August 2009 – Page 19 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Some Not So Good Vibrations

Missouri has a range protection law that protects gun clubs against the most common complaint used to shut them down: noise.Â But a plantiff in a noise nuisance case in that state has found a way around that:

In the appeals court’s official opinion, Judge Lisa White Hardwick agreed that while the statute protects the gun club from lawsuits stemming from noise nuisance, it does not protect the club from nuisance lawsuits based on vibrations to the ground caused by gunfire.

Sounds waves in the air can sometimes cause things to vibrate, true.Â But aren’t they part and parcel to noise?

“Sometimes the vibration from some of the shots just makes your chest just tremble,” Brown testified, “just like somebody busted you right in the chest … You’re thinking you’re hearing fire even in the quiet peace of the night life.”

What the hell are they shooting there?Â Howitzers?Â Nevertheless, I at least have more sympathy for these people than your typical plaintiffs against gun clubs, who buy houses next them and then complain about the noise.Â The Brown’s house was there first, and the gun club came after.Â But it’s disturbing that vibration, which is part and parcel to noise, is now being used to shut down clubs.

Perhaps the Browns would be willing to join us in a campaign for restoring the rights of gun owners to buy suppressors for their guns.Â What’s illegal here is just considered good manners by the rest of the world.

More Crazy from the Right

Color me unmoved by the latest accusation of police state thuggery by the White House.Â The passage in question being from a White House web site:

There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we canâ€™t keep track of all of them here at the White House, weâ€™re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.

Knowing that 99% of politics is trying to put just the right amount of polish on the turd, I can’t exactly claim to be surprised or outraged the right would make try to make hay out of this.Â But this looks to me like White House public relations people looking for information on what arguments the other side is using so they can come up with talking points.Â Also an act of polishing up the turd.

The way it’s being painted on some right leaning blogs, you’d think the White House is collecting a list of people, so they can send out the ambulance driving secret police to gurney the opposition into sufficiently socialized hospitals, where they’ll give them continuously lousy and insufficient care until they expire, or go mad.Â Sorry, not buying it.

Not that I have any love for Obama’s health care plans, and I certainly have no desire to help the White House come up with talking points to try to sell the public tickets on this health care Titanic, but this is far from an “all good Nazis turn in the enemies of the state” kind of thing, and it’s not serious to suggest that’s the case.

Drunk With Power

You have to love a release for Elanor Holmes Norton that describes the NRA as being “drunk with power”.Â We must be doing something right.Â But she’s quick to give Obama credit for things he doesn’t deserve credit for:

For example, the Obama Administration quickly overturned a last-minute Bush Administration regulation that allowed people to carry loaded guns in national parks, but the NRA, almost as quickly, brought back the Bush provision.

The Obama Administration never overturned anything.Â A federal court enjoined the administration from implementing the new rule.Â And we never would have gotten that taken care of if Obama hadn’t put his John Hancock on the bill that did it.

Consequences of Losing

Dave Adams of the Virginia Shooting Sports Association, has a good post on Mark Warner’s comment about NRA, which I spoke about yesterday.Â He’s also touting a quote from Paul Helmke, which is basically prepping the ground for a loss on Sotomayor, “you can vote against the NRA and still win, and win in gun-friendly areas.”

I think Helmke is probably right about this.Â Confirmations just don’t get people that fired up, but opinion leaders in the issue expected NRA to oppose, and so they did.Â But I doubt anyone is going to lose their seat over the vote.Â If Sotomayor gets to rule on a Second Amendment issue before the 2010 elections, that’ll be one thing, but likely by the time she does, the connection will be too tenuous, and politicians will have had plenty of time to make it up.

Prediction on Montana Lawsuit

Joe notes that the Montana Shooting Sports Association is preparing a lawsuit to enforce the Montana Firearms Freedom Act.Â Â My prediction will be the suit loses in the 9th circuit, because of Raich, and goes no further.Â The letter will probably get them around standing, but I don’t see how they get around Raich.Â Even under the much more strict Lopez Test, it would have a tough time.Â I like these various Freedom Acts, just a symbolic middle finger to Washington.Â But when the rubber meets the road, they are symbolic, unless Montana is serious about enforcing it, which I doubt they are.

It’s All About Turnout

I’ve heard more than a few people say things like “Chris Christie doesn’t stand a chance.Â That state is so blue it’s bordering on ultraviolet.”Â But registration advantages don’t dictate everything, especially in midterms.Â This article talking about the race in Virginia offers a prime example of that:

Creigh Deeds is not doing well. But it’s not like he’s bleeding Obama supporters- in fact the 5% of McCain supporters whose votes he’s picking up is actually equal to the 5% of Obama’s that McDonnell is picking up.

The problem is all in who’s motivated and planning to turn out- McCain supporters are at a considerably higher rate than Obama’s, and that means a healthy McDonnell lead.

It’s all about who turns out to vote, and Republicans ought to be powerfully motivated to send a message to Obama this fall, and in 2010.Â It’s going to be a long four years otherwise.

Origins of a Term

I’ve been hearing “decades long slow-motion hate crime,” to describe what’s happened to gun owners, for a long time now, which prompted me to see if the origin of the term could be found.Â I found a few sources.Â One is this quite excellent essay by Dr. Michael S. Brown called “The Radicalization of America’s Gun Culture.”Â But there, Dr. Brown only mentions:

American gun owners feel as if they are being slowly crushed. One writer recently described this decades-long campaign as a slow motion hate crime.

So he’s attributing it to someone else.Â That essay is from September of 2000, so I would be looking for a primary source around that time.Â I think I might have found it.Â This is actually an article on Canadian gun control by Dave Kopel from August of 2000, which was only a month before Dr. Brown’s article was published:

In short, Canadian gun control is a sort of slow-motion hate crime, perpetrated by the government. The real purpose is to harm a minority whom the government dislikes. In the United States, one need only attend a few anti-gun rallies â€” especially rallies put on by the dishonestly named Million Mom March â€” to find plenty of anti-gun activists for whom hatred is obviously the guiding value.

Given that it’s not attributed, and the passing manner in which it’s stated, I think it’s safe to say this is quite likely the primary source for the blog meme which has survived nearly a decade now.

Blogs, Emails, and Al Gore’s Internets

It would appear that Jim Shepherd heard us this morning and issued a correction about the source of rumors of Daniel Defense.Â It was based on email rumors within the industry, not anything in the blogosphere.Â Jim explains that he has mistakenly used the term blogosphere to describe the internet as a whole.Â I’m happy to see a resolution, and hopefully this will raise the positive profile of the blogosphere as a whole.Â Given some of the facepalm moments of the recent NSSF summit that was trying to encourage new media use by the participating companies and groups, you can see why getting these things right is important.

Why the Bradys Lose

Look at these Zogby results:

“Would you support or oppose a U.S. Senator who voted to confirm a Justice to the U.S. Supreme Court who does not believe in the right to keep and bear arms and the right to self-defense?”

Fifty-two percent of American voters would oppose the re-election of any Senator who votes to confirm a Supreme Court nominee who does not believe in the right to keep and bear arms. Only 26 percent of voters would support such a Senator.

Among Independent voters, 57 percent would oppose such a Senator, and only 17 percent would support. Forty-nine percent of young voters (age 18-29) would oppose a Senator who votes to confirm a nominee who does not believe Second Amendment rights apply to all Americans, and just 31 percent would support such a Senator. A plurality of Hispanic voters (42 percent) would oppose such a Senator, and only 28 percent would support. A large percentage of Hispanics (30 percent) are not sure. A majority of union members (54 percent) would also oppose, and 29 percent would support.

It gets better:

“Currently, 39 states have laws that allow residents to carry firearms to protect themselves, only if they pass a background check and pay a fee to cover administrative costs. Most of those states also require applicants to have firearms safety training. Do you support or oppose this law?”

An overwhelming majority of Americans (83 percent) support concealed-carry laws, while only 11 percent oppose them. A majority of Independent voters (86 percent), Democrats (80 percent), young voters age 18-29 (83 percent), Hispanic voters (80 percent), and those who voted for President Obama (80 percent) support the right to carry a firearm.

I think this problem is one of Brady’s own making, actually.Â What this poll would seem to indicate, once you say the magic word of “background check” the American people seem relatively willing to let people do what they want when it comes to firearms.

So Much for McCain the RINO

I stated previously that one of the reason I supported McCain quite strongly last fall, despite the fact that McCain was kind of blah for me, was because he’d nominate better people than Sotomayor.Â Some folks were skeptical of this assertion, but I think McCain’s announcement that he’ll be a no vote on Sotomayor backs up the assertion that he’d have better taste in federal judges.

I am happy to see this.Â NRA took a great gamble endorsing his candidacy for President in the 2008 election, and I’m quite happy to see him standing with us on Sotomayor.Â McCain is not always a reliable conservative, and I hate his position on campaign finance reform, but he’s more conservative than a lot of folks give him credit for.