Archive for the 'Gun Control' Category

In response to Wayne Lapierre And The Apocalypse, Dave Hardy writes as follows:

Here are my own thoughts. A ban on private sales will be unenforceable in the near future, since guns being found will have been initially sold before its effective date, and thus a lawful private transfer before the ban went into effect cannot be ruled out.

But even after, say, ten years pass, the ban will still be unenforceable in practice unless Congress also either:

1) Enacts national firearm registration, requiting FFLs to report all sales so they can be placed in a national database, and requires such reporting backdated to the effective date of the private sales ban, or

2) Makes firearm possession illegal, period, providing for a defense if the gun owner can prove they bought the gun before before the effective date of the ban, or bought it from an FFL after the ban.

Visit Dave’s site for the rest.  He is making a legal and technical point, one that I have seen before.  Perhaps he’s right, but be warned.  First of all, I am concerned about prosecutorial overreach and discretion.  But second, holes in any universal background check law can be plugged in the future once the basic framework is constructed.

Finally, here is the most serious warning.  I work with the federal government on at least a semi-regular basis, and when not, I am doing things that follow federal regulation, even though highly technical (the specific nature of what I do is not the subject and won’t be discussed).

For most people who never work with federal agencies and departments, ignorance is bliss.  But for those who do, they know that the nasty little secret about the federal government has to do with lawmaking by regulation.

Laws are passed by the Senate and Congress.  But after laws pass, thousands of lawyers inside the beltway go to work writing regulations based on those laws, or not, using the law as a pretext for further regulation that Congress didn’t specifically intend.  At times, Congress has even had to pass laws undoing regulations because the regulations don’t meet the intent of the law, and yet the executive branch won’t stop enforcing that regulation (or class of regulations).

Regulation is passed merely by entering them into the federal register, allowing a waiting time for public comments (which are nothing but a chance afforded to the authors of the regulations to ignore them or write sarcastic rebuttals), and then after the waiting period, it takes on the force of law including prosecution, fines and imprisonment for failure to follow them.

This happens every day, all over the nation, and in the DOT, NRC, EPA, DOJ, ATF, DHS, and other departments and agencies that the reader cannot even name and didn’t know existed.  Any law giving the executive branch the authority to further regulate firearms will be an opportunity for abuse, overreach and exploitation.

Take it from someone who has seen it.  Don’t trust the Leviathan.  It is a monster and it has monstrous intentions.

As a warning shot over the bow, South Carolina is poised to take action to protect the rights of its citizens.

Congratulations, you are a member of South Carolina’s “unorganized militia.” Now that you know that, state Sen. Tom Corbin, R-Greenville, wants to make sure you have access to guns in case the governor ever calls on you to defend the state.

Corbin has proposed a new state law — unanimously approved Wednesday by a Senate subcommittee — that would guarantee all members of the unorganized militia “shall have the right, at his own expense, to acquire, possess, keep, and bear all firearms that could be legally acquired or possessed by a citizen of South Carolina as of December 31, 2012.”

Translated that means — barring an almost certain constitutional challenge if the proposal becomes law — you can buy an assault weapon, regardless of whether the federal government bans them, as President Barack Obama and others have proposed.

The proposed law is based on a state law, dating back to 1881, that refers to an “unorganized militia” made up of “all able bodied persons over 17 years of age.”

“All of us here can sit back and go, ‘Finally, I don’t have to worry about giving up my shotgun or giving up my Ruger pistol or whatever. It’s over,” Corbin said. “This bill just simply says it is now part of our unorganized militia’s weaponry, therefore it is protected. … It can’t be changed by anyone outside of South Carolina.”

We had previously discussed this as a possibility, but it’s good to see that this had the unanimous support of the Senate subcommittee.  Perhaps it will pass with ease.  But wait, pointy-head has to get involved.

Nice try, but it won’t work, said Thomas Crocker, an associate professor of law at the USC School of Law who specializes in constitutional law.

It is true, Crocker said, that South Carolina can specify weapons for its unorganized militia — a concept dating back to the 18th century, when states did not have modern police forces or National Guards. States then had laws requiring everyone to own a musket and be ready to fight against outlaws or attacking Native Americans.

“The trick is if the federal government enacts an assault-weapons ban, making it illegal to have the AR-15, that will trump automatically any state law,” Crocker said. “It doesn’t matter if the state statute says that is an approved weapon. It is an illegal weapon under federal law and federal law trumps.”

Really?  Is it just that simple?  The federal government can pass any law imaginable and it trumps state laws regardless of any other considerations?  Perhaps pointy-head has been educated beyond his intelligence level.  He may be smart, but he doesn’t have a lick of common sense and he doesn’t know the very state in which he works.  I do.

Here’s a suggestion, send some federal agents to Pickens, Travelers Rest and Marietta, and up around the Jocassee Gorges, Devil’s Fork and Gap Creek areas to collect guns – that is, after you get all of the local Sheriffs to cooperate with you.  Write me a note and tell me how that goes.

Phoenix New Times:

It also wasn’t ironic that Kelly and Giffords, who overnight became the country’s two most famous gun-control advocates, are honest enough to admit that they both own guns. Giffords, as was widely reported before she was shot, owns a semi-automatic Glock similar to the one used by her assailant.

This is rich.  The country’s premier face of gun control has her own gun.  Next, consider David Codrea on Bill Maher on guns.

“The NRA should just change its name to the assassin’s lobby, because that’s what they are” TV personality Bill Maher told Tonight Show host Jay Leno on Tuesday when asked about his take on the Tucson shootings (watch segment in sidebar media player).

“I’m so tired of hearing about the Second Amendment and the Constitution,” he continued.

“If you love guns, just admit it — like it’s a vice. It’s like alcohol or drugs or sex addiction or gambling… It’s not good for you or anyone else, but you like it.”

Nice. Good, responsible men and women who as a matter of course exhibit self control are equated with degenerates who exercise none. Typical.

Finally, look who else owns a gun.

Appearing on Conan last night, Bill Maher said that enacting gun-control legislation would have little effect because Democrats are as attached to guns as Republicans. Even though he favors universal background checks and placing a limit on clip sizes, Maher, who said in the interview that he is a gun owner, concluded, “it’s not really going to change much in this country.”

Gun control for thee but not for me.  Hypocrisy is always fun for the special people.

Examiner:

Conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, decrying America’s demonization of guns, is predicting that the parade of new gun control laws, cheered on by President Obama, will hit the Supreme Court soon, possibly settling for ever the types of weapons that can be owned.

Scalia, whose legacy decision in the 2008 case of District of Columbia vs. Heller ended the ban on handguns in Washington, D.C., suggested that the Constitution allows limits on what Americans can own, but the only example he offered was a shoulder-launched rocket that would bring down jets.

And the wily judge suggested to an audience of Smithsonian Associates at George Washington University’s Lisner Auditorium Tuesday night that he is not just preparing for a new gun control challenge, but that he’s softening up one of his liberal colleague on guns.

The long-time duck hunter revealed that he’s taken Obama appointee Elena Kagan hunting several times, the last being for big game in Wyoming where she shot a whitetail doe. “She dropped that doe with one shot,” he said during an event that featured questions from NPR’s court reporter Nina Totenberg.

[ … ]

Scalia explained why he wrote Heller, but wouldn’t discuss current gun control limits in Congress and the states. “There are doubtless cases on the way up,” he said, adding that limits on what weapons can be owned will likely be part of any new decision. “There are doubtless limits, but what they are we will see.”

Commentary

Good.  Let’s rock.  Let’s get on with the preservation or diminution of our rights and freedoms.  Time is wasting.  It’s time to revisit the decisions in Heller and McDonald, not because, as Justice Ginsburg thinks, there might be a reversal of Heller on the horizon with a “future, wiser court,” but because Heller didn’t go far enough.  The Supreme Court recognized our right to ownership of firearms, but didn’t specifically broach the issue of “bearing” those arms, i.e., carrying them for personal defense.

This relationship that appears to be developing between Scalia and Kagan is, I’m sure, very sweet and and all of that, but I wouldn’t count on her vote.  Furthermore, the whole issue of duck hunting concerns me.  The Second Amendment, as Scalia knows, isn’t about duck hunting, or deer hunting, or any other “sporting purpose.”  The sporting purposes test imposed by the last round of onerous firearms laws, and enforced by the ATF, is entirely unconstitutional.  I have said before that I think the test is misapplied, and that if it is a firearm, it has a sporting purpose.  But proliferation of this test through the judiciary (from some future decision) is cowardly because it doesn’t formally recognize the truth, and that is that the second amendment exists in order to ameliorate tyranny.

But for the courts, just remember that we firearms owners aren’t likely to have any more respect for confiscatory policies (or anything that can enable confiscation such as universal background checks), onerous policies (such as counting the number of cartridges I can put in my magazine), or unconstitutional tests (like sporting purposes) coming from the courts than we would if it came from the Congress or the President.  And just for the record, the Supreme Court became a laughingstock over the decision on Obamacare.  You wouldn’t want to put the final nail in the coffin holding your honor or respectability, would you?

Be very careful.  Think wisely.  Don’t start things you cannot stop.

UPDATE: Thank you for the visit on this article.  It is timely and important.

Part I: Mental Health Checks Are Not The Answer To Gun Violence

Part II: Guns And Crazy Men

The Capital Times notes that Ann Althouse weighed in on the issue of gun violence and mental health checks.  Her blog “lights up” on this issue, according to the report.  In fact Ann does have a smart and whimsical style of writing, interspersed with humor, and so one must usually read her thoughts more than one time in order to make sure that you’re not misinterpreting her prose.

But I think I’ve got what she says this time around, and I have some difficulty with her views.

Bonavia implies that we ought to make policy based on the percentages. But then she says, make a pervasive law that applies to everyone, without mentioning the very small percentage of perpetrators of gun violence within the truly vast category of Americans who buy guns. And by the way, the category “gun violence” lumps things together. Gun control has become a hot issue because of a few massacres. If you make a category out of the set of incidents that has inflamed present-day opinion, people suffering from mental illness seem to be 100% of the perpetrators! You only get your very small percentage if you throw in other types of incidents, such as gangsters wiping each other out. Wake me up when 90% of Americans want to do something about that. And explain to me how background checks have any curative power over that problem.

The appeal to statistics and reason falls flat when you shape it to suit the policy you already want.

“Only 4 to 5 percent of violent crimes are committed by people with mental illness,” Dilip Jeste, the president of the [American Psychiatric Association], says in a statement. “About one quarter of all Americans have a mental disorder in any given year, and only a very small percentage of them will ever commit violent crimes.”See what I mean? Questions for Dr. Jeste: 1. What percentage of school shootings are committed by persons with mental illness? 2. If we cut the category “violent crimes” down to massacre-type shootings where the motive isn’t robbery and the victim isn’t someone with whom the shooter has a personal dispute, what percentage of those crimes are committed by persons with mental illness? 3. If we break the category “mental disorder” into subparts, so that depression and schizophrenia aren’t lumped together, is there any category within which you cannot say that only very small percentage will ever commit violent crimes? 4. In your effort to shield the mentally ill from unnecessary stigma, are you giving cover to a set of persons who could and should be identified as dangerous?

Ann might be affirming the consequent, where given some mental malady, since some shooter (or several shooters) commit[s] a mass killing, therefore killings will be committed only by those with the identified mental malady.  But this error in propositional logic is too fundamental and I don’t think Ann is arguing in this way.

More likely, Ann is arguing (or has argued) in a probabilistic manner herself, that the preponderance of mass shootings have been committed by those with some identified mental malady.  Therefore, prohibiting people with that specific malady from owning weapons will decrease the number of mass shootings.

If I have interpreted Ann correctly, take careful note of the unstated presuppositions in her argument.  First, she is assuming that mental health professionals can correctly identify that malady, and second, she is assuming that only persons with that specific malady (or perhaps one or two others) will commit mass shootings.

Neither appears to bear the weight of scrutiny.  The mental health professionals I cite in the earlier reports on mental health checks and gun ownership state categorically that they cannot identify illness in many circumstances.  They also state rather categorically that violence of all kinds – mass shootings or not – are not a function of specific mental illnesses.

I usually roll my eyes at the lack of scholarship and honesty when I read Huffington Post.  But today there was refreshing honesty from yet another mental health professional concerning what his own profession cannot accomplish.

As we debate the steps to reducing gun violence in the society a couple points need to be understood: 1. The link between violent crime and mental illness is weak, and 2. Mental health professionals are poor at predicting anyone’s propensity for any specific behavior, including homicide.

Although it is mass shootings, particularly the massacre of school children in Newtown, that capture our attention and have accelerated the current discussion, Americans for the most part kill each other with guns in ones and twos. Of the total number of gun deaths in this country, around 30,000 a year, the majority are not the result of mental illness, but of ordinary human emotions like anger, hate, greed, and despair. In fact, about half of all shootings are suicides.

[ … ]

The only real predictor of future violence in anyone turns out to be a past history of violent behavior. Absent this, professionals are little better than the average citizen at identifying those likely to harm others. Many people report violent fantasies (remember your reaction to the last person to cut you off in traffic); few act on them.

[ … ]

As we confront the reality of these systemic deficits, however, we ought not to do so under the illusion that we are responding to the problem of gun violence. These are separate and largely unrelated issues, both of which deserve our immediate attention and informed response.

It is true that mental health checks can be abused and thus rights denied for incorrect reasons, and it is true that mental health professionals often disagree, and it is true that given a reason to deny rights, a totalitarian state will usually find a way to use it for totalitarian purposes.  All of these things concern me and in fact militate against such checks being a necessary prerequisite for gun ownership, in my opinion (See earlier discussions of the checks we must go through in my own county to obtain a concealed handgun permit, which I do have, and also the “fitness for duty” program and managerial observation we must go through having unescorted access to nuclear power plants – both checks being pretty much worthless in my view, and yet subject to unconstitutional denial of rights).

But the objection raised by the mental health professionals goes beyond my own objections.  In every case, they are saying that there is no identity between those who commit violent crime and any specific mental malady, and beyond that, they are little better than the average person at identifying propensity to violence anyway.

Laws only imperfectly supply incentive for certain behavior and disincentive for the opposite.  But what laws cannot do is ensure that certain behavior does not obtain.  That is a burden too far for legislation and ethics.  These issues ensconce squarely in the domain of morality, and laws do not change that.  Evil cannot be legislated (or medicated) away, and the best amelioration of risk associated with gun violence is to be prepared for self defense (including elimination of gun free zones).

Similarly, mental health professionals have weighed in telling us that their profession cannot possibly hope to shoulder the burden we wish to place on it.  It’s more than simply it is subject to abuse, which it is, or that the doctor-patient relationship is invaded, which it is.  It is that the “science” – if it can be called that at all, is simply incapable of sustaining the burden of gun violence, or any other form of violence, for that matter.  They cannot prevent it, regardless how much we may wish them to.

NYT:

In Idaho’s graceful, striated-marble Capitol, home to one of the more ardent and adamant state legislatures in the nation in standing up for the Second Amendment, lawmakers from both parties say that a torrent of public passion, even panic, about new proposed federal gun rules is pushing in only one direction: toward more guns, not fewer.

If Idahoans, like Americans in many states, have rushed to buy guns out of fear for personal safety in the aftermath of recent mass shootings, or out of fear of tighter legal controls, then democracy has already spoken, many lawmakers said. People have voted with their pocketbooks.

[ … ]

The speaker of the House, Scott Bedke, a Republican, said that he would not guess what might come from the session, but that the will of the people was clear.

“Idaho will push back,” he said, referring to federal gun control proposals. “A question that is rolling around in most Idahoan’s heads right now is, What part of ‘shall not be infringed’ don’t they get?”

Yea, this voting with the pocketbook has been happening all over America.  I had placed my M1 Carbine on layaway several months before Christmas with Allen Arms in Greenville, S.C.  In September, Allen Arms had a copious stock of guns.  When I went to pay off my gun at Christmas there were no AR-15s, no M1 Carbines, no tactical shotguns, very few polymer frame pistols, and just a few revolvers left.  It looked like a tornado had come through the store.

I have also noted before that Hyatt Gun Shop in Charlotte was reported to have done more than one million dollars worth of business the Saturday before Christmas.  That’s one million dollars in a single day – on guns.  I went back to Hyatt just a few days ago to place another firearm on layaway with them (and buy some ammunition), and the store was as crowded as I have ever seen it.  There is no slowdown.  And this sort of thing is happening (and has happened) all over America.

Do you want another example, a little less anecdotal?

And it won’t do much good to go direct to the manufacturer for an AR type rifle. Top companies like Bushmaster, and Rock River Arms report wait times up to two years for the guns. Stag Arms, which bills itself as the “Worldwide Leader in AR Manufacturing” is so backlogged they’ve stopped answering the phone: “Please know that we are currently experiencing exceptionally high call volume due to increased demand. Current response time is anywhere from five to seven business days for all voicemail inquiries.”

Note again – a two year wait time for a Rock River Arms rifle.  These folks who have voted with their pocketbook will learn to cherish their gun collection, and they will want to bequeath it to their children and children’s children without the involvement of the federal government.

So listen, Eric and Paul.  It might be that you are listening to the “polls” in your support for universal background checks.  But I assure you, America is voting with it’s pocketbook.  The vote is overwhelming, and it is fixed.  We won’t change our minds.  You need to get with the popular crowd and drop the support for gun control as fast as you can.

Gun control is an artifact of self-serving, crusty, old rich white men, angry feminists and effeminate inner city dwellers who have never ridden a horse across a snowy mountain, sat up all night with a dog who has been bitten by a Copperhead, or plowed a row in a garden on a sunny day.  You’ll never reach the young people that way.

UPDATE: Thanks to Mike for the attention.

UPDATE #2: Thanks to David for the attention.

UPDATE #3: Thanks to Glenn for the attention.

UPDATE #4: More voting on gun control with money.

Specialized gun shops, super sporting goods stores and even big-box retailers are enduring a big-time demand for firearms ammunition as First Coast gun owners are buying up most of the bullets they can find.

“There’s a complete run on ammo and guns,” said Paul Rukab, who has owned St. Nicholas Gun & Sporting Goods on Jacksonville’s Blanding Boulevard for 22 years.

Bullets are leaving the store as soon as trucks arrive with new stock at local Walmarts and stores like Dick’s Sporting Goods and Academy Sports. Ammunition for long rifles and handguns is in highest demand.

It’s the same everywhere.

From site meter, DNC visit on Eric Cantor and universal background checks.

The communists are a hard-working bunch, no?  The GOP?  Well, they’re just a cowardly, bleeding, pitiful bunch of ne’er-do-wells who want to be loved.  And the Dems smell their blood.  Call your Congressmen.  Call your Senators.  Tell them that gun owners have a long memory, and even longer reach.  Tell them what their sell-out will cost.

Prior:

Paul Ryan Caves On Universal Background Checks

Cantor Caves On Universal Background Checks

Washington Post:

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said this week that he is open to closing the loophole that allows weapon purchases at gun shows without a background check.

In an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel published Tuesday, Ryan said gun show loopholes are a “very reasonable” issue and that it’s “obvious” it should be addressed.

“I think we should look into someone who is not legally allowed to buy a gun going to (a show), buying one, and let’s figure that out,” he said. “I think we need to find out how to close these loopholes and do it in such a way that we don’t infringe on Second Amendment rights.”

You go ahead and “look into that.”  I think we should look into booting your cowardly ass out of Congress.  The phrase gun show loophole is an invention by the statists.  What they really want, and what you’re agreeing to, is universal background checks and a national gun registry.  These are evil things, and with everything I’ve got I will defend the right for grandfather to bequeath his rifle to his grandson under the Christmas tree without asking the communists in Washington about it.

I have the same counsel for you that I had for Eric Cantor.  Tread carefully, young man.  We’re watching.

From Joseph Farah:

How do you know the left is firmly in charge of the political and cultural establishment in America?

Because now they want to ban guns.

As a former leftist revolutionary during my misguided youth, I recall with crystal clarity when the radical left of the 1960s brazenly bore arms in public, boasted about firearms training, stockpiled arms and ammo and even engaged in armed violence against police.

The Black Panther Party, originally, by the way, the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, is a case in point. The organization, led by Bobby Seale and Huey Newton, were often referred to in the ’60s as “the vanguard of the revolution.”

They were known for ambushing police. Newton himself, after being freed from prison for the killing of Oakland police officer John Frey, boasted of murdering him. James Forman, Black Panther Party “minister of foreign affairs,” called for blowing up police stations, killing Southern governors and mayors and murdering 500 cops. They took full advantage of the Second Amendment and California laws that permitted the carrying of loaded rifles and shotguns in public, as long as they were not concealed or pointed at anyone. In May 1967, the Panthers literally invaded, fully armed, the State Assembly of the California Legislature. Later they organized an armed march on the state Capitol when lawmakers introduced legislation banning the carrying of loaded weapons in public.

All of this made them the heroes of the left. So-called “civil rights attorneys” like Charles Garry and William Kunstler and the American Civil Liberties Union defended them for their brazen calls for armed struggle, armed attacks and armed intimidation tactics.

But that was then, and this is now.

[ … ]

The only difference between now and then is who is running things.

[ … ]

The New Left, as it was known back then, worshipped firearms.

The new, new left does, too – as long as it maintains a monopoly on them and state power.

Yes, the left still loves guns.  There is no other reason for the fawning acceptance of the vulgar SWAT raid tactics in which innocent men like Mr. Eurie Stamps get shot and killed.  These tactics are repeated all across America every day.

The left just doesn’t love guns in the wrong hands, and anyone who isn’t an agent of the state is the wrong hands.  Listen to Representative Jim Himes (D – CT) tell you why high capacity magazines are still necessary in government hands.

There is absolutely no justification for weapons that were made for the explicit purpose of killing lots of people quickly to be in the hands of civilians.

Let that wash over you again.  “Killing lots of people quickly” and “civilian hands.”  The two don’t go together.

Leftists are by nature not liberals, no matter what label they have adopted.  Scratch a liberal, and find a Fascist.

From CNN:

The number two House Republican said Tuesday that he supports beefed up background checks for gun sales, an indication of where potential gun control legislation could be headed on Capitol Hill.

Rep. Eric Cantor, the House majority leader, told CNN Chief Congressional Correspondent Dana Bash that a system put in place in his home state of Virginia following the 2007 massacre at Virginia Tech could be a model for a nationwide measure.

He said that model ensured mental health information was linked to databases used in background checks during gun sales.

“I think that we can take a lot of lessons from what Virginia did and put it in place at the federal level, because there are a lot of states that aren’t doing what Virginia is doing to try and beef up the database for the background checks to make sure that we actually can do something that does have a chance at reducing the likelihood and hopefully eliminating it from happening again,” Cantor said.

Mental health checks are the great red herring in this whole discussion, and won’t accomplish anything in the way of enhancing public safety.  Furthermore, mental health checks are a minor part of Obama’s overall plan.

The most significant part of Obama’s plans is the universal background check.  As I have pointed out, universal background checks are the way to develop a national gun registry, a national gun registry (and in fact, all gun control) is the action of a wicked government, and a national gun registry is only a pretext for and necessary prerequisite condition for gun confiscations.  Cantor is talking past you in order to hide his real intentions concerning Congressional plans to cave on gun control.

Mr. Cantor, listen very carefully.  We all know you want to be President.  You are about to do something that will (a) not gain you any leftist votes, and (b) lose you the GOP nomination.  If you grease the skids for Obama’s national gun registry plans, you will be a pariah.  Oh, you may keep your little post and stay snugly ensconced in the House, but your plans for national prominence will be finished.  We gun owners don’t forget.  Ever.

Tread carefully.