Archive for the 'Gun Control' Category

Reason.com:

President Barack Obama has vowed to keep pushing for new gun control measures and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said the failed gun vote in the Senate was “just the beginning.” However, the latest Reason-Rupe national poll finds just 33 percent of Americans feel the “Senate should debate and vote on gun control legislation again,” while 62 percent want the Senate to “move on to other issues.”

This data is surprising given earlier polls finding what appeared to be overwhelming support for expanding background check for firearm purchases. For instance, Gallup found that 83 percent of Americans favored a law requiring background checks for all gun purchases.

But the data isn’t surprising to me.  I told you so.  Phrased the right way and posed at the right time, a pollster could get 80%-90% of Americans to agree that the moon is made of green cheese.  That’s why the polls are meaningless.

From Australia:

The problem with this government is that it takes an eternity for it to act on crucial law enforcement laws, Michelle Roberts, Australian State Opposition’s police spokeswoman, ranted on Tuesday.

Last week, detectives from Western Australia, acting on an anonymous tip, raided South Beach hotel in Fremantle and three properties in Caversham which yielded a massive cache of guns and ammunition, including a Chinese assault rifle and a laser-sighted Magnum handgun as well as thousands of rounds of ammunition.

Only half of those confiscated in the Caversham houses were licensed. Police noted that some of the firearms were unsecured, and scattered in different locations around the houses. Some were even loaded, ready for firing.

Well if they were “scattered in different locations around the house” and were “loaded, ready for firing,” then those dudes must have been really dangerous indeed.

I have more than enough guns for every room in the house, and (gasp) they’re “loaded, ready for firing!”  Who would have a gun that wasn’t ready for firing?  Why would someone spend effort and money on such a thing?  Is it a paperweight?  What do these journalists think we do with guns, and why do they think we have them?

Seriously.  As I read some of this claptrap I just don’t know.  Does this journalist have an automobile in her driveway (gasp!) with tires, ready for driving, or food in her kitchen, ready for cooking?

NYT:

A strange thing happened after 45 senators killed a bill to expand background checks for gun buyers five weeks ago: many of those same senators suddenly discovered a profound affection for background checks. They had been for them all along, it turns out, and wanted nothing more than to keep guns out of the hands of felons.

“Knowing your interest in gun control, I wanted to give you an update on legislation I have co-sponsored and supported recently,” Senator Dean Heller, Republican of Nevada, wrote to his constituents earlier this month. “I have been adamant from the beginning of the gun control debate that our current background check system needs strengthening and improving.”

[ … ]

This kind of dissembling by gun control opponents has been rampant for years, but rarely have the National Rifle Association’s most captive lawmakers been so nakedly deceptive as in the weeks since public rage grew over the gun vote. Senator Kelly Ayotte, Republican of New Hampshire, also voted against the Manchin-Toomey measure, and she immediately suffered the backlash of angry voters in her state. So she issued a statement saying “I support effective background checks” and reminding voters that she had backed the misleadingly named Protecting Communities and Preserving the Second Amendment Act — a measure that does nothing to close the loopholes for Internet or gun-show sales and that was, in fact, supported by the N.R.A. because it actually makes it easier to transport guns across state lines.

But triangulating and equivocating is what politicians do these days.  It doesn’t mean that the universal background check will end up law.  However, let’s suppose that the NYT editorial board is right (later on in the editorial), and this issue isn’t going away.

Very well.  Bring it.  We defeated you once, and we’ll do it again.  Word to everyone who has been entrusted with a stewardship of a vote in the House or Senate.  This won’t make it past the Senate, but even if it does, it will go down in remarkable and inglorious flames in the House.

When it does, support for this bastard proposal will haunt you for the rest of your lives.  Gun owners never forgive, and never forget.  Don’t believe the hype about public support for universal background checks.  It’s all a lie.

Tread carefully.

The Telegraph:

So let’s run down the facts.  Two men armed with knives and a gun hack another man to death, the police respond no sooner than twenty minutes after the attack, and laws in England virtually prohibit carrying of weapons or owning of weapons beyond firearms used for hunting (which cannot be carried on your person).

So to repeat.  Man prohibited from owning a gun gets killed by criminals who were prohibited from owning a gun but who didn’t have any regard for the law since they were criminals.  People who witnessed the crime could only shout at them since they didn’t have guns either.

Got it.

From NPR.  None of this is a surprise to any of my readers, but the main thing to recognize is that when they refer to trace, they mean trace it to a gun dealer.  So a serial number gets traced to a wholesaler, who then can trace it to an FFL, who then (unfortunately) has the form 4473 on file.

What they don’t say, and what they can’t do, is tell whether a gun has been privately sold to another individual.  This happens often, and it’s legal as it should be.

I’m fine with this being low-tech, and I’m fine with the ATF being unable to trace it to the actual owner in a large number of cases.  Being not okay with this means belief in a national gun registry, and that would be anathema to believers in liberty, and a function of a wicked government since all gun control is evil.

David Codrea:

“Apparently Square is joining several other payment processors and financial institutions and are now refusing to do business with anyone who has anything to do with guns, ammo or other weapons,” the Guns Save Lives blog observed, adding “Paypal has long had a standing policy of refusing to business with any gun related business, including for things as innocuous as gun magazines. GE Capital, one of the largest lenders in the US recently announced they would no longer work with the gun industry as well.”

“We may decide not to authorize or settle any transaction that you submit to us if we believe that the transaction is in violation of this Agreement,” Square warns its users.

David is covering financial companies who refuse to do business with firearms buyers and sellers.  This is one reason we have tried to close out our bank account with Bank of America.  We’re about there.

Kurt Hofmann:

At the state level, exploiters of murdered children have over the last few months parlayed the Sandy Hook Elementary atrocity into magazine and “assault weapon” bans–in some cases confiscatory bans–and have castigated Congress for not following the same unconstitutional path at the federal level. 3-D printing has already spelled the doom for the effectiveness of such bans, as well as background check requirements and other restrictions on “assault weapon” sales.

We will ultimately win, and I think that’s Kurt’s point.  As for this whole 3D printing issue, I am thus far not impressed enough to do anything more than distribute the files if someone sends them to me.  I’ll stick to what I’ve got and what I plan to get until further advancements in technology (and those advancements will come).  But the paranoia made me more interested than I otherwise would have been.  If the government forbids having the files, I want them.  If you can’t distribute them, I want to be a clearinghouse for them.

Via Say Uncle, another New Yorker will be prosecuted for the ridiculous law.

An upstate man was arrested under the state’s new gun law when troopers found him with a legally registered pistol that had a magazine that held nine bullets – two more than the new statute allows, state police said.

Troopers from the New Lebanon barracks in Columbia County stopped a car driven by Gregory D. Dean Jr., 31, of Hopewell Junction, around 9:45 p.m. Sunday on Route 22 because the vehicle’s license-plate lamp was not working.

While interviewing Dean, troopers noticed a handgun on the front seat, partially covered by a sweatshirt.

The troopers determined the gun, a .40-caliber pistol, was legally registered and possessed. However, when the troopers inspected the pistol, its magazine contained the nine bullets – New York’s Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement Actonly allows seven bullets per magazine.

Police charged Dean with unlawful possession of certain ammunition feeding devices, third-degree aggravated unlicensed operation,both misdemeanors, plus vehicle infractions, police said.

Ah, there we go again calling a cartridge a bullet, and New York’s finest spending time shutting down violent gangs on tax money … er uh … harassing gun owners on tax money.

Dave Hardy:

Maryland Shall Issue has filed a lawsuit against the State Police. The gist of it is that the police are taking an average of 55 days to issue permits, while the statutory command is that they do so within 7 days.

But Dave.  They’re the police.  They can do what they want to.  If they can shoot innocent people in SWAT raids, no one will care if they don’t issue carry permits when the law says they must.  By the way, Maryland is one of those states through which I will not drive, and over which I will not fly.

David Codrea:

The Department of Defense Trade Controls has “requested” Defense Distributed to remove files associated with its Wiki Weapon Project, an announcement posted on the DEFCAD website today announced …

This development is occurring mere days after the announcement that a complete working 3-D printed firearm, the Liberator, had successfully been built, and follows speculation from earlier today when a “temporarily unavailable” message appeared when trying to access the downloadable files.

Read also David’s War On Guns post about this subject.  Now take a quick look at what Mike Vanderboegh says, and take note that if anyone has files they would like to send to me I’ll take possession and distribute them like Mike.

Totalitarians will be totalitarians.  But they will not win.

UPDATE: The thought occurs to me that Holder is several days late (and if he was one second late it’s game over).  Bit torrent sites will have the files forever now, encrypted.  So it’s game over.  There’s nothing Holder can do about it.

Senator Tom Coburn cooperated with Senator Manchin (and Schumer) for a while on “expanded” (universal) background checks before he pulled out of the negotiations for whatever reason.  He was simply indignant when Senator Reid later pushed him around.

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) on Thursday blasted Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) as a “failure” and said the Democratic leader broke his promise to allow him an amendment on last month’s gun control bill.

“Harry Reid is a nice guy. I like him. But I think he has been a failure as a majority leader for the Senate in terms of keeping the history of the Senate and the progress of the Senate in line with what it was intended to be by our founders,” Coburn said.

The Oklahoma Republican was appearing on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” to explain why he had attempted to attach an amendment to a water resources and infrastructure bill that would have allowed gun owners to carry firearms into recreational areas.

“They were very good to allow me an amendment, and the reason they did is because Harry [Reid] denied me an amendment on the gun bill on one that would have passed and solved the problem, which he promised to give me,” Coburn said.

“He has been dishonest with me, not truthful, not kept his word,” Coburn continued. “He’s played games, you know? We’ve done our own damage to that in response to it. So what we have is people pointing fingers at each other.”

Coburn’s amendment to the water and infrastructure bill would have allowed states to decide whether visitors to areas controlled by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers — including many of the nation’s campsites and trails — would be allowed to carry weapons. The amendment failed Wednesday in a 56-43 vote, four short of the 60 necessary to proceed.

More specifically, Coburn’s proposal would have opened up lands heretofore prohibited from weapons as well as begun to make DHS accountable for it’s ammunition orders.

The Senate has rejected an amendment to the Water Resources Development Act that would have repealed a ban on carrying guns on land managed by the Army Corps of Engineers.

The amendment, by Sen. Tom Coburn, was defeated 56-43, falling four votes shy of the 60 needed to defeat a Democratic-led filibuster. Coburn withdrew a second amendment that would require annual reports from federal agencies on ammunition and gun purchases and firearm thefts.

Democrats said it could “threaten critical facilities like dams and flood control projects.”  So in addition to .22 LR shots potentially adversely affecting the nation’s energy grid, we now have rifle or handgun shots that can take out a dam.  The power of small projectiles is storied and amazing, to be sure.

The real lesson in all of this isn’t the amendment, which was sure to fail, or the moronic Democrat response to it, but that Coburn offered it.  He is feeling heat from his cooperation with the totalitarians on gun control, and he’s trying to shore up his pro-gun credentials.

It won’t work.  Gun owners never forgive, and never forget.  Like wicked men chasing after whores, the politicians in Washington chase after the next feel-good measure rather than act on principle.  But when you sleep with the enemy you contract their diseases.  Coburn is damaged goods.

As for guns on federal land (specifically, guns in national parks), my FOIA request proves that the predicted apocalypse of gun crime after weapons were made legal didn’t obtain.  To the surprise of the Brady campaign, gun owners are responsible people.

There is an increasing number of charges that the recent gun control legislation was rejected because of slippery slope arguments.  One such charge was leveled by the loser himself, Joe Manchin.

Think gun control failed in the Senate because of gun-clutching extremists? Or because of fanatical radicals who want to abolish the Second Amendment? Senator Joe Manchin, who’s been at the heart of the effort, says it’s nothing of the sort. In fact, the central problem really has nothing to do with firearms at all — it’s about trust.

When he speaks to gun owners, “they’re scared this is the first step” in a massive government overreach, said Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat. He made the remarks during an interview with Margaret Carlson at the New York Ideas Festival, a daylong conference sponsored by The Atlantic and the Aspen Institute.

“When you say universal background check, the first thing that comes in the mind of a gun owner is that means registration, and registration means confiscation. ‘I haven’t broken the laws, why do you want to know everything?'” he said. According to Manchin, even in gun-loving West Virginia, constituents he spoke with repeatedly told him that if the bill did only what it said it does, they would wholeheartedly support it. (“There’s a lot the NRA likes in this bill,” he added.) The problem is, they’re skeptical that the bill will in fact go farther than it claims. That means the effort to pass it on a second try will require emphasizing, for example, the harsh penalties associated with keeping records past a certain period.

He portrays gun owners as pitiful sheep, “scared” of anything and everything.  The reality is much different.  But then there is Cass Sunstein, who thinks he is much smarter than we are.  You can read his entire piece, but this is the money quote.

Illuminating though it is, Hirschman’s account misses an especially pernicious example of the rhetoric of reaction: the slippery-slope argument. According to that argument, we should reject Reform A, which is admittedly not so terrible, because it would inevitably put us on a slippery slope to Reform B, which is really bad.

But the problem is that this criticism neglects to consider – or maybe intentionally ignores – the real presence of intentionality.  I have never made the case that the proposed gun control law should have been rejected because it is a slippery slope and could lead to more pernicious or onerous things.  I don’t know another gun rights blogger who has made that case.

The case that I have made, and repeatedly so, is that a system of universal background checks is a precursor and necessary prerequisite to a national gun registry.  I have never charged that it would be some accidental feature of overbearing governance.  I have charged that it would be intentional, and that universal background checks would have no effect on gun crime.

Furthermore, I have pointed to progressive arguments for that very system, showing that this is the real goal of every progressive.

The only way we can truly be safe and prevent further gun violence is to ban civilian ownership of all guns. That means everything. No pistols, no revolvers, no semiautomatic or automatic rifles. No bolt action. No breaking actions or falling blocks. Nothing. This is the only thing that we can possibly do to keep our children safe from both mass murder and common street violence.

Unfortunately, right now we can’t. The political will is there, but the institutions are not. Honestly, this is a good thing. If we passed a law tomorrow banning all firearms, we would have massive noncompliance. What we need to do is establish the regulatory and informational institutions first. This is how we do it.  The very first thing we need is national registry. We need to know where the guns are, and who has them.

In the end, Manchin’s proposals were rejected because the people didn’t like his ideas, and Cass Sunstein isn’t as smart as he thinks he is.  Gun control laws such as universal background checks may in fact end up a slippery slope because the federal government is a micromanager and even if there is opposition to a national gun registry one may develop anyway.  But the reason to oppose them has more to do with intentionality, not accident.

Finally, there is another reason to have opposed Manchin’s proposals.  We simply didn’t like what he proposed.  Or in other words, we like the idea that we can buy and sell guns to each other without having to go through a federal firearms license and pay a transfer fee, and we like the idea of gifting guns to each other without telling the federal government about it.

Examiner:

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder told Kansas Governor Sam Brownback that the legislation he signed titled the Second Amendment Protection Act, SB 102 will be ignored by the federal government and the Obama administration will enforce firearm confiscation regardless of state laws, the New American reported yesterday.

The Kansas governor signed the Second Amendment Protection Act, SB 102 last month that strengthens the constitutionally protected rights of Kansans to keep and bear arms but it appears that the Obama administration and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder want nothing of it, claiming that the federal government has sole-rights over states rights when it comes to the second amendment matters.

This is good.  It’s a positive sign that Holder is acknowledging the coming conflict.  Kansas and all of the other states who are enacting nullification laws had better listen to me – and listen carefully.

You had better not enact such laws unless you intend to enforce them.  Don’t enact them as emblematic measures, or legislative actions to send a message.  This is a silly way to send a message.

If you don’t intend to enforce them, your own state residents will see you – the lawmakers and law enforcement officers – as a bunch of wind bags who fold like a cheap tent in the slightest wind.  Also, if you plan to appeal this to any of the federal courts, you will lose.  The Marbury versus Madison ruling forever ensures that the totalitarians in Washington will have friends in the judiciary.

No, if you plan to enforce your nullification laws, you had better plan to arrest some federal law enforcement officers and throw them in the state penitentiary with the general prison population – the rapists, pedophiles and murderers.  You will have to be the ones to ignore federal laws and judicial rulings, orders and decisions.  You will have to be prepared to use the power of the state and local law enforcement, unorganized militia and possibly the state national guard.

If you do not currently plan on doing this, just don’t bother.  This isn’t a game folks, and Holder is the one who launched the first shot across your bow.  He’s already fully engaged.