More on Nebraska Issue

Joe over at Joe’s Crabby Shack is pondering whether it’s worth accepting the commission in order to get rid of the permit to purchase requirement.

I don’t know all the ins and outs of politics in Nebraska, but it’s a deal I’d be willing to accept in Pennsylvania.  It’s ideal to be able to outright crush everything, but that’s now always how things will go.  Politics is not a rational or neat process.  This is pure speculation on my part that this is how it went down in Nebraska, but a general outline of how it goes:

  1. Gun control legislator sponsors and introduces gun control bill
  2. Various interest groups position on the bill, and mobilize their respective constituencies.
  3. Politicians respond to that pressure, as said sponsor runs around trying to get support for their bill.  Sponsor realizes he can’t get support thanks to pressure from a certain gun rights group.
  4. Sponsor begins amending bill in hopes of finding support.   (Sponsor won’t give up because he has to please his constituents, and avoid losing prestige.)
  5. More support will invariably come on board as bill is altered to placate certain interests.  When support levels of said gun control bill begin to get close to having a chance at passage, the end of gun rights groups political power is nearing.
  6. At this point lobbyists of gun rights groups have a choice.  Remain opposed and run the risk that a bad, albeit watered down bill will pass over their objections.  Or offer sponsor to add something constituents of gun rights groups want in exchange for dropping opposition to the bill.

Obviously NRA took the latter option here. Was it the best option to take?  That depends on what’s important to you.  Obviously NRA can’t conduct a membership poll in the middle of a big political battle, so they have to do their best based on what they know from interacting with members.  But if you boil down what happened here, a very very bad gun banning bill got turned into something that was largely neutral, and got rid of at least one prior restraint on the right to bear arms.

When they tired a semi-automatic ban in Pennsylvania, a similar thing happened.  It’s very rare in the political process to have to make absolutely no concessions, which is why the founding fathers chose to place the right to bear arms outside of it (only in theory thanks to the courts).  The trick is giving up symbolism and gaining substance.  If Cornhusker State gun owners keep turning out performances like they did with this bill, I don’t think they have much to fear from this commission.

20 thoughts on “More on Nebraska Issue”

  1. The thing to keep in mind is that the Nebraska Legislature is a UNICAMERAL . There is only one body, a “senate” apportioned based on population, the only one of its kind- even Maine realized it was a BAD THING. Also, these people are only in session a very short time. Things happen very fast, if at all. Note the sneaky underhanded way CCW got banned from Universities last fall…..this Gun Crime Commission would be a de-facto anti-gun platform that would generate legislation EVERY two years. It would not be subject to term limits as the Antis on the Judiciary Committee ARE. We couldn’t even vote them out of office if they pissed us off, as they are POLITICAL APPOINTEES! If we get an anti for a Governor (We’ve had Democrats as Governor, Ashford is a Republican, hell it COULD happen!) then you would have an assault weapons bill, sure as shootin’.

  2. Go NRA, if it wasn’t for them we would’t have any private ownership of firearms, EVERY gun owner should be in it!!! Liberals need to take ownership and responsibility for their failed policy’s and laws then be judged by the results instead of their intent, such as the stupid “gun free zones”.

  3. As I told the guy at NRA/ILA today on the phone, I am not real sure I’m gettin’ much Bang for my Buck. I have watched the NRA Rep. (flown in from Virginia) get his tail kicked around the room at 2 different Judiciary Comittee hearings……… and do back-door deals with the opposition time after time…… Yes, we have CCW, but it is still illegal to carry through 1/2 the towns in the state. I can carry, but I can’t carry anywhere, as I would violate some local law getting anywhere…… this due to the back-room deal done by the NRA….. They don’t work with us locally….. They don’t ask how we feel before they do these deals…..how is it they are representing me? Poorly.

  4. Don’t get mad at the NRA. Get mad at the politicians that force us into these deals. It’s not like if you just tell them “No, we just won’t go along wiht any of this, and you have to give us preemption” and storm out of the room that they won’t screw us anyway. If you’re finding that we’re having to compromise too much, then we have to mobilize and get rid of the politicians that are forcing it on us. Target number one needs to be Brad Ashford.

  5. The problem with the NRA is that they fail to learn from their mistakes, we won’t oppose you if you don’t do item A. Next thing it’s tacked back onto the bill by amendment. Nebraska’s Crime Commission by existing statute’s job is to make recomendations for statutory changes, removing it from this bill does nothing to change the fact that they will make these recomendations from a flawed study. Nebraska’s handgun purchase permit though not a perfect system works better than the supposed to be instant check but takes 3 days and since it’s still not done the store say’s you must still wait (they law gives them the option to complete the sale) we need to stay on the good side of the local athorities. And then there is the abillity in this bill for police to go on fishing expeditions in your health records and no protections that they cann’t share this information with anyone….

  6. It’s instant for the vast majority of people who go through it. The FBIs statistics on NICS are all public. Second, the bill’s structured such that the commission can only access information pertaining to a person’s qualification to own a firearm. They can’t delve into anyone’s personal mental health records. Here is Nebraska Statute 69-2409.01

    I mean, I can understand arguing that this bill creates the possibility of more gun control fights at a later date. That’s a legitimate complaint, and why it would have been really nice to put a fork in this provision along with the rest of the bad stuff. But you guys got rid of a gun control law! That doesn’t happen very often. Fight the other stuff when it comes up. These things aren’t won all at once, or even neatly. But this is progress, I think.

  7. This thing creates the “possibility” of future gun laws? That is like saying putting a dozen middleschool boys on an overpass with pockets full of rocks every two years creates the “possibility” of rocks being thrown at traffic. And we can’t vote them out of there!

  8. Can they enact legislation? As far as I can tell all they can do is issue a report that the legislature may take into consideration. What I’m saying is take the chance to repeal, and fight those battles when they come up.

  9. Yes Sebastian 69-2409.1 does protect against delving into personal records, to bad LB 958 is striking that from the statutes.

  10. It didn’t strike the whole thing, only the second part. It’s no longer relevant if you don’t have permits to purchase anymore.

  11. Sec. 6. The following sections are outright repealed:
    4 Sections 69-2401, 69-2403, 69-2407, 69-2708, 69-2409, 69-2412,
    5 69-2413, 69-2414, 69-2415, 69-2416, 69-2417, 69-2420, 69-2421,
    6 69-2422, 69-2423, 69-2424, and 69-2425, Reissue Revised Statutes
    7 of Nebraska, and sections 69-2402, 69-2404, 69-2405, 69-2406,
    8 69-2410, 69-2411, 69-2418, and 69-2419, Revised Statutes Cumulative
    9 Supplement, 2006.

    The entire section 69-2409 is being struck

  12. Where are you seeing that? I have a copy of the legislative record before me and I only see a modification to one section of it. In fact, that section is referenced in other parts of the amendment.

  13. Section 5 of the amendment 2235 removes old languge so new is inserted, then Section 6 strikes everything to do with the old permit to purchase including the just ammended section … could be a legeslative writer screw-up or with Ashford it could be on purpose.

  14. One of the Crime Commission’s job is to act on the Governor’s behalf and recommend legislation, if they are recommending legislation with based on a study they performed it basically walks through the statehouse. In order to stop this type of problem the study needs to be rewritten to be more balanced.

  15. Ah, OK… yes. I see where you’re talking about now. But that section doesn’t repeal it, as in gets it off the books, it repeals it, and replaces it with the revisions outlined in the previous section.

  16. section 5 repeals then replaces, section6 then repeals it’s done twice…

  17. I see what you’re saying… but it’s two different bodies of law. Section 5 repeals the original 69-2409.01 from the Reissue Revised Statutes, which you can see here. That’s different from the part that was repealed outright, which is 69-2409, which you can see here.

    It looks like 69-2409.01 a subsection of 69-2409, because you’re thinking like a sensible human being rather than a politician :) They are distinct. Legislators aren’t always smart in how they choose to organize bodies of law. In fact, it’s usually not done in a well thought out manner.

    I’ll tag that whole thing with the disclaimer that if you really want a definitive answer, you should ask someone licensed to practice law in Nebraska.

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