Month: February 2013

I have to agree with Glenn Reynolds, that when you have to dump a cool two million to get an anti-gun politician elected in Chicago that’s not a position of strength. But a Kelly win here is going to be spun as a bellwether, and you can bet Bloomberg and our opponents are going to ride that particular horse as far as it will take them. We’ll know shortly what the result is. Given what’s been arrayed against us, and the proclivities of the district, I’m not all that optimistic.

This district can’t be all that different from Allyson Schwartz’s district here, and I can’t fathom that seat ever going to someone like Halvorson. But Schwartz’s seat is going to be empty when she runs for Governor, so I would say if any of you are reading this, and are union members or other such Democrats who like guns, let’s see if we can get Bloomberg to burn 2 million dollars defending that seat too.

Unfortunately, it’s only getting traction in conservative media, appearing at Breitbart, The Washington Times, and The Washington Examiner. The media I don’t think has much incentive to report on a story that’s bad for the Administration. Politico is currently running a story about Obama’s faltering gun strategy in the Senate, as our opponents worry about the ticking clock. I’m still concerned, but becoming less concerned about Coburn’s participation in this charade, since it’s looking to me like his participation may be to stall for time and act as a spoiler. But keep in mind this is just rank speculation at this point.

Tam notes that someone from the 1990s girls with guns culture has turned on the cause. You can put me squarely in the “Paxton Who?” camp. I had never heard of this woman before Tam’s post just now. Tam notes:

Jesus, Paxton, et tu?

It only takes one awshit to erase a dozen attagirls. I’m washing my hands of her. Let the Zumboing commence.

Zumbo was someone well known. I’m guessing Ms. Quigley is one of the many self-promoters in this issue whose day in the sun passed long ago. Do all political issues attract the kinds of self-promoters we do?

UPDATE: Apparently she has a blog.

I linked to Jim Shepherd’s very detailed and fine article in a previous post, but it covers a lot of topics so I wanted to speak to another point he made:

But what if the intent of this legislation wasn’t really the banning of magazines or classes of firearms? What if the real intent was to let the bans be watered down while pushing through sweeping redefinitions of terms we all think are clearly defined?

Consider, for example, the lawful transfer. That’s a transfer of ownership between two private parties or between a federal firearms licensee and a purchaser, right? To a point.

But what if language broadened to the point that the term “transfer” was applicable to any regulated item -such as a “high-capacity magazine” used in competition and not just a “firearm”?

It seems to be a very small distinction, until you realize that a lawful transfer, as stated under Colorado’s proposed statutes, would be applicable to magazines. And those definitions went on to broaden a “recognized competition” as having been run by either a state agency or non-profit. SASS, IDPA, USPSA are not, technically non-profit organizations. Under that broadened definition, USPSA/IDPA match officials picking up a magazine dropped during a competition stage would be participating in an illegal transfer.

I don’t think their strategy heading into this was anything other than to throw everything they had at us, and probe for where we were weak, and where they could get us. The goal, quite simply, is to break us. They don’t care if they do it with an assault weapons ban, or without. They are happy to do it by banning private transfers, redefining terms, or even bringing back old, stale ideas like liability insurance. I believe the overall goals of the gun control push can be best summed up in a few bullet points:

• Set up a confrontation for the 2014 elections. If they can deliver us any setback or defeat, it’ll be used to cement the case that NRA isn’t a factor in elections. Even if the 2014 Senate races go well for the GOP, that will help the progressive-left tighten their control over the party, and help them convince other Democrats that NRA can’t protect them, even if they vote the right way. The progressive-left has little to lose pushing this issue. Most of them are in safe districts, and they don’t have to worry about winning close elections where NRA could sway people at the margins.
• Try to gain ground in a policy area we’ll have a hard time challenging in court. That’s why I think they like trying to redefine terms, as Jim says. They’ll want to set something up for a possible change on the high court so they can forever limit to the Second Amendment to a second class right. I think they’d be happy to overturn it, but that might be a hard sell, and absent that, limiting it to a great degree would be just as well. New York City has demonstrated that ownership of weapons by civilians can be for practical purposes eliminated without having to resort to an outright ban such as existed in Chicago or DC.
• At the least blunt our advance into cities like Chicago and New York. One reason I think they are so unwilling to compromise on some of our concerns regarding private transfers is that they don’t actually want to pass something that would be tolerable to us. If they pass something intolerable, our immediate priority will be to undo the damage, rather than shrug our shoulders and continue pushing gun rights into places that have long strangled their legal gun and shooting cultures.

The 2014 elections will probably determine what happens to our rights. If gun owners fail to become engaged in that election, and pro-gun politicians take losses, I think we’ll see a tsunami of anti-gun legislation moving forward. The Democrats will have no reason to care about gun rights, and the Republicans will be further weakened, and also wondering if the gun vote is really delivering for them. It is vitally important we stand by lawmakers who stand by us in this coming election, and punish those who screw us.

My big fear approaching 2014 is a broad Republican sellout on one of our key issues, like gun or magazine bans, or on private transfers, that effectively disgusts enough of the people who comprise potential volunteers that we end up a non-factor in the election because gun owners feel cheated by both parties. Even a screwing by one or two key reps in swing districts or states may be a real problem for us. A good many of these folks in Congress have never been in a real fight over guns, and this is where the rubber meets the road. A lot of what they are going to do depends greatly on what we do.

Once we get through this I think it incumbent upon us to not just push them back, but to destroy them. They have raised the stakes of the game, and we’re playing for keeps. It will be incumbent upon us to keep fighting. The gun control regimes in New York, Chicago, California and New Jersey must be crushed, and relegated to a dark age when some constitutional rights were more equal than others.

This is indeed looking an awful lot like the Eastern Outdoor Sports Show. Of course, the big thing that tipped that over the edge was when the big guys started pulling out. What will the large, publicly traded gun companies do? Jim Shepherd takes a look at the issue:

If, for instance, you’re an officer in a public company, there’s a different set of rules that apply. Officers in publicly held companies have something that privately-held company managers don’t: a fiduciary responsibility to shareholders.

Simply stated, the job of officers in a publicly held company is to maximize value (profit and share price) for the company’s investors. Setting corporate values isn’t something that can be done purely as a matter of conscience. Cutting off a source of revenues-without a clearly stated company policy stating that course of action is asking for disgruntled shareholders to take legal action against you for damaging the company’s revenue streams.

Without betraying any confidences, those what-if conversations are being held at virtually every company in the industry. Frankly, some companies are at a loss as to a reasonable course of action. Others are irritated that there doesn’t seem to be a clear-cut course of action for anyone.

More on Jim’s article later, but this is a bigger issue than boycotting ESOS.