Republicans Growing Spine on Holder Nomination

The Republicans are gearing up to delay the confirmation of Eric Holder.  The 111th Congress is sworn in on January 3rd, 2009, and starts session January 6th.  It’ll be important to start hitting your local critter with letters and phone calls as soon as the 111th Congress is seated.   Defeating a nomination is difficult work, but Holder is bad enough we should give it the old college try, and there’s a lot of blue dog Democrats out there that claim to be sympathetic to our issue.  We should hold them to that.

UPDATE: I’ll put aside my differences with Senator Spector for now, since he’s one of the GOP senators that’s willing to start asking questions.

Great Opinion Piece on Private Transfers

If we could get op-eds like this printed in local newspapers throughout the country, using the arguments outlined here, we’d be in far better shape for fighting on this issue than we are right now:

However, if some people had their way, my father would be a felon the next time he passed on a firearm to a family member. These people complain about a so-called “gun show loophole,” which, if you were to accept the rhetoric of firearm prohibitionists, is responsible for an endless stream of death and carnage.

In truth, attempts to close the “loophole” are really attacks on cherished freedoms that have been quietly enjoyed by millions of Americans since the founding of our nation. With the exception of those unfortunate residents of a few nanny-states, citizens of the U.S. always have been able to gift, buy, sell and trade firearms without the interference of government.

Read the whole thing.  It’s very well done.  There’s even a nice bit at the end declaring the laws will be defied, and its only purpose will be making criminals out of people like his father, which is, of course, the idea.

It’s the Economy Stupid

The latest surge in gun sales is because the economy is in the crapper.  It has nothing to do with voters electing a guy who advocates banning guns.  No, nothing at all.  But hey, I’ll give them credit — at the very end of the article they do mention:

Sales of guns and ammunition are up 8 to 10 percent this year, according to state and federal records, fueled in part by fears that the incoming Democratic administration might tighten restrictions on gun sales. But some new gun owners — crowding instruction classes and local ranges — are also worried about rising crime, according to Nan Sanders, a retiree and shooting instructor from Vienna.

I don’t doubt the economy is driving some of it, but November gun figures were much higher than October, figures, and October is where the economy was at its most volatile.  Meanwhile, the media is still abuzz about the gun sale issue.  A few of those also cite other factors, which I think is accurate, but are pretty up front with Obama being a prime driver of sales.

Reading Passes Lost & Stolen

Reading, Pennsylvania has passed its own Lost and Stolen ordinance, in addition now to Philadelphia, Allentown, Pottsville, York, and Pittsburgh, in defiance of statewide preemption.

Making a straw purchase of a gun already is a violation of Pennsylvania law, but it is a difficult law to enforce because it is nearly impossible to prove that a buyer obtained a weapon for someone who is not permitted to have one.

The reporting law is much easier to enforce. A gun is seized by police after the commission of a crime and traced back to the original buyer, who either reported it missing or faces some difficult questions from police and prosecutors.

So the media freely admits this law is means to lower the states burden of proof.  Anyone who fails to report is automatically assumed to be guilty of straw purchasing, rather than someone who might now have known about the law, or who might not have discovered the gun had gone missing, or in the midst of a stressful burglary investigation, forgot to mention it to police.  We are going to have a hell of a fight on our hands this legislative session to keep a lid on this, but we must.  The state doesn’t get to deal with this issue by making assumptions of guilt.  This is not how a free society is supposed to operate, and it’s a shame the media isn’t reporting this side of the story.