June 2013 – Page 12 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Fallout from the PA-13 Race

Allyson Schwartz wants to run for Governor, so her current seat in PA’s 13th district is up for grabs, and grab it a who’s who of Pennsylvania lefties are trying to do. Now Marjory Margolies, formerly Marjory Margolies-Mezvinsky, is in the race. But that’s not all, dear friends. In order for primary candidates to polish up their credentials, we’re going to have ourselves some gun control:

Meanwhile, State Rep. Brendan Boyle Monday introduced HB1479, a bill that would prohibit the sale, purchase, or possession of large capacity ammunition magazines. The sponsors and supporters of Boyleâ€™s bill, including fellow PA-13 opponent Leach, will hold a news conference on Wednesday in the Capitol Rotunda.

HB1479 can be found here. Very limited and confusing grandfathering. But hey, punching those neanderthal gun nuts in the gut is a sure way to demonstrate your progressive bone fides to the kind of people who like that type of political theater. I should note that as long as the GOP controls the legislature and the governor’s mansion, this likely isn’t going anywhere. But do you have faith the GOP will never lose another election in Pennsylvania?

Unsafe Training

Sean decides to walk away from a bad experience with a PA-based trainer. It’s tough to walk away when you’ve paid for something, but it’s often the right thing to do. In this case, the instructor seems to operate under the belief that having an “unloaded gun” allows you to ignore fundamental safety rules.

Differences in Colorado’s Mag Ban v. Federal Mag Ban

A reader had a good question in the comments yesterday that I thought would warrant a separate and hopefully not too rambling post. He asked, given that the “readily restored” language is nothing new, why we’re concerned about this in Colorado right now. There is, starting out, a slight difference in the language between the Colorado ban and the now expired federal ban. The federal ban covers “readily restored or convertedÂ to accept, more than 10 rounds of ammunition,” while the Colorado bans any magazine “thatÂ is designed to be readily converted to accept, more than fifteen rounds of ammunition.”

When it came to the federal ban, what the term meant was generally something left up to the regulating agency, which for federal purposesÂ would be BATFE. The Courts will generally defer to the agencies interpretation of what these terms mean. Courts will also look toward legislative intent, as in what did the legislature intend to do, when determining the meaning of specific language.Â During the federal ban, the ATF never took the position that “readily restored or converted,” meant that any magazine with a detachable floor plate would be contraband. I don’t think, under the federal ban, there was ever a case of someone getting busted for a magazine extension, but to some degree during the federal ban you possessed these things at your own risk. It’s just that the feds never chose to pursue an interpretation of the ban that covered magazines with detachable floor plates.

Anyone looking to understand the issues at hand in Colorado ought to read the federal complaint challenging the Colorado law. The issue in Colorado is somewhat different, because the legislature did not give any regulatory body the power to make regulation as to what was or wasn’t covered. If you look at the law itself, regulatory power was only granted to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation for the purpose of regulating the marking of magazines. That means whether a magazine is contraband or not is going to be up to individual prosecutors and law enforcement agencies, and then the courts will have to sort out the meaning. In addition, both Governor Hickenlooper and the chief sponsor of the Colorado magazine ban have stated that magazines with detachable floor plates are covered by their ban. This means that anyone prosecuted for having, say, a Glock 19 magazine, which has a detachable floor plate and holds 15 rounds, would have a steep hill to climb to argue in Court that it would not be covered under the ban.

It should also be noted that the federal ban would likely have been vulnerable to the kind of challenge currently being waged in the federal courts in Colorado right now, it’s just that we did not have a remedy under the Second Amendment at any time during which the federal ban was in place, because Heller had not yet been decided in favor of an individual right.

Colorado Recall of the Senate President

According to this article, signatures to recall the Colorado Senate President will be presented to the state today.

This could be the interesting recall to watch since he’s a bigger symbolic target, and the numbers behind the last election show he is beatable if he has pissed people off. What impressed me from the article is that gun owners appear to have been quite sharp and focused in meeting their goal on this recall effort:

Many of those petitions were signed at Paradise Sales under the watchful eye of Mr. Paradis, who says he was careful to check the eligibility of interested supporters on the secretary of stateâ€™s website before letting them sign.

â€œAbout 50 percent of the people who came in to sign the petition didnâ€™t live in the district, but wanted to help,â€ said Mr. Paradis, one of three residents in Mr. Morseâ€™s district who launched the recall. â€œThereâ€™s a real groundswell of support for this. They woke up a sleeping giant.â€

That’s good to know that at least one of the organizers was being especially focused. And it’s great to hear that people who weren’t qualified to sign were still offering to help.

Too many gun owners feel like they live in areas where they can’t make a difference, but the district right next door may be a prime target. Unlike Mike Bloomberg, you’re still part of that community.

One problem with a successful petition is that gun owners may believe that the message sent has been loud enough, and it won’t be until 2014. The energy needs to carry on into far more districts. If that can happen, then the message will likely be very loud and nationwide.

UPDATE: And, of course, in the time I started writing the post and actually got around to publishing it, Cam has updated that they have turned in far more signatures than needed.

More than 16k signatures turned in to CO Sec of State’s office for recall effort against State Senate President John Morse. #gunversation

— CamEdwards (@CamEdwards) June 3, 2013

US A No Show at UN Arms Trade Treaty?

Apparently Obama didn’t send anyone to sign us on, but the Administration is hinting that it will sign onÂ later after the translation.

â€œWe look forward to signing it as soon as the process of conforming the official translations is completed satisfactorily,â€ U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said today in a statement.

We’ve been closely following the activities of OFA, and it’s telling that gun control hasn’t been on the agenda now for several weeks. Makes you wonder just how dedicated Obama is to his gun control agenda. If he feels like he has bigger fish to fry, that’s fine with me.

Mini Monday Dump

Since I was pretty busy late last week, I have some stories building up in the tabs I meant to have something to say about, but for now better just link before things get too stale:

Maine Senate rejects gun control.

Five reasons Forbes is wrong on 3D printing. I have some disagreements with Jacob on this topic, but he’s mostly right. Absent a serious revolution in 3D printing, you won’t, for instance, be able to make hardened parts like barrels through additive methods. At least not any barrel that would survive long.

Pennsylvania gun control advocates are delivering petitions to call for background checks. Except we already ban private transfers of handguns in this state. Despite the fact that long guns are hardly ever used for criminal purposes, and despite the fact that we’re constantly hearing that background checks just aren’t enough when it comes to pistols.

One problem with challenging gun control laws that only affect 18-20 year olds is that you constantly have to keep hunting for plaintiffs.

How the NRA never ends, by someone who pretty clearly doesn’t understand this issue at all, nor its political dynamics.

Democrats still aren’t being ruthless about gun control. The reason for that is we are, in opposition to it.

Another “I’m a gun owner, but…” story. He’s looking for a gun rights group that supports gun control. Good luck with that.

Looks like a deal was reached in Illinois. Hopefully it’ll provide a base for improvement, but I’m not happy about how lawmakers behaved in this whole thing. John also has a rundown of the bill’s key points.

Floor Plates on Pistol Mags

Conversion not valid in Colorado. The Colorado magazine ban is worded in such a way that essentially all detachable magazines with a removable floor plate are “readily convertible” to a prohibited configuration. In my case, even though my Glock 19 magazine holds 15 rounds, there’s an easily available and cheap extension to make it a 17 round magazine. So it’s readily convertible, and thus unlawful to have in Colorado. Most other magazines with a detachable floor plate, which is most detachable magazines, are also likewise prohibited.

And Here I am Without Champagne

Lautenberg is dead. I’m not going to mourn or say nice things about a Senator who made a career out of pissing on individual freedom and liberty, and trying to be everyone’s friggin mother. There was hardly a nanny law passed into existence that he either didn’t spearhead or sponsor.Â I don’t mourn the passing of tyrants who want to control everyone’s lives. Christie gets to name a successor, at least until a special election, so it looks like he’ll be running with a Senate candidate. His own personal popularity could help flip that seat to the R-column, at least temporarily.

Journalism Prof Misfires on NRA Speech Claims

It would seem that journalism professor Chris Swindell has forgotten the elementary lesson we all learned that one should be able to answer the 5 Ws when reporting a story. Sure, he asserted the Who, and he made some dubious claims about the What and Why. But, he didn’t include the When, Where–you know, the actual evidence for his claims.

Here it is. The NRA advocates armed rebellion against the duly elected government of the United States of America. That’s treason, and it’s worthy of the firing squad.

I’m sure most of you have read this article by now since it was linked on Drudge, but I have to admit that I’m floored the Charleston Gazette opted to run it since claims like this aren’t backed up by any kinds of quotes or speech references. It’s devoid of facts, but makes outlandish claims while citing zero evidence for much of his piece. In the few areas where he does reference some kind of “fact,” it is misconstrued beyond even what even other liberals will claim, or as far as I can tell in one reference, completely falsified.

The closest Swindell comes to actually citing any sort of “evidence,” he completely misconstrues the case beyond even what Media Matters was willing to do. He references Jim Porter’s speech where he made the comment that in the South, plenty of people still call the Civil War the War of Northern Aggression. He made the comment as a joke in discussing the fact that the NRA was founded in New York, where he was speaking in 2012. (See what I did there? I answered who, where, when, why, and what. That lesson is free of charge, Chris Swindell.) Swindell falsifies the “fact” and claims that it was an entire speech about the Civil War. No, it wasn’t. In fact, Porter, in one throw away line during a speech that briefly mentioned the history of the NRA, was making light of something that is actually true in some areas. I didn’t even live in the old south that was most involved in the Civil War, and I heard people call it the War of Northern Aggression.

At another point in Swindell’s article, he says:

To turn the song lyric they so love to quote back on them, “We’ll put a boot in your —, it’s the American way.”

I know this sounds petty, but where they hell is the evidence that any NRA leader quoted that song at Annual Meeting or any other event? I was there, and I don’t recall hearing it. I searched for it, and I can’t find any references for Wayne LaPierre or Jim Porter quoting from the song. In fact, the singer responsible for the song from which that lyric is lifted is a Democrat who openly supports Obama’s policies. (Toby Keith was once hired to play an NRA convention 5 years prior to his declaration of support for Obama. That puts Keith outside of the mainstream of even other Oklahoma Democrats since not even the Democratic elected official to DC would support Obama.)

But back to the point of the post, there’s no actual evidence that I can find that this lyric was quoted. The evidence shows that Jim Porter did not actually deliver an entire speech on the Civil War while only calling it the War of Northern Aggression. And there are no actual quotes referenced that back up Swindell’s claim that it’s time to kill NRA members with assaults from tanks, jets, and missiles while putting the rest of us up in front of a firing squad.

Now, I get that the Charleston Gazette probably ran this piece because they knew exactly the kind of response it would get. I mean, come on; who isn’t going to click on an article by a journalism professor who advocates killing 5 million Americans for having different political views? But maybe I’m naÃ¯ve when I think that even such link bait should at least follow the most elementary of journalistic principles. Apparently the editors of the Gazette and the journalism department of Marshall University don’t agree and believe that facts are optional in their reports.