Month: March 2009

It is indeed a happy birthday.  Kansas House and Senate have passed a right to keep and bear arms constitutional amendment:

A person has the right to keep and bear arms for the defense of self, family, home and state, for lawful hunting and recreational use, and for any other lawful purpose.

Better part is that it passed 39-1 in the Senate, and 116-9 in the House.  Now it goes to the voters for approval, which it will likely win.  If the anti-gun groups choose to fight this battle, ballot initiative fights are expensive as hell.  This must not be a good day at Brady headquarters.  Definitely not a good day for the Kansas Chapter. Ooops, looks like they don’t have one.  What a pity.  NRA has a state association in Kansas.

A crime to:

Amends the Criminal Code of 1961. Provides that it is unlawful for any person to store or leave, within premises under his or her control, a firearm if the person knows or has reason to believe that a minor under the age of 18 (rather than 14) years who does not have a Firearm Owners Identification Card or who is not serving in the military is likely to gain access to the firearm without the lawful permission of the minor’s parent, guardian, or person having charge of the minor unless the firearm is secured.

This bill also “Eliminates the provision that the firearm may be placed in some location that a reasonable person would believe would be secure from a minor.”  That means if junior gets the gun, you’re liable.  This makes owning a firearm an automatic hazard, whether you’re responsible or not.

Good thing the anti-gunners can’t even get traction in Illinois.  This was defeated 62 to 54.

This doesn’t bode well chances of national passage of the same measure if it can’t pass in Obama’s home state of Illinois.  Just to understand what the consequences of this measure is, it cost me 35 dollars to get TD’s FAL from Michigan because I had to pay an FFL for their time to handle the transfer for me.  I don’t know of any FFL in the area who will do a transfer for under 30 dollars, and most of them are charging 40 and 50 dollars for a transfer.

The price is high because in Pennsylvania, it is unlawful to transfer a handgun without going through an FFL or the local Sheriff.  People still do it, but they are, most of them unknowingly, committing a second degree misdemeanor.  Dealers don’t typically want a lot transfer business.  In other states, dealers don’t deal with transfers often, so are happy to take ten or twenty bucks to cover their time and trouble, and don’t have to worry about the opportunity cost of processing a lot of transfer applications. 

That dynamic changes once everyone who wants to transfer a gun needs to come to you to do it.  That ends up cutting into selling people guns.  So what do you do?  Jack the price of a transfer up to reduce the opportunity cost.  Other dealers will be in the same boat and do the same thing.  And who can compete to lower the price?  It’s not like you can go to the ATF, get an FFL, and start a transfer processing business out of your living room.  Clinton put and end to that.  To get a dealer FFL, you need to run a business with regular store hours.

Banning private sales would make transferring firearms under certain conditions economically infeasible, which is probably the point.  It’s not like gang members will care, and suddenly start process their gats through local FFLs.

Clayton Cramer reports.  I figured they would have already had such a law.