a solution.
 
Only when they call for a New Zealand style gun confiscation will it get interesting. From there, anything can happen and I’m not going to try to predict anything.

This was a bunch of verbal diarrhea, sorry. I think I made some sort of point in there. Depressing isn't it?

Despite the salty, profanity-laden warnings from certain bloggers, Lobby Day in Richmond, Virginia, didn't turn violent. It wasn't taken over by white supremacists, either. All in all, a huge crowd turned out, undeterred by the measures that Gov. Northam put in place to stymie pro-gun support. 

Again, the conditions weren't right for the state to resort to violence, as I said yesterday. Attendees report that the police were very friendly, mingled amongst the crowds, and even had chats about liberty and guns with the activists. The police aren't always the bad guys and share more in common with us than they do the bureaucrats. 

Virginia is the model of successful non-violent revolt against these laws. We need to keep the Dominion State under observation as to how this new round of tyranny will go. As for my fellow bloggers, chill out and stop filtering everything through your false-flag doom porn lens. 

Most of you should be aware Virginia is in crisis. Their government is controlled by Democrats who have been bought by Michael Bloomberg (like Nevada). Odious gun control bills have been proposed and most of the Old Dominion has become a Second Amendment sanctuary. The possibility of violence, or even civil war, breaking out in Virginia is a real possibility. Monday, January 20, 2020, is the Virginia Citizens’ Defense League (VCDL) Lobby Day, a peaceful day that has occurred for years where citizens visit their legislators in support of gun rights.
 
This year the stakes are very high. Draconian gun control has been proposed, including gun confiscation and registration and even banning “tactical” training. In several fell swoops, Democrats in Virginia want to catch the state up with California and New York. Virginians, many of whom have been Southerners for generations, are rightly upset. Immigration from within the country and foreign immigrants have flipped the state blue with the help of generous infusions of cash.
 
It would not be wrong to say that Virginia was stolen by the Left. This is not the Democrat party of 50 years ago; it is a party that has been entirely taken over by freedom hating radicals. Virginians (and Americans) hate these changes. Our very way of life is under threat and the most dramatic and galvanizing symbol of that is gun control.
 
A Bernie Sanders supporter was just caught calling for Trump voters to be put in gulags to be re-educated. Americans don’t want to be forced into camps or dominated by their government. Government in America has historically been a passive-aggressive relationship with the citizenry. We like it that way and value our individual freedoms. It is ingrained in us that we are free people with the ability to violently rebel against and depose tyrants. Hell, that very thing is depicted on Virginia’s state seal.
 
Gov. Northam and the Virginia government has done some pretty intolerable things before Lobby Day. It is almost a concerted effort to suppress the rights of the gun owners. The ability to peaceably assemble is being restricted.
 
In the past, activists just showed up and went into the capitol. The process was a lot like going into the courthouse. Now, the activists are being funneled into one entrance, with 17 lines at least, for security screening. The capitol square is fenced off.
 
It is rumored that the number of pro-gun speakers/lobbyists will be arbitrarily controlled. Some have also stated that equal numbers pro and anti gun will be allowed to assemble. Gun control supporters will be astroturf plants spewing the party line. Since the anti-gun activists are far fewer in number, a matching requirement will have a devastating effect on the pro-gun side. Such a measure to limit or equal-match the sides will drastically artificially reduce the representation of the massive groundswell of pro-gun support.
 
The Legislature also voted to overturn the longstanding allowance of licensed concealed carry the in capitol. The possibility for violence was claimed as the reason. In reality, it was just an excuse to insult gun owners, give gun owners a defeat, and exercise power. Governor Northam exercised emergency powers to ban firearms from the capitol square (supposedly so guns wouldn’t be brought as symbols to the protest).
 
Police and federal authorities are treating the whole event as a major riot. Government surveillance aircraft have been seen flying over Richmond. The pieces for riot control have been staged in the area.
 
Former Navy SEAL and prescient author Matt Bracken (among others) have warned about Lobby Day becoming a large false flag to frame pro-gun activists for violence to further justify gun control. If not that, any violence by police or Leftists could be disastrous.
 
Bracken made his chops with a book that was eerily similar to the Las Vegas shooting. In his book, an elevated sniper shoots up opening day, leading to mass national gun control. The intent of his work was to make Americans aware of the potential of such a false flag. The Obama administration showed us that it didn’t have the balls or the imagination to do that. Bracken is essentially warning that Lobby Day could be the day of a false flag or an actual incitement that leads to a massacre and broader carnage.
 
I think Bracken’s fears are a little unjustified at this point because we have not yet reached that level of discourse. The Left is not yet that bold and the Right is not desperate enough to start a rebellion. His fears are real, I just don’t see them yet. Despite the fearmongering by people who have the tinfoil hat on a little too tight, we need to take a step back. Just because an event has the potential to get ugly doesn’t mean it will.
 
This is where I differ with several patriot bloggers. One who goes by the name Aesop, has turned into an utter asshole over the issue, dispelling all logic with invective and insults. I read his blog partly for the snark, but his fears and the steeping in “the government is going to kill us all” has colored his and others’ thinking.
 
If we run around afraid the government is going to machine gun us from the roofs, we can accomplish nothing. Imagine not going to Carson City because you’re afraid the capitol police will take you, one by one, into the basement and shoot you. We’re not in that reality yet. When that reality comes, you’ll know. 
 
Under the “advice” of Aesop, Lobby Day shouldn’t happen. I disagree. Lobby Day should happen. Not going would be giving in to the planned and concerted maximum discouragement efforts by the Left. It would let them win their battle to manipulate the democratic process. Rallies and protests in numbers show our size and scares Democrats who are not ready to put those that disagree with them against the wall. We are still in a time when peaceful processes can be used to delay or kill bad legislation. Until that time is up, we need to exhaust those options.
 
The Continental Congress exhausted every attempt, even after the Revolution began, to get Parliament and King George to relent of their tyranny. Yet men like Aesop are essentially asking people to bury their heads in the sand or start shooting. Meanwhile, Aesop shoots his mouth off from Southern California. By his standards, the time to start shooting in California happened in the 1990s.
 
Lobby Day should be framed as a strong and final peaceful warning that gun control will not be tolerated. Not showing up shows us as too weak to care. Aesop’s solution is “don’t go, you might die.” Well, sometimes you need a massacre to start a revolution. If such a massacre did occur, the Democrats in Virginia would be doomed, at the ballot box if not the cartridge box. Millions of Americans on the fence would jump down on the side of freedom and guns.
 
Now as things have progressed, I do see some of the fears of Bracken and Aesop as justified. Their reaction, especially the latter’s, is overblown. If you fear death and danger, you might as well just suffer tyranny and stop bitching about the boot on your neck. Too many of these fears are based in the last big “conservative” rally in Virginia that got ugly.
 
Rumors have abounded that various radical groups, from Antifa to white supremacists, were sending  agent provocateurs to cause trouble. The FBI has even arrested several far-right would-be terrorists. Events like these are magnets for the angry and disaffected. The fear is that this event will become like the events in Charlottesville “Unite the Right rally” which was a rally in opposition to removing the statute of Robert E. Lee.
 
The Charlottesville rally was in support of the history of treasonous losers, but to many, and perhaps in a larger sense, the removal of Lee and other Confederate heroes is an assault on European American history. These events are less about the original inciting event (the MacGuffin) as they are the deeper social issues. Bundy 2014 was not so much about Mr. Bundy’s cattle as it was a rejection of the Obama administration and encroaching government control.
 
Recall the Boston Massacre. Though Americans provoked the incident and an enraged private fired on the crowd, uncommanded, the incident fueled rebellion and the events that led to the Revolution. On the surface, Virginia authorities are seeking to keep Lobby Day from being coopted by, frankly, racist idiots who will make it a day of violence.
 
The fear is not unjustified, but local authorities don’t understand the distinction. First, VCDL has been working very hard to keep this a peaceful event, which appear to be fairly successful. The NRA day last week didn’t devolve into a mess. However, the Left and the government doesn’t understand that the gun control pushback is different from the outrage at the “Unite the Right rally.”
 
The reasons for Charlottesville were different here. The former was used an excuse to express outrage and even engage in partisan street warfare. Lobby Day is addressing an existential threat—the right to keep and bear arms—that is far more important and potentially life-threatening than the removal of a statue of cultural importance. Whereas Charlottesville was almost an excuse for violence, Lobby Day is being framed as a warning, perhaps the final mass peaceful warning against gun control. Lobby Day has far more consequences than a simple protest in support of Southern heritage.
 
Northam, the Democrats, and Virginia law enforcement
 
Virginia authorities ignore the difference at their own peril. Virginia is the heart of the Confederacy. Wrong as they were over slavery, Southerners are rightly proud of their heritage. Their army was well-lead and fought superbly. They stood up for their rights, which would be admirable, if slavery wasn’t at the heart of it. This rebellious attitude is currently expressed by the Rebel flag to celebrate Southerness and the American spirit of independence.
 
The Left makes a grave mistake confusing the racists with conservatives and centrist proud Americans. Because they are captured by their thought processes and paradigms which their conception of us must conform to, they cannot tell the difference. This attitude has lead them into a trap of proverbially stepping on an angry rattlesnake. In using the same tools to deal with Charlottesville with non-violent, non-radicalized citizens, they are inciting “normies” to become radicalized.
Northam’s rhetoric and actions have played into this. The best course of action would have been to “take no notice of” the citizen lobbyists and their planned protest. Instead, there is a possibility (though not likely) that these actions will backfire and make the day into a Bloody Monday.
 
Northam has forced activists into a turkey shoot situation. Any attack on defenseless people trying to exercise their right to peaceably assemble and redress the government would be intolerable. If normal people are upset about the things being done now, actual government violence on a peaceful crowd will motivate many. Violence will follow and the situation will spiral downhill.
 
As ham-handed as authorities’ efforts have been to control the day, I doubt that the “Deep State” or the Left would deliberately engage in false-flag violence because this would inevitably provoke an immediate and violent reprisal from the Right. Self-proclaimed spokespersons for Antifa (a leaderless group) are saying that they are either avoiding the area or planning on attending, peacefully, to support the right to keep and bear arms.
 
My prediction is that the day will be free of violence. The legislation passed eventually will be fairly tame, but will encourage further passive resistance and political activism on gun owners. Incrementalism will be used, along with every dirty trick in the Left’s playbook, to roll out gun control. At some point, the Democrats will go too far and violence will break out. The only question is how, when, and where. When that occurs, the questions won’t matter any longer.