To be heard in the Pennsylvania House Judiciary Committee. It is being offered as an amendment to a Senate Bill. To quote the Vice President, this is a big effin deal. You can find the members here.
Month: June 2012
Howard Nemerov Nails It
In discussing the Seattle mass-murderer, he notes that the shooter had an assault case that was dropped when the victims recanted, and that his family thought him mentally ill, but never had him formally committed. The point that he nails is this:
These two points show how important citizen participation is for society to work. Perhaps those not pressing charges are also responsible?
We’re confronted with crime stories regularly where people think “he never should have been on the streets.” But in this country, we don’t deprive people of life or liberty without due process of law, and due process can only work when the people insist on making it work.
Richard Aborn’s Desperate Plea
Looks like former Brady head Richard Aborn has been raising the gun control issue in a few op-eds appearing around the country. Dave Hardy notes that when it comes to claims that banning guns was never a goal of the movement, neither Aborn nor the rest of the gun control movement have any credibility. Joe Huffman takes a look at Aborn’s claim that NRA success was driven largely by convincing gun owners that any small gun control measure was a step on the road to confiscation, suggesting exciting anti-gun people would be difficult if their movement didn’t approach the issue from a prohibitionist standpoint:
Since framing the issue as a total ban is a motivator for the base of both sides why did the GCM shy away from that but the gun freedom movement (GFM) embraced it? From a merely logical/symmetric perspective shouldn’t it be just as damaging/beneficial to whichever side framed it in that manner? There may be more than one reasons why that is not true but the most obvious one to me is that the GFM has a much larger base than the GCM. Hence for every “unit of motivation” the GCM were to gain by framing the issue as a total ban they realized the GFM would gained, perhaps, 10 units.
It’s kind of funny to me they didn’t realize they were dealing with a losing issue as soon as that particular bit of information infiltrated its way into their reality. Though many in the gun control movement have constructed alternate realities, I think most in the movement recognize what Joe is saying is true.
The only places that the gun control movement has ever found any success are when they’ve succeeded in playing divide and conquer tactics with gun owners (and by gun owners, I mean people who politically identify as gun owners, not someone who keeps an old family heirloom in the attic, or squired away a revolver in a shoebox years ago “just in case.”) Why do we have machine gun bans? Because gun owners largely support it. Why do we have background checks? Gun owners largely support them. Why did we have an assault weapons ban? Because Josh Sugarmann is an evil genius and found a way to drive the machine gun wedge to get another similarly looking guns banned. Why do groups like MAIG limit themselves to supporting universal background checks and No-Fly-No-Buy? One are exploits an already known, existing wedge, and another supports the national defense and anti-terrorism instincts of our people, who don’t really understand the issue. A little bit of hammering on the wedge, especially combined with ignorance, is a potentially winning strategy. Fortunately, for us, we can correct ignorance, and at a much faster pace than has been possible in the past. Joe concludes, “Aborn’s position is nearly hopeless. He has nearly insurmountable obstacles at almost every step.” There is no real grassroots movement of any consequence to put severe nation-wide restrictions on gun ownership. The restrictions the public-at-large is willing to support have already been passed. As for the states they have built real movements? Our side has ample opportunity now to pick away at outliers from the generally consensus, as Dave Kopel concluded in his latest paper. It’s definitely a sad time for the gun control movement. I hope to see more signs of desperation, such as Mr. Aborn’s op-ed, in the near future.
SYG, Round XVII: There’s an old saying …
… that you’re entitled to your own opinion, but you’re not entitled to your own facts. This is one reason I no longer bother trying to engage with our Favorite Brady Board Member. It’s become apparent for some time she believes she’s entitled to her own facts.
Apparently in the Brady world, before Stand Your Ground, when you drew your pistol on an attacker, a Watchman would jump out, declare time out, while the Watchman quickly gathered a judge and jury. They would go over your circumstance, and then make a call as to whether your are permitted to act in self-defense. This was practice until NRA came along in the early 21st century and decided that we would try alleged criminal acts after the fact. This is a Brady Universe fact, apparently.
Meanwhile, in the real world the rest of us have inhabited for centuries, self-defense is an affirmative defense to the charge of murder, manslaughter, or assault. It’s always been “shoot first and ask the question later.” The standard has always been “reasonable belief in grave bodily injury or death,” through centuries of common law and statutory law, long before NRA was a twinkle in George Wingate’s eye. The only thing Stand Your Ground Changed was that one question that couldn’t be asked is why didn’t you try to run away from your attacker first. All the other questioned we’ve asked through the ages about self-defense are still perfectly valid, and really, those remaining questions are the ones the vast majority of cases have hinged on throughout history.
I guess the real question is why there are still folks over there trying to argue with a person who clearly lives in an alternate reality not inhabited by most of humanity. You’re never going to convince someone who believes they are entitled to their own reality. There is no public conversation about gun control policy happening over there. As best I can tell, the new media strategy of our opponents is as follows:
- Ramble incoherently about alternate realities.
- Bash Second Amendment advocates.
- Pass off alternate reality as reality.
- Bash Second Amendment advocates.
- Get angry about the NRA and some ill-defined “gun lobby.”
- INSURRECTIONIST!
This pretty much reduces the interaction choices to point-and-laugh for some, and poking the rabid dog for entertainment with some others. I’d save the serious arguments for when they occasionally rope someone of value from this reality into theirs for a short while, which does happen from time to time.
UPDATE: I should also point out that what makes MAIG so dangerous is that they have chosen to remain rooted in reality as the rest of us know it, rather than trying to construct their own.
Polling on the National Rifle Association
Dave Kopel notes an April Reuters/Ipsos poll which shows the organization with a favorability rating of 68%, and an unfavorable rating of 32%. This is up from the 60/34 percent in a 2005 Gallup poll. Prof. Kopel notes that NRA’s favorability rating seems to track opposition to handgun prohibition. That reminds me of a passage from his paper I recently read:
Heston saw the broader fight as a contest for the hearts and minds of the American people. In the long run, they believed, the NRA needed a broad base of public support from citizens who saw the NRA as it sees itself—a civic organization dedicated to mainstream American values. Knox wanted the NRA to be feared. LaPierre and Heston wanted it to be loved.
The NRA’s traditionally positive reputation with the American public had been falling, thanks in large part to HCI’s efforts (strongly supported by much of the media) to delegitimize NRA, because HCI correctly perceived that as long as NRA was strong and popular, much of HCI’s agenda would be politically impossible to achieve. Gun control advocates sniffed that Heston was merely putting a sunny face on the same old gun rights zealotry. But in the aftermath of the second ouster of Knox, LaPierre was able to firmly steer the NRA away from Knox-style absolutism. Unlike Knox, LaPierre favored the National Instant Check System. At the same time, there was no going back to the days of Franklin Orth. The NRA was not absolutely opposed to every possible gun control, but except for instant checks and laws aimed at criminals, there were not many gun controls which the NRA did support. The Heston/LaPierre strategy worked. By the early 21st century, the NRA was viewed favorably by 60% of Americans, and unfavorably by 34%.
Ideally, NRA should want to be both simultaneously loved and feared. Our success has had to depend on a measure of both, so it’s my opinion that the influence of both Knox and LaPierre has been necessary for the gun rights movement to achieve what it has. Dave has more background on this in his paper, citing heavily from the book “The Gun Rights War,” that was compiled and annotated by Neal Knox’s son Chris. I could encourage everyone to read both, because you can’t find out where you’re going if you don’t know where you’ve been.
There are many people on our side, however, that don’t believe public opinion makes a difference, as long as we’re reaching our own people. That 68% of the population views NRA favorably is not the same as saying they agree with NRA’s on every line time. Most of the people polled are not NRA members, and are not really involved in this fight. But their acquiescence is absolutely necessary if we’re going to keep achieving victory.
What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
Venezuela has banned guns for civilians. Rumor has it that dictator Pugsley is near death, and I suppose those who pretend to be successors to his throne, don’t wish any little people interfering with those ambitions.
Remember that this is what our opponents want; a world without the right to have the means for self-defense. Any horrors that happen to the Venezuelan people as a result of this decree is blood on our opponents hands. Don’t let them forget it.
Soda Enforcement Drones
A sad state of affairs in today’s totalitarian society as envisioned by Mike Bloomberg:
Nordyke v. King Decided
Dave Hardy reports that the Alameda County, having previously backed down, and suggested the gun show could continue provided that the guns in question were adequately secured when on display, it looks like the 9th Circuit, en banc, has accepted that capitulation. This looks to me like mostly a win for our side, even though it could have been much better by setting strong precedent. I have not yet read through the entire opinion.
Once Again, Exploiting Tragedy
Gun Control forces in Washington States are salivating over the chance to get their agenda implemented, in the wake of recent shootings, proposing numerous measures that would have done nothing to stop the tragedy they are exploiting. Tragedy is the currency of their movement. Without it, they’d amount to even less than they already do.
Second Amendment advocates in Washington need to stay mobilized. This is one of those states where the fight isn’t going to end. My own state is similarly situated.
Zimmerman Breaking News: Credibility Destruction
Not at all a smart move by Zimmerman or his wife. I’m sure his attorney is none too happy. You don’t want to ever do anything that’s going to raise doubts about your credibility in a case like this. This will not help Zimmerman’s case.