Sometimes, you can just tell, before you even read the article.
Year: 2012
Strategy on the UN Arms Trade Treaty
Heritage has released a paper outlining a US strategy for resisting the Arms Trade Treaty. Since the meme out there these days is that gun owners are paranoid and Barry is really our best buddy, ask yourself for a moment whether you trust Barack Obama to look out after the best interest of America’s gun owners? No, I don’t either, and he’s already started going after gun owners in his 2013 budget.
While there’s little chance that the Senate will ratify a broad ATT, as I’ve mentioned before, the risks to US shooters is significant. Imagine no Glocks, Anschutz’s, no foreign ammunition, foreign shotguns, rifles, etc. Why? Because every other country signed the ATT, and refuses to export to the US because we’ve defied the treaty and don’t live up to “international standards.”
Myths of the Gun Control Lobby
Forbes has an excellent article on the Myths of the Gun Control Lobby. Finally a reporter has started calling out the other side on the bullshit:
Caroline Brewer of the anti-gun Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence has reported that “The research we’ve seen indicates fewer and fewer people owning more and more guns.†Yet one can only wonder where they are getting that information. In reality, public support for personal gun ownership is growing.
I can tell you where they are getting that information — they are pulling it out of a place most decidedly devoid of sunlight. That said, they don’t get everything correct:
A National Crime Victimization Study (NCVS) which asked victims if they had used a gun in self-defense found that about 108,000 each year had done so. A big problem with the NCVS line of survey reasoning, however, is that it only includes those uses where a citizen kills a criminal, not when one is only wounded, is held by the intended victim until police arrive, or when brandishing a gun caused a criminal to flee.
NCVS does count those. The issue many had with NCVS survey method is they did not get to questions about defensive gun use unless the person reported themselves as a victim of crime first. Thus it’s believed NCVS undercounts DGUs. It will be greatly disappointing to the writer of the Propiganda Professor, a darling of our opponents, that the serious academic studies on DGUs, some by our own government, show the number to be in the hundreds of thousands on the low end, despite what he and his friends in the gun control movement might want to imagine.
I believe a large number of DGUs do go unreported. A friend of mine had a DGU in Philadelphia, but didn’t fire. As soon as he drew on his attackers, they fled. He called 911, who’s attitude was, if there wasn’t someone bleeding out on the sidewalk, it wasn’t important enough to warrant  further attention. I know this is anecdotal, but I think there are many cases like this. How many do you know of, or have directly experienced?
Emily Miller Discovers D.C. Transport Laws
D.C.’s transport laws are absurd, as is detailed by Emily Miller of the Washington Times, and definitely outside the laws in most states, but it might be surprising to know that Pennsylvania’s transport laws for handguns aren’t any different. The only difference is a License to Carry (from any state) is a blanket exception to our transport laws, and those are readily issued to anyone who asks for one and can legally possess a handgun.
Emily Miller, now that she’s become a gun owner, is figuring out that there are some elements of society that want her to be put in prison for a long time, with people who are really violent, all for making common mistakes that ordinary people make all the time, like running out of gas, or forgetting to go to the bathroom before leaving the house. OK for ordinary people to do, but not gun owners. Not in our Nation’s Capital.
Two Wolves & a Sheep Voting on Dinner – Anti-Gunners & the Media
Emotionally charged questions that leave out important context to a debate? Check.
Misrepresenting pro-gun groups? Check.
Lies? Check.
Radical policy statements that go ignored by reporters? Check.
Callers who are convinced it’s all a conspiracy? Check.
Why, I do believe we have all the mandatory requirements for an hour of conversation about Second Amendment rights on NPR.
It started this morning with alerts for multiple tweets from NPR’s Philly station WHYY claiming that representatives from @PAGunRights would be on their station debating anti-gun advocates. Well, this would be news to anyone who has ever contributed to the PAGunRights.com site since no current or former volunteer contributor that I know of was speaking to them.
Even though NPR was claiming that “individuals” (plural) from the pro-gun side would be on the show, they actually on had one speaker for the Second Amendment from NRA-ILA. Meanwhile, they hosted two anti-gun folks, one professional group leader and the other a member of Bloomberg’s group. Fair and balanced means two against one, apparently. Not to mention, the host was blatantly biased. Here as some examples of the absurdity pushed by the NPR host:
- When asking NRA’s representative about their support for state preemption laws, the host phrased the question as, “Why is NRA against police chiefs?” No, I’m not kidding.
- When CeaseFirePA’s leader called for lost and stolen violations to be felonies AND for them to remain municipal offenses, at no point was he questioned about what the means for completely changing the legal system in Pennsylvania which limits felonies to state charges. Nope, upending the entire state justice system apparently requires zero follow-up.
- While CeaseFirePA’s leader claimed anti-gun people didn’t know about a hearing on the strengthened preemption bill which essentially asserts that they violated sunshine laws, the host let it slide when he later contradicted himself admitting that their legislative supporters knew about it three days before a committee hearing. Fortunately, NRA was able to at least point out that legislators did not violate any laws.
- The host let a caller propose making lost and stolen reporting a federal offense, but never once questioned how that would work. Instead, it was treated as a perfectly reasonable suggestion instead of raising any kind of question about which federal agencies would be responsible for handling it or how exactly charges of violating the ordinance would work when there are already few federal prosecutions for actual straw purchasing cases.
Back to the content of the guests and the callers, MAIG’s Pennsylvania representative on the show advocated for lost and stolen laws to be felonies as well, but also specified that he encouraged a patchwork of laws across Pennsylvania that will ensnare lawful gun owners. It looks like Bloomberg’s position on NYC laws are spreading.
The callers I heard were just absurd. I think it’s funny the rightwing talk radio has the reputation for attracting conspiracy callers because there was woman who was convinced that because one NRA employee could not recall an exact number for campaign contributions donated to all Pennsylvania politicians, it was clearly evidence that NRA was simply buying off lawmakers. Never mind that it was pointed out that it is all a matter of public record that she herself could look up. Never mind that NRA has hundreds of thousands of members in the state. It never even occurred to her that there was any reason a legislator would vote for the Second Amendment other than being bought.
A number of other callers were mysteriously disconnected before being allowed to speak, so the only voices I heard were anti-gun. I know what to expect out of NPR on the issue of Second Amendment rights, but this was over-the-top even by their standards.
Legality of Drones
SayUncle asks and interesting question, in response to this story about an animal rights drone being brought down by shotgun fire, namely whether you own the airspace. Under common law, the answer was yes; you were regarded as owning, “from the depths to the heavens”. But the advent of air travel changed common law. Now the answer is yes and no, as to whether you own the airspace over your house. There’s a Supreme Court case regarding this, U.S. v. Causby (1946), where a chicken rancher sued the federal government over fighter planes flying low over his property. The ruling held the old common law could not survive in the modern world, but that landowners have the rights to the space over their houses that are essential for your enjoyment of the land.
“if the landowner is to have full enjoyment of the land, he must have exclusive control of the immediate reaches of the enveloping atmosphere. Otherwise buildings could not be erected, trees could not be planted, and even fences could not be run” . . . Thus, a landowner “owns at least as much of the space above the ground as he can occupy or use in connection with the land,” and invasions of that airspace “are in the same category as invasions of the surface.”
As far as the FAA is concerned, objects like RC planes must be operated within line of sight, and not fly over 500 feet. This is federal, so state case law might be different. But the FAA only recently allowed military UAVs to operate in US airspace. There is no corresponding FAA regs for civilian UAVs.
So it would seem that if you have a UAV buzzing around your property operated by animal rights groups, you’re perfectly entitled to shoot it down, exercising your rights as a property holder to end the trespass of an object that’s interfering with your enjoyment of the land.
More Homemade AR-15 Lowers
Jason sent this link along to me yesterday, which shows another AR-15 lower design that someone came up with. Looks pretty simple, and definitely wouldn’t take all that much machining. The only thing that concerns me about deviating seriously from the standard AR design is whether an argument could be made it’s readily convertible to an M16 receiver. I believe AR-15 lowers have some extra metal in them to prevent insertion of a drop-in auto sear (DIAS). They also have the advantage of having been reviewed by ATF. I’ve heard ATF frowns on designs where conversion is just a matter of drilling a new hole. But I also believe (correct me if I’m wrong) that once you drill the holes for the AR-15 trigger group, being that they’re differently sized pins, it essentially won’t hold an M16 trigger group anymore, so that really no modern AR design can really be construed to be readily convertible. I’m wondering whether there should be any concern about a design that hasn’t been submitted to ATF in order to make a determination. Any comments?
I should also note that this is only a concern for people, like you and me, who don’t want to break the law. Criminals wouldn’t have any such compunction.
Shooting Injuries
Caleb notes that you can get a bone spur on your finger if you do it too much. I was always told I’d go blind.
Next Steps in Canadian Gun Control Reform
The Canadian Shooting Sports Association is looking at some next steps, following up on their victory over the long gun registry. They’re now looking at licensing reform. Whether another step has any legs or not is entirely dependent on Canadian gun owners, but this doesn’t offer much hope, from a dealer in Canada:
Back in Sudbury, Ramakko said he hears very few complaints about gun licences. He expects the conversation at the gun counter will now turn from politics back to hunting.
If that happens, then the registry repeal is just a one time thing, and will quite possibly be reversed the next time the Tory’s are out of power.
We’re From the Government, And We’re Here to Help
Joe Huffman has a rather amusing tale of his struggle to get his explosives license renewed. The punchline here is:
So the bottom line is that if I remove the doors from the shed I can store 18,000 pounds of explosives. If I put the doors on I can only store 50 pounds. It doesn’t have to make sense. It’s just a government rule.
Makes sense to me!