February 2010 – Page 4 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Speed of Gun Control

This article provides a bit of history on some of the Chicago-area gun bans. It turns out that the widow of a man shot became so obsessed with blaming the gun that the very night her husband was shot, the first thing she wanted to do was organize a press release to go out in the morning calling for a gun ban.

A major segment of the case began, however, not with lofty constitutional quarrels but the long-ago murder of a lawyer and judge in a Chicago courtroom. It was Oct. 21, 1983, when wheelchair-bound Hutchie Moore, using a handgun he had hidden under a blanket, shot his ex-wife’s divorce lawyer, James Piszczor, as well as the presiding judge in the Cook County Circuit Court, Henry Gentile, on the 16th floor of the Daley Center.

Piszczor’s best friend, Christopher Walsh, was in Washington attending a reunion of clerks to then-Chief Justice Warren Burger, when he heard of Piszczor’s death. …

“I flew back that night,” Walsh recalled last week. “Jim’s wife, Maureen, asked me to issue a press release the next morning.” In that release, Piszczor’s widow launched a drive to restrict handguns in their hometown of Oak Park, Ill., a Chicago suburb. “She said that part of the problem that led to Jim’s death was access to handguns, and she didn’t want another widow to have to deal with what she was dealing with.”

I realize that people deal with death differently, so I’m going to try not to judge here. However, I really can’t imagine a circumstance where the very night that my other half was killed, my reaction would be to go into political activist mode and send out press releases.

Regardless, it worked. And it stood for more than two decades.

Freedom States Alliance Folds

I totally missed this, and I don’t recall seeing it other places. Apparently Freedom States Alliance got eaten up by another gun control group last week.

Radnor Tables Lost and Stolen

Good work on the part of activists here, especially the residents of Radnor Township, who did a great job of making our case. We heard reports earlier that L&S was going to be tabled, but it looks like they went through with tabling it at the meeting tonight.

This is not a final victory. Tabling means the bill can still be brought up again for a vote any time. We will have to keep a close eye going forward, and ensure that this ordinance stays on the table, and ends up dying without getting a vote. CeaseFirePA is going to be highly upset at this. This is their home turf. Most of them live here, and a few used to be Commissioners. They won’t go away quietly.

CRP Notices Decline in Gun Control Fortunes

Center For Responsive Politics, which runs OpenSecrets.org notes the arrival of the new National Park rule on guns by this:

A federal lawÂ takes effect today that allows gun owners to tote their weapons within national parks, so long as they obey local laws. It’s a major victory for gun rights advocates, who argue gun owners should have had such rights decades ago. And it comes asÂ pro-gun forces spent more onÂ federal lobbying efforts in 2009 thanÂ in any year since 2002 — all told, nearly $5 million.Â They targeted at least some of that money at both the House and Senate versions of the “Preservation of the Second Amendment in National Parks and National Wildlife Refuges Act,” a Center for Responsive Politics analysis indicates. GunÂ control advocates, meanwhile, spentÂ a relative pittance in 2009Â on federal lobbying efforts — $180,000. Most of that came from a single organization:Mayors Against Illegal Guns. The decline in gun control advocates’ lobbying power is striking: In 2001, the special interest area spent more than $2.1 million on federal lobbying efforts.

And it’s worth nothing that it’s up to us to make sure NRA-PVF‘s coffers are full so they can keep up this pace of donation. There’s no rich patron keeping the money flowing, unlike with Bloomberg’s group. Sadly, the quickest way to influence in Washington is money.

A Regulated Cottage Industry

One of the thing that’s unique about the Firearms Industry is that it’s one of the few heavily regulated industries that’s made up almost exclusively of small businesses. It is, in effect, a cottage industry. This is a sharp contrast to many other regulated fields, where you only have fairly significant and large players dealing with their regulatory body. In Pharmaceuticals, which is the regulated industry I work in, smaller biotech companies feed ideas and products to “big pharm.” who are generally the regulatory and marketing arms of the industry. The reason being is that small companies don’t really have the resources to comply with the regulatory requirements, and don’t typically have the relationships with their regulator that the big guys do. In Pharmaceuticals, regulatory compliance is very time consuming and costly, which puts it out of the reach of most small businesses.

One reason I think we see a lot of things like this and like this in the firearms industry is that you’re dealing with smaller players who don’t have the money to hire full time legal staff, or maintain staff that deal specifically with ensuring regulatory compliance. In the end that becomes everyone’s job, and if you think about the kind of people you work with, some people are obviously going to be up to the task, and others aren’t. Firearms certainly aren’t the only regulated cottage industry, but I suspect if you look at the other examples, you’ll find a lot of similar stories. Fishing is another such industry, and it’s not all that rare to hear of cases of people being prosecuted for, say, importing lobsters in the wrong bag.

In cases where the federal government is regulating small business, the regulations need to be clear, and easy to comply with. Especially when violation can come attached with criminal charges. We still have a lot of work to do in this area, and not just on guns.

Quote of the Day

Wayne LaPierre has an editorial on Opposing Views:

Brady gave California its best grade, for having the most gun control, even though Californiaâ€™s murder and total violent crime rates are 10 percent and 13 percent higher, respectively, than the rates for the rest of the country.

Utah got Bradyâ€™s lowest grade because it has the fewest gun control laws, a fact lamented with all the feigned sorrow and indignation that gun control supporters in the Beehive State can muster. Fortunately, every cloud has a silver lining. Though certainly disillusioned with their low standing among the nationâ€™s anti-gun fringe, the good people of Utah can take at least some comfort in the fact that their murder and violent crime rates are 76 percent and 56 percent lower, respectively, than Californiaâ€™s.

Is it our imagination, or are Bradyâ€™s state grades getting worse as the nationâ€™s crime rates go down?

As a matter of side hilarity, if you don’t pick your graphic for the article, Opposing Views staff will do it for you. In this case they picked an NRA logo, but it’s not the right NRA. Dave Hardy told a story once of how both NRAs once shared the same building, which created quite a bit of confusion for the mail, with the National Recovery Administration getting packets full of targets people had mailed in. More than 60 years later, with the National Recovery Administration thankfully part of the past, people are still getting them confused. Of course, today there is still another NRA, but it has nothing to do with economic recovery. Of course, neither did the old other NRA :)

Today is PSH Day

This is the day, if you were to pay attention to the media, our National Parks will explode with violence, with people happily shooting their guns off into the air, at animals, and each other. Mass hysteria! The South Florida Sun Sentinel thinks we’re nuts, and editorializes like a bunch of Jr. High kids with name calling. The LA Times says we’re permitted, but not welcome, and notes that the variation in state law is just too confusing for us stupid gun owners to follow, even though we do regularly already. Maybe for NPS bureaucrats, but not for us. The Asheville, NC Citizen-Times reports on a person who thinks it’s an invitation to violence.

Me? I’m just happy I no longer risk breaking the law when I go to see friends and relatives in Phoenixville, and have to transit Valley Forge National Park. Under the old regime the NPS would enforce state law on state rights of way through a park, but hit a deer and have to get out of your car? Less clear. And hitting a deer in VFNP is a high probability event.

Open Carry Charges in Washington State

Looks like this guy is in a bit of trouble. Apparently a McDonalds manager claims that he said :

According to police reports, the McDonald’s manager said that when she asked Dohmen to leave because of his gun, he tapped the holstered pistol and told her, “Bring it bitch.”

Dohmen denies that.

I think I’d be more inclined to believe his side of the story, because he seems to be more the pamphleteer type than something else. But his wrong was not immediately leaving when asked to. It appears he was overeager to convince this manager of her wrong:

Upon learning Dohmen was not a cop, Aldridge told him to leave because he couldn’t have a gun in the restaurant.

Dohmen says he replied that the law allows it, but that he also respects private property rights. He says he was preparing to get a brochure from his car to “further her understanding” when Aldridge told him she was calling 911. He waited for police in his car.

Once you’re asked to leave and don’t it’s trespassing. That’s not what he’s charged with, but he could be. I’m actually surprised the DA in this case hasn’t offered a plea to that.

In his report, Prosser Officer Antonio Martinez said he approached Dohmen’s car carrying his patrol rifle and ordered Gail Dohmen out of the car. When Officer Nickalas Letourneau arrived, Martinez took Dohmen’s pistol and ordered him out of the Audi. Letourneau then handcuffed Dohmen. Martinez wrote that Dohmen “was extremely verbal and was very upset I was taking the firearm from him.”

“I said, ‘You do not have my permission to do that,’ ” Dohmen said of the officer taking his legally carried, loaded gun.

Gail Dohmen, 63, said she was upset as she watched what was happening to her husband. She said she tried to grab Open Carry brochures from the car to give the officers but was told to move away or face arrest.

I would say making a move for the brochures is a move that could get you shot in a tense situation like that. How do they know you’re going for brochures? If the officer has his service rifle in hand, you’re best bet is compliance. You can sort out the right from wrongs when you get out of the immediate situation.

This is one of the big risks with open carry. I think this guy handled himself pretty poorly, given the circumstances. Most open carry people know better than this, but it’s the bozos who are going to end up in the news.

Reasoned Discourse^TM Has Broken Out Again

At the Heeding God’s Call Facebook Page:

The purpose of the page is promote the work of Heeding God’s Call and to announce upcoming actions and activities. Attempts at turning it into a blog to be used for trash-talking and hostile notes regarding our mission has caused us to make this decision. Please continue to check in regularly for updates and news.

It’s their sandbox. I will give them that. But it’s just one more example of shutting down debate when they are called out for their bullshit. This has become almost routine by now.

UPDATE: They claim that 60 people turned out in support of their cause, even though we heard from reports yesterday that the total was less than that, and that most of them were Second Amendment supporters.

Shown Your Appreciation Yet?

If you haven’t gone down to your local Starbucks and gotten some caffeination or other product, please do. It shows them that there’s a lot of upside to staying out of the gun debate. I myself am a tea drinker, but I really like their Chai Lattes (it’s like pumpkin pie in a cup), so that’s what I got. I have also sent the following along to Starbucks Corporate:

Just wanted to let Starbucks know that I, along with several of my fellow Second Amendment bloggers, encouraged our readers to show their appreciation for Starbucks today by going to purchase Starbucks products.

Our blogging community focuses specifically on firearms policy attracts many thousands of readers who are pro-Second Amendment. My blog alone brings in about 60,000 visits a month. Many of us were looking for a way to show appreciation, and thought there really would be no better way than picking a day to encourage our readers to patronize their local Starbucks.

We thank you for resisting pressure from the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence to make a statement in regards to this contentious issue. We would encourage Starbucks to continue to concentrate on great products, and service, and encourage you to continue deferring to state and local laws in regards to this subject.

Sincerely,

Real Name (a.k.a. Sebastian, author of Snowflakes in Hell Blog)
http://snowflakesinhell.com

I wanted to focus on showing them the kind of numbers we’re talking about on our side of the issue. The Bradys have 25,000 signatures, they claim. Big deal. I rack up that many eyeballs on this blog in two weeks. If half of my monthly readers spent what I did, that’s $600,000 dollars extra sales, which based on daily sales figures, would represent about a 2% boost. Even if the number is less than that, you can see our numbers, just in this small corner of the blogosphere, are nothing to sneeze at.

I would encourage all of my readers to continue patronizing Starbucks not just today, but for as long as they agree to stay out of this issue, and stand up to the Brady Campaign.