Archive for the 'Gun Control' Category

But wait, that’s not the whole story.

Governor Asa Hutchinson has informed the Arkansas State Police that he believes a 2013 law made open carry of hand guns the law of the land in Arkansas and they should act accordingly.

There is, as yet, no definitive court case that substantiates this view of the law. Ever since its passage, a debate has raged over the law’s meaning. Some contended it was merely meant to be a technical correction to Arkansas law that long had allowed the carrying of weapons on a “journey,” but not in all circumstances. Gun advocates argued that the wording validated open carry. Critics argue that such an expansive view might override some of the restrictions in law on where concealed weapons may be taken.

The governor’s letter comes as he faces a challenge in the Republican primary from Jan Morgan, a gun range owner who’s depicted Hutchinson (a former spokesman for the NRA) as somehow soft on guns (she was critical of some limitations added to the campus carry legislation, among others). His opinion carries no force of law, but the directive to an executive agency will have the effect of guiding state troopers, as indicated by a notice sent yesterday to troopers by Col. Bill Bryant, director of the State Police.

Context: An off-duty trooper in 2014 arrested a man who was carrying a weapon in a Searcy Walmart. He was acquitted of an obstruction of governmental operations misdemeanor charge, but lost a lawsuit at the circuit court level in which he sought to have his concealed carry permit restored. Judge Wendell Griffen rejected James Tanner’s argument that the 2013 law allowed open carry so long as no unlawful intent was present. The judge called that interpretation “senseless.” The judge ruled Tanner wasn’t entitled to get his license back because he openly carried a concealed weapon as a permit holder and refused to provide identification to an officer who asked for it. That case has not been appealed, court records indicate.

Attorney General Leslie Rutledge issued an official opinion in 2015 that indicated open carry was legal in Arkansas, but she also commented that confusion about the 2013 law suggested clarification would be useful. Her predecessor, Dustin McDaniel, had opined the law was only a technical correction, not legalization of unlimited open carry.

Rutledge also enumerated these caveats about open carry:

* Law officers can freely question anyone openly carrying a weapon about their purpose.

* Other statutes prohibit open carry in certain circumstances — in government buildings such as the Capitol, for example.

* Private property owners are entitled to keep firearms off their property, and armed people who refuse to leave can be prosecuted for trespass.

* The law doesn’t affect concealed carry statutes. All carrying concealed weapons still must comply with permitting and other requirements.

By “soft on guns,” Morgan means that Asa isn’t the gun rights supporter he purports to be.

Hutchinson hasn’t been hard enough on the gays and the transgenders; he once took a meeting with gun control advocates; he wouldn’t sign a meaningless anti-Sharia law bill; he’s supported the continuation of the Obamacare Medicaid expansion.

Arkansas is in fact a stop and identify state, but only for loitering.  The judge that decided the case against the open carrier, Wendell Griffen, is clearly an idiot and communist.  Expect the police to ignore the governor’s edict and work towards their communist ends.

As for the governor’s race, I don’t know what will happen.  But Arkansas is as much a mess as every other state.

And they’ll leave our bump stocks alone.

Gun Owners of America (GOA) is decrying the latest push from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) for bump stock gun control, contending that part of the solution is to defund the ATF altogether.

The GOA’s statements come after the DOJ announced that the ATF is weighing whether to redefine the term “machinegun,” so as to include accessories that do not convert semiautomatic firearms into automatic ones. This would place firearm accessories like bump stocks on par with actually firearm conversion devices, therefore bringing an entire new category of firearm accessories under the auspices of the National Firearms Act of 1934 (NFA). Placing such accessories under the purview of the NFA would require bump stock owners to pass a background check, be fingerprinted, photographed, and pay a $200 tax to the federal government.

GOA executive director Erich Pratt told Breitbart News, “Gun Owners of America will rally its members in opposition to any proposed restrictions on bump stocks by the ATF.  GOA holds that any such limitations are unconstitutional and would open the door to additional regulations, even while doing nothing to stop evil people from committing heinous acts.”

Well, of course that’s true.  The way to stop the unconstitutional infringement the mere existence the ATF poses is to entirely defund the ATF, forcing the bureaucracy to send all of its employees pink slips.  It won’t happen because the Senate and Congress believes in this infringement just like the executive does.

By the way, you’re aware, aren’t you, that the ATF is preparing to fold in bump stocks to the NFA?  The reddit link on this can be found here.

Remember this great decision by the Delaware Supreme Court?  Yea, well, it didn’t take long for the controllers to spring into action in order to blunt the force of God-given rights (finally recognized by men).

The Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control and the Delaware Department of Agriculture plan to issue interim firearm regulations early next week.

The regulations come after the Delaware Supreme Court repealed a firearmsban.

The state anticipates that the interim regulations would prohibit firearms in certain public facilities and designated areas – including park offices, visitors’ centers, bathhouses, zoos, educational facilities, dormitories, group camping areas, swimming pools, guarded beaches, stadiums and water parks.

In addition, the regulations would allow holders of valid Delaware concealed carry permits to carry within parks, including designated areas. The regulations would further allow active-duty law enforcement officers and qualified retired officers to carry anywhere within the parks and other areas affected by Supreme Court decision.

Group camping areas.  So in other words, when you might most need a firearm for self defense (if you were a criminal bent on evil, would you go to a location where nobody else was?), you aren’t legally allowed to have one.

Hemp rope and lamp posts, after their toe nails have been pulled off, one by one.

The State:

Four months isn’t enough time to get all the state’s business done.

When South Carolina lawmakers wrapped the 2017 legislative session in May, they had approved a plan to fix the state’s dilapidated roads, including a higher gas tax, and shored up the state’s pension system.

But some bills didn’t reach the finish line for one reason or another, so even before moving on to new business, the Legislature will have a lot to pick back up when they convene for the second half of the session in January.

Multiple bills affect South Carolinians’ ability to buy and carry firearms publicly. Last year, the S.C. House of Representatives approved two bills loosening the requirements for carrying a gun in the Palmetto State, only to see them get stuck in the state Senate.

One would allow anyone with an out-of-state gun permit to carry a concealed weapon in South Carolina as long as their state also recognizes S.C. carrying permits. The bill removes any requirement on the traveler to have passed a criminal background check or taken a firearm safety course. However, the traveler still must observe S.C. laws for carrying firearms while in the state.

The other bill would eliminate the need to have any permit to carry a weapon, either concealed or openly – a position proponents call “constitutional carry.”

Meanwhile, a Senate bill would do away with the so-called “Charleston loophole” by requiring a 28-day waiting period for a gun seller to complete a background check.

That loophole – a federal rule that allows a gun purchase to be completed if a background check takes longer than three days – allowed convicted Charleston church shooter Dylann Roof to purchase a handgun because a prior drug conviction was not reported to the seller within the three-day wait period. Another bill would require courts to speed up the reporting of criminal convictions for background checks.

Both of those bills remained in committee when the 2017 session came to an end.

The debate around all these bills started before this autumn’s mass shootings in Las Vegas and Sutherland Springs, Texas, and it’s unclear what effect those might have on S.C. lawmakers’ appetite for more gun legislation.

It remains sitting there, S.C. gun owners.  If the S.C. legislature doesn’t prioritize some form of open carry – with or without constitutional carry – it’s because they feel no pressure to prioritize it.

Events of recent months have given the progs a good excuse to delay this legislation.  Of course.  Not good in the sense that it has anything to do with open carry, but good in the sense that the optics are altered.

PJM:

Islamic State supporters issued a new Christmas-themed threat showing the National Cathedral in Washington in flames, with a camouflage-clad jihadist wielding a rifle standing in front of the Gothic structure.

The poster circulating among ISIS channels photoshops the photo of the church used on its Wikipedia page.

The text warning on the image is of a city just attacked this past week, though: “Wait for us: We meet at Christmas in New York… soon.”

The threat mirrors that on a poster of Santa with a case of dynamite overlooking Times Square, which was released just after Thanksgiving: “We meet at Christmas in New York… soon,” reads the text on that image.

Idiots.  Santa Claus has nothing whatsoever to do with Christmas or Christianity.  And the National Cathedral has nothing whatsoever to do with Christianity either.  They no longer believe in anything at all, and ISIS is wasting their time assuming that an attack on the National Cathedral would deter believers in America from meeting and worshipping on the Lord’s Day Sabbath.

However, it does bring up an interesting little dilemma for the National Cathedral, yes?  You see, they are leaders in the progressive community in gun control.  This sermon (posted on their web site) tells us everything we need to know.

I, for one, have decided to join forces with Dean Hall at the National Cathedral and all people of faith and good will who are saying now, in response to Friday’s tragedy, that enough is enough. We have been fed enough the stale bread of violence. We have been complicit too long in a system that allows such crimes to continue. 119,079 children and teens have been killed by gun violence since 1979, according to Marian Wright Edelman of the Children’s Defense Fund, more than the number of Americans killed in any of the 20th century’s largest wars. More than 10,000 Americans were killed by gun violence last year alone.

Dean Hall and I have decided to dedicate ourselves to the work of passing national legislation to ban the sale of assault weapons and ammunition in this country and I invite you, as a congregation, to join us and others for whom something snapped inside on Friday, as if we collectively all awoke from a very bad dream. While there are legitimate reasons to own a gun for sport and self-defense, there is no reason for civilians to own weapons whose only purpose is to kill large numbers of people. And while there is far more to be done to reduce violence in our nation and to care for the mentally ill, if we don’t begin with the most obvious first steps, how will we ever progress to more difficult challenges?

So there you have it.  The very people who have been threatened by ISIS believe they shouldn’t be allowed to defend themselves and should have to turn to the state for protection.  The National Cathedral has never once averred that congregants should carry, any more than they believe that men walking the street should be allowed to carry weapons.  Their tip of the hat to self defense is a lie.

If I was a congregant at the National Cathedral, I sure wouldn’t be attending there any more.  But then again, why would anyone be a congregant at the National Cathedral?  They don’t believe in anything.

Via David Codrea, this from Larry Keane writing for Ammoland.

For those on the pro-gun side who argue online or respond to posts with the message that the entire system should be scrapped for whatever reason, or that it will lead someday to a national gun registry, you need to hear this: Take a breath, think.

If there was not a NICS system, we would have had some other system imposed, just as we did in the five years before NICS was implemented. The Brady Act imposed a waiting period while NICS was under construction. Would you prefer that? Existing federal law prevents a national registry. That will not change with Fix NICS.

Well isn’t that just swell.  Larry Keane, head of NSSF, is lecturing us on accepting something because something else could be worse.  Nevermind that the whole thing is an unconstitutional infringement.

Smarter and more morally grounded writers, Roger J. Katz, Attorney at Law, and Stephen L. D’Andrilli, also write for Ammoland why they are concerned about “fixing NICS.”

Anti-gun proponents, through their Congressional representatives—Senate Democratic Party members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, including ranking Democratic Party member, Dianne Feinstein, and her principal cohorts, Patrick Leahy, Richard Blumenthal, Dick Durbin, and Sheldon Whitehouse, among others—wish to move the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) and other criminal and mental health databases into an efficient and massive and broad digital firearms registration scheme, embracing more and more individuals and incentivizing the military and the States to add comprehensive criminal and mental health data into NICS and other databases. Through this Hearing, and through recent comments of anti-gun proponents in news broadcasts, we see renewed efforts by anti-gun proponents, stoked by the recent mass shooting incidents—to weaken the Second Amendment beyond past efforts. Emboldened, we see efforts afoot by anti-gun proponents to transform NICS and other federal and State databases into a comprehensive digital firearms’ registration scheme, wrapping it into a more restrictive, draconian criminal and mental health background check scheme.

It’s a long article and well worth your time.  Please read it all, and thanks to David for bringing Keane’s Krap to our attention.

You know my position.  I’ve made it abundantly clear, and I don’t retreat one iota from it.  “I do not support any bill, ever, under any circumstances, for any reason whatsoever, that includes more gun laws.  I do not believe in compromise.”

The Baltimore Sun:

Harford County Sheriff Jeffrey Gahler has asked state lawmakers to let handgun owners bring their weapons to worship, saying he wants congregations to be able to defend themselves against a mass shooting like the one that happened last month in Texas.

Gahler backs a proposal that would let parishioners who have the written permission of church officials wear and carry a handgun on church property. The parishioner would need a state handgun license, but not a concealed-carry permit.

He was joined at a news conference this week in Edgewood by the two lawmakers who plan to introduce the legislation— Republican House Minority Whip Kathy Szeliga and state Sen. Wayne Norman — and three local pastors who support the idea. The sheriff, also a Republican, said he asked lawmakers to pursue the issue.

They called the measure the Parishioner Protection Act of 2018.

The Sheriff is to be congratulated for his stand.  It isn’t constitutional carry, you say?  No, it’s not.  But it’s all he could ever hope to get (regardless of his views on constitutional carry).  So why does he want this for Marylanders?

Gahler said there are about 300 churches in Harford County and about 20 Sheriff’s Office deputies on duty at any time.

“The police cannot be everywhere, and this proposed legislation grew out of the faith-based community reaching out to us,” he said.

But continuing with the previous report, this isn’t likely to happen.

The proposal is counter to political winds in Annapolis, where the presiding officers of the Democrat-dominated General Assembly have proposed tightening — not loosening — Maryland’s gun laws.

“We don’t need guns in churches,” Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller said in a statement to The Baltimore Sun.

Miller and House Speaker Michael E. Busch, both Democrats, have jointly announced support for expanding the state’s ban on assault-style weapons and revamping the process for appealing denial of concealed-carry permit requests.

Miller and Busch want to replace the Handgun Permit Review Board, which is composed of five political appointees who can overturn decisions of the Maryland State Police, with an administrative judge — taking gun permit requests out of the hands of civilians.

“Maryland has one of the strongest gun control laws in the country — and we are not going to take a step backward now,” Busch said in a statement.

Given that environment, “I don’t see it happening,” Del. Kathleen Dumais said of the new proposal on guns in houses of worship.

“We will certainly hear the bill,” said Dumais, a Montgomery County Democrat who is vice chair of the House Judiciary Committee. “I am just not convinced that more people carrying guns is the solution.”

Under current law, those who want a concealed-carry permit must undergo training and apply to the state police. The applicant must show “a good and substantial reason” for needing the permit, and the police investigate to determine whether the applicant has “exhibited a propensity for violence or instability.”

“Good and substantial reason.”  You see, you basically cannot have a concealed handgun permit in Maryland.  It isn’t a shall issue state.  The Sheriff wants to allow congregants to carry on church property without one.

The communists in Maryland would rather see congregants die.  They are one Islamist away from hundreds of deaths that could have been avoided.

Do you live in Maryland?  If so, why?

Reason.com:

According to a 2016 report from the Justice Department’s inspector general that looked at a sample of 125 delayed denials from 2008 through 2014, the ATF recovered weapons in 116 cases. In two cases, the gun owners already had resold the weapons, and in one case “the matter was referred to local authorities after the subject was arrested by them on unrelated charges.” In five cases, “the subjects could not be located,” and in one case “the ATF office explained that due to competing priorities it did not have the resources to retrieve the firearm.” In other words, the illegal gun owners were disarmed 95 percent of the time. But the public safety benefit of those efforts is debatable, because the reasons people are forbidden to own guns often have little or nothing to do with the threat they pose.

[ … ]

The 2004 report noted that gun buyers who fail background checks before completing their purchases are rarely prosecuted, even though all of them, on the face of it, have committed felonies by making false statements on the ATF form they filled out while trying to buy a firearm. The FBI blocked 122,000 gun sales in 2002 and 2003, which represented 0.7 percent of background checks. Only 154 of the would-be gun owners—0.1 percent—were prosecuted. According to the 2016 report, prosecution rates in more recent years have been even lower. “These cases lack ‘jury appeal’ for various reasons,” the 2004 report noted. One of those reasons: “The factors prohibiting someone from possessing a firearm may have been nonviolent or committed many years ago.”

If most people who are forbidden to own guns by federal law do not strike ATF agents or jurors as dangerous, maybe there is something wrong with the law. The scandal is not lackadaisical ATF agents, negligent prosecutors, or apathetic jurors; it is the casual ease with which the government deprives people of the fundamental right to armed self-defense.

But in order to understand what’s happening here, you have to remember that Form 4473 isn’t really about preventing dangerous people from buying guns.  It’s about FedGov control.

The thing that struck me in this article was the fact that buyers had stated they sold the firearm, and that apparently was good enough for either local law enforcement, the FedGov, or both.  Some states require that you keep a bill of sale for person-to-person transfers, but in the case you don’t, most prosecutors aren’t going to waste jury and judge time on failure to retain a BoS.

That means that Form 4473 – and no, I don’t like it, and I think it’s an infringement, and it could easily be turned into a FedGov gun registration list, and therefore is a dangerous thing that ought to be abolished – is not yet a FedGov gun registry.

Not yet.

News from the land of the communists.

Boston — Massachusetts has some of the toughest gun and ammunition laws in the country, but 5 Investigates put some of those laws to the test and found just how easy it is to purchase hundreds of rounds of ammunition without the proper license.

Within minutes, 5 Investigates went online and was able to buy that ammunition and get it delivered within a few days of ordering, no questions asked.

At the The Gun Parlor, a licensed gun and ammunition dealer in Worcester, ammunition is readily available for purchase by Massachusetts residents if they have a license to carry (LTC) or a firearms identification card (FID), which is required by law.

Justin Gabriel, owner of the gun shop, said no one can come in his store and buy ammunition without a proper license. “Absolutely not,” he said. “You need a license. Whether you have an FID or LTC, you need one of those licenses in Massachusetts to purchase the ammo.”

But 5 Investigates discovered that’s not always the case online when we managed to score 450 rounds of ammunition with no firearms license required.

Working with a WCVB employee who is properly licensed, 5 Investigates set up an account with Connecticut-based online dealer Target Sports USA and ordered nine boxes of .40 caliber full metal jacket bullets.

The questionable deal was done, and 5 Investigates was never asked for or any type of ID, even though our account and shipping address made it clear the ammunition was headed for Massachusetts, which is one of a handful of states that restricts online purchases like this.

It’s alarming because in our purchase, anyone with just a credit card could have gotten their hands on that ammunition. Not only must Massachusetts residents be of age and have the proper firearms license, but the companies must be licensed by the state to sell it here legally.

Just a few days later, FedEx rolled down the driveway and delivered the goods. The box containing hundreds of bullets was left on the doorstep for anyone to grab.

The 5 Investigates probe also showed this was not just a one-time event.

This story began with a tip from a licensed gun owner troubled that he could order 2,000 rounds of ammunition from the same company, no questions asked. Again, the firepower was left on his doorstep for anyone to access.

“This is just putting the stuff in the hands of the wrong people,” the man said. “You don’t want someone who shouldn’t have a gun that’s got a gun [and] now they have an unlimited supply of ammo through the mail.”

5 Investigates’ purchase and others like it are particularly chilling in the wake of some of the deadliest shootings in our nation’s history, where in some cases thousands of rounds of ammo were bought online and stockpiled.

Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, who enforces some of the toughest gun laws in the country, is troubled by what 5 Investigates could do.

“I think people would be very surprised by that and outraged, and that is in fact why we have laws in Massachusetts that prohibit that kind of conduct,” Healey said. “We don’t want to see people stockpiling ammunition illegally and unlawfully here in Massachusetts.”

Well, I’m sure it makes everyone feel safer with Maura on the case.  She never misses a chance to infringe.

Can you smell the self-righteous shock and indignation from the writer?  The ammunition laws in Massachusetts must make the collectivists proud.  My goodness, how far they’ve fallen from the war of independence where British gun control catalyzed the war of independence.

David Codrea:

Instead of being prosecuted for a violation of California law, which leaving his gun unsecured in his car was, BLM ranger John Woychowski was never even disciplined. Instead, El Centro’s 2011 “Ranger of the Year” was promoted five months after Steinle’s killing.

The other law enforcement “contribution” was by Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi, who ignored a detainer from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and put the killer back on the streets.

If you’ve monitored the goings-on in the countries heavy with gun control, such as Brazil and other South American countries, you’ll note that cops are often killed solely for the purpose of stealing their gun(s).  It happens in major American cities too.

So the Shannon Watts of the world are impaled on the horns of a dilemma.  They don’t want anyone to have guns except for law enforcement.  They are statists to the core.  On the other hand, arming law enforcement leads to killings and theft of their guns.

What’s a collectivist to do?