David Keene predicted failure for all congressional measures related to guns, including expanded background checks for gun purchases.
I hope he’s right, but I would not count on it.
Month: February 2013
Rally in Trenton Tomorrow
Via Politicker New Jersey:
A pro-gun rights group will be on the Statehouse steps Friday for a rally around the Second Amendment.
The New Jersey Second Amendment Society is meeting in Trenton at 10 a.m. to support residents’ right to keep and bear arms.
The list of speakers includes former Bogota Mayor Steve Lonegan and Sen. Michael Doherty, (R-23), Washington Township.
Also, from ANJRPC:
Turnout in Annapolis
Fresh from Maryland Shall-Issue:
Yesterday Maryland Shall Issue, in concert with the NRA, the Associated Gun Clubs of Baltimore, staged the largest “Gun Day” rally in the history of our state – official state estimates count 4,000 pro-rights supporters who converged at our statehouse for a morning rally and afternoon hearings in the Senate.
We literally shut the place down. Soon after the hearing, I got a call from the MD Capital Police. They told us the building was already at maximum capacity and that fire code meant no more entrants.
This was more than a rally. Our people all showed up to attend the hearing and to testify. Even after locking out our many members, there would be more than 1,000 people in line to testify. Just getting your name on the list of witnesses took six hours. Every person stood in line, eager to get their voices heard. Unfortunately, the chairman of the committee – Senator Brian Frosh – is a the largest Gun Control Advocate in the state. He decided to unilaterally cut off testimony after 4 hours from each side. Even when reduced, the Gun Controllers ran out witnesses. They had them on the list to testify, but after 5 PM many were no where to be found. They were mostly government employees – it looks like their interest in Gun Control ended when the paychecks ran out. The Chairman eventually reduced “testimony” to nothing more than your name and town. That’s it. That was was his idea of how to let people petition their government. Our side went until they literally told us to leave. The last name was spoken at almost 10 PM.
We had an effect. Publicly many admit that licensing is dead; that registration is about to fail; and privately there is talk that even the AWB is at risk. They are splitting the Governor’s bill into smaller bills, because as of today they big one would not pass either chamber.
We are not guaranteed a final win on everything. But this was supposed to be a cake walk for them, and the people of this state are going to make them work for it.
Maryland Shall Issue has been asked what we would compromise – whether we could “throw them a bone.” We told them that we would not compromise a single right. They told us that means we could lose. Our membership is united: we would rather have all of our rights stolen from us, than to willingly give up even one.
Everyone keep us in their prayers. We are holding our line in this fight. Pray we hold it until the end.
Good show! It is unfortunate that when a legislature gets in its mind to do something, it can be a beast to stop, but hopefully we’ll weather through, and keep punching back twice as hard.
UPDATE: Here’s the WaPo article.
The Democrat Dilemma in the Senate
The Hill has an interesting story talking about the dynamic. Supposedly Feinstein has been throwing a fit at the idea that her wide-ranging ban on semi-autos may be a political non-starter. She’s insisting on it.
Bloomberg is unlikely to be shy if Senate Democrats do not go all out to reinstate the assault weapons ban, which expired in 2004. Former President George W. Bush backed the reinstatement of the ban, but like Obama in his first term, he did not press Congress to act.
Obama will huddle with Senate Democrats at their retreat in Annapolis, Md., on Wednesday.
Gun control supporters are funding a new advertising campaign to pressure some Democrats.
This is what’s it’s like facing people with real money, and willing to put it behind races.
In Hawaii, Tomorrow
Horse Trading
Borepatch proposes a trade for background checks. The problem with this kind of thing is that it’s hard to do, because neither side really wants to compromise. Perhaps we can get all of those things without having to give anything up in return. Perhaps the other side believes the same thing. Even if we got together with the other side, and shook hands on the deal, there’s no guarantee that’s what’ll come out of the sausage grinder, as friendly lawmakers on each side try to sweeten the deal for their own constituency.
But that said, there’s no way I think they’d accept a deal like this. As I mentioned in the comments of a previous post, unlike many of the other gun control groups, I don’t think MAIG is really rooted in the gun prohibition movement. I don’t think that’s the purpose of MAIG. MAIG is an immune response of costal elites to the idea, pushed by our people in recent years, that the Second Amendment applies equally to big cities, and that New York and Chicago’s gun laws cannot be allowed to stand. Their primary goal is to put us on the defensive, so that day of reckoning is delayed as much as humanly possible, and if it does eventually come, will be on as close to their terms as they can get. The purpose of Bloomberg’s MAIG is the preservation of big city gun control. I have little doubt Bloomberg would be fine with prohibition, or near prohibition, for the rest of us, but I don’t view that’s why Bloomberg founded it. I think Bloomberg founded it to keep the Second Amendment out of his city.
Another Blogger Gets a Bug-a-Salt
I got one a few months ago, and suffer from the same problem as Uncle; there are few bugs around in winter. But I’ve had a few flies. Rumors on the Internet that it doesn’t have decent fly killing power is unfortunately true. If you shoot it at your hand, it smarts a bit, so it’s a testament to how strong a fly’s exoskeleton really is. Thinking some larger shot would help, I decided to try kosher salt instead of regular table salt, and I found that de-winged the fly pretty well, but it still look a few follow up “Die, bastard fly! Die!” shots to finish him off. I have not yet tried it on stink bugs, but I’ve seen none around the house. I need to take it to work, where we have plenty.
Cop Goes Berserk in LA
Apparently he’s a strong supporter of gun control and the left, a fact which the media seems to be happily burying. This actually isn’t the first time a cop has gone berserk. One of the largest mass killings in history was committed by a police officer in the 1950s, armed with two M2 carbines (select fire version of the M1 carbine) and hand grenades. From PJ Media:
It’s pretty clear that Dorner is disturbed. It’s also pretty clear that the media and left have fueled his madness. His writing reads like a regurgitation of media narratives he could pick up on any mainstream leftist web site or media outlet. The same media are now censoring his manifesto. This comes just a day after news broke that another leftist gunman used leftwing propaganda to launch an armed attack on the conservative Family Research Council. Most media have ignored that angle, too.
I blame the media for ignoring that angle when it happens from their side of the spectrum, while they play it up for their opponents. But at the end of the day I don’t think heated rhetoric on either side is to blame for the act of crazies and lunatics. Ordinary people can engage in heated rhetoric without going on a killing spree, just like ordinary people can be around guns without doing the same.
UPDATE: More here.
News Dump? No News to Dump
The news cycle on gun control issues seems to be slowing down a good bit this week. I both welcome and fear this. I welcome it because it means I have more breathing room as a blogger. I fear it because it could drive complacency. We’re not, by a long shot, out the woods. But in the mean time, I can spend time Wikiwandering like Tam. Today’s interesting fact:
Because of the early divergence from the therian mammals and the low numbers of extant monotreme species, the platypus is a frequent subject of research in evolutionary biology. In 2004, researchers at the Australian National University discovered the platypus has ten sex chromosomes, compared with two (XY) in most other mammals (for instance, a male platypus is always XYXYXYXYXY),[66] although given the XY designation of mammals, the sex chromosomes of the platypus are more similar to the ZZ/ZW sex chromosomes found in birds.[67] The platypus genome also has both reptilian and mammalian genes associated with egg fertilisation.[35][68] Since the platypus lacks the mammalian sex-determining gene SRY, the mechanism of sex determination remains unknown.[69] A draft version of the platypus genome sequence was published in Nature on 8 May, 2008, revealing both reptilian and mammalian elements, as well as two genes found previously only in birds, amphibians, and fish. More than 80% of the platypus’ genes are common to the other mammals whose genomes have been sequenced.[35]
What’s interesting about the platypus having reptilian and avian DNA is that we (mammals) did not directly evolve from aves. Aves are actually surviving dinosaurs; both are theropods. Mammals diverged from a common synapsid ancestor sometimes in the Jurassic period, about 200 million years ago. Theropods diverged in the late Triassic. Monotremes would seem to have been an early mammal that just never felt the pressure to evolve much since it branched off early from a common ancestor at least 167 million years ago, and probably farther back that that. I think it’s fun that birds are actually dinosaurs. If you’ve ever observed them, wild turkeys seem to move like something out of Jurassic Park. Which begs the question: did dinosaurs taste like chicken? Did they have white and dark meat? Also, what does platypus taste like? Would platypus eggs make for a tasty omelet?
Maybe it’s better if I stick to thinking about gun policy.
MAIG’s Real Strategy
Jacob thinks their real aim is bringing and end to private transfers of firearms. I would tend to agree, since it’s been MAIG’s top agenda item since the beginning. But don’t think MAIG will push for a clean bill. They’d be quite happy to support a private transfer ban along with a new assault weapons ban and a magazine ban. Bloomberg can get bent. Until I can legally carry in New York City, and New York has roughly the same gun laws as anywhere else, there is nothing to discuss.