Looks like the Republicans are regretting their sellout in New York. I guess they figured there were votes there they could use after all! What a bunch of weasels. The Republicans in New York have one way they can make it up to gun owners. No fixes, no adjustments: repeal.
Year: 2013
Deal Reached on Gun Control?
The Republican instinct to “get tough on crime” is almost like a poorly programmed subroutine that executes any time they feel imagined heat on the gun issue. Granted this is just agreement among the four person negotiating team, which comprises two mouth foamers and two soft Republicans:
The bill strengthens the law prohibiting material false statements in connection with purchasing a firearm and strengthens penalties for purchasing a gun with intent to transfer it to someone involved in violent crime or drug trafficking.
This is already a crime. You can do five years for some, and ten years for others. It’s not well enforced. So how is raising it to 25 years going to help anything? If you’re not enforcing the existing law, enhancing the penalty isn’t going to do squat.
It would also outlaw illegal purchasers of firearms from smuggling weapons out of the country.
Already a crime, it’s just not enforced. Ask Eric Holder, who is still walking the streets a free man despite his DOJ breaking numerous federal laws in Fast and Furious.
The legislation is largely based on a bill Gillibrand has been working on for the past four years. It cracked down on both the sale and purchase of guns likely to be used in crimes and lowered the mens rea thereshold for prosecuting offenses. Sellers and purchasers can be found guilty if they think — instead of know — the firearms will be used in crimes.
And how exactly does that work? Meas rea is important, because it requires the state to prove you were aware of the crime you’re committing. Strict liability offenses for serious crimes on any subject matter ought to be very suspect. For instance, if you were pulled over in a rental car where someone had stuffed a kilo of coke into the wheel well, you technically can’t be convicted for it unless they can convince a jury you were aware it was there. Knowing is an important element of possession. If possession were a strict liability offense, you could still go to jail in that situation, since all the prosecutor would have to prove is that they pulled a kilo of coke from the wheel well, and you were renting the car. So lowering the standard from “knowing” to “thinking” is essentially creating a strict liability offense.
Let me explain how this would work in the Gillibrand bill context, if I understand it correctly. If you sold a gun to someone, and they told you ahead of time they were going to rob a bank with it, that makes you guilty. You knew, and if that was in an e-mail or note, or someone can credibly testify about your knowledge, that gets over the mens rea requirement. So how does a standard of “think” even work? Do you have to tell or document somewhere, “I think that guy might use that to rob a bank?” Can the government just assert you should have been thinking that, and there is essentially no barrier to the crime being a strict liability offense?
One Million Customers
Midway USA has a million active customers. This is one of the companies that the gun control crowd claims funds NRA:
Please note that NRA “Round-Up” contributions come from you, our Customers, and each week since 1992 we have sent your contributions directly to the NRA/ILA National Endowment for the Protection of the 2nd Amendment. Our Customers should get all the credit for that, we just collect and remit your money. Now, in March of 2013 came another milestone to celebrate – one million active Customers – Customers who have ordered from MidwayUSA during the last twelve months. For a country kid from Missouri, that’s an amazing milestone.
Midway is one of NRA’s largest, if not the largest corporate donors, but it’s all done voluntarily by the customers… the one million customers. Like I said, the gun control proponents go through great lengths to convince themselves they aren’t battling millions of real people, but that would make them kind of awful, wouldn’t it?
It’s hard for me to think of any activity or past time people engage in that I find horrible enough that I think it ought to be taken away from them. Even though I will admit I like being able to go out without having to deal with cigarette smoke, as a general principle of freedom I remain opposed to public smoking bans. That’s about the closest thing I can think of. It’s hard to think of anything else that doesn’t involve a tragedy of the commons issue. I guess I just don’t have any Carrie Nation type moral crusading tendencies. I have enough going on managing my own life. I definitely don’t have the time to manage anyone else’s.
The Grassroots Support for Gun Control
Compare this rally in Eugene Oregon, put on by CeaseFire Oregon, to the one in Doylestown this weekend. No one outside the media and the Democratic Party leadership are clamoring for gun control right now. This is a deep blue state in a highly liberal city, and this is the best they could come up with? I see larger gatherings of gun owners on a regular basis around here.
UPDATE More from that rally in Oregon. They don’t even have any idea what they are supporting:
UPDATE: Also, what’s with the dressing all in white and going by the name Baldr Odinson in real life? I mean, I get pen names, since I use one and all, but any of my activities in real life happen under my real name. Does he think he’s some kind of superhero? I’m probably the last person who should be calling anyone a nerd, but, dude, you take the cake.
The Fight in Colorado
Head over to Publicola for live updates on the debate. More on the quite ballsy accusation that NRA is bussing people in, when nearly everyone in the Colorado Capitol lobbying for gun control is from out of state.
Attacking the NRA by Attacking Discounts
Unfortunately, the left has made a machine that is very good at intimidating companies, most of whom are loathe negative attention. They are now turning it against the NRA:
Supporters of tighter restrictions on guns are deploying a new tactic: pressing companies such as Wyndham Worldwide Corp. (WYN) and Hertz Global Holdings Inc. (HTZ) to stop giving discounts to members of the National Rifle Association.
Web-based organizations with ties to Moveon.org, an advocacy group that backed President Barack Obama’s re-election, want to shrink the NRA’s membership by eliminating an incentive to join — cheaper hotel rooms and car rentals.
I don’t know any people who are members of NRA for the discounts. We’re not the AARP. They are nice to haves, but it won’t substantially weaken the NRA. Nonetheless, the Soros funded Obama sycophants at MoveOn.org are still being pricks. This one is a particular middle finger extended right in our faces:
Cigna Corp. (CI), based in Bloomfield, Connecticut, also was asked to stop underwriting the NRA’s accidental death and dismemberment insurance policy for members.
They want to require insurance for gun owners, but then they are going to go after people who actually insure us? Do you need any more evidence that the motivation for all this is simply a hatred of gun owners?
- Contact info for Wyndham Worldwide.
- Contact info for Hertz
- Contact info for Cigna
We should probably add a little pressure of our own.
Zero Tolerance, Zero Brains
Apparently a kid who stopped a school shooting on a bus in Florida by disarming the gunman has been suspended instead of given a medal. At the gun show on Saturday I had an old guy tell me how he used to keep a shotgun in his locker at school to hit the fields after school, and no one ever thought anything of it. We’ve gone from that to this. We talk about winning the cultural war, but I think it’s more that we’ve only just begun reversing decades of damage. The old guy thought the reason was that the media sensationalizes everything, so everyone is scared to death of the idea of guns and schools. I tend to agree, and it makes me wonder if the death of mass media wouldn’t be a good thing for liberty in this country. Reading about things weeks after they happen is a lot less frightening than the 24×7 news cycle. Obviously, we’re never going back to that world, but we haven’t exactly missed cable news when we cut the cord. We find out about breaking news just fine.
The New Jersey Factor
On an article about Chris Christie:
Politicians who don’t trust law-abiding citizens to own guns do NOT see them as equal members of a democratic republic. To put it bluntly, they see them as serfs. Or children who need to be protected from themselves. And that sort of attitude will NEVER get you the nomination from a Republican Party that wants to keep Conservatives inside the Big Tent. NEVER. The way he treats the voters of New Jersey is the way he will treat the voters of America. Take it to the bank. The Second Amendment is not just one amendment in the Bill of Rights: It’s the Founders’ message to the citizens of America – “We Trust You”. And if you fold on that amendment? You’ll fold on all the others. Guaranteed.
Yep. That’s one reason I believe this issue is so important: it goes way beyond guns and hits at the heart of how a politician views the relationship between the people and their government. How a politician feels about an armed populace tells me a lot about how they think.
New Jersey is actually a great microcosm for how gun politics would play out if we gave into them on a national level. The Garden State is further along the path than many other places. The last gasp, so to speak, for the gun vote in New Jersey was the ouster of Jim Florio. Florio had backed New Jersey’s assault weapons ban in May of 1990, and in 1993 vetoed an attempt by the GOP controlled legislature to repeal the law. Florio managed to piss in plenty of other people’s Wheaties too, and by the time the next election rolled around, he was out and Christie Whitman was in, with promises to gun owners. Whitman then proceeded to do exactly nothing, and that was it for the gun vote in New Jersey.
It’s not that there are no gun owners in New Jersey, there are still many of them, but they have been broken, first by the Democrats, and then by the Republicans. The Republicans in New Jersey no longer view the gun vote as anything worth cultivating. Why? Years of onerous regulation, dating back in 1966, has greatly reduced the incidence of firearms ownership in the Garden State. Gun ownership, unsurprisingly, is a key indicator of one’s views on gun control. Without a lot of gun ownership, you have a fertile garden of ignorance that opponents of civilian gun ownership are very adept at cultivating. You end up with Democrats against gun ownership because they hate it, and the Republicans afraid to touch the issue because they don’t want to risk losing votes of the ignorant who are easily manipulated into thinking they want to to supply weapons to crazies, criminals, and terrorists so they can mow down kindergartens with 50 caliber heavy machine guns. The failure of the gun rights movement in New Jersey to effectively change anything, and their subsequent abandonment by the Republican Party, made a lot of gun owners just give up. They stopped caring or paying attention to the political fight.
And this is exactly the future President Obama and Mayor Bloomberg has planned for the rest of us. What remains to be seen is whether the national Republicans will play along.
Doylestown Rally Draws Several Hundred
There was a pro-gun rally held this Saturday in the County seat (my the County) by Concerned Gun Owners of Bucks County, a new group to spring up since Obama decided to make this an issue. Philly.com on the rally here, and also at phillyburbs.com. More on the group’s Facebook page here. Looks like about 150-200 people showed up. Here’s my favorite pictures, sent by a reader:
Bitter and I did not attend the rally because of working the antique gun show this weekend, but I wholeheartedly approve of promoting the Second Amendment for the children. I’m glad someone is thinking of the children.
Sunday News Dump
It’s time to get some lunch and hit the paintbrushes for me, while Bitter works the Sunday part of the show. So here’s all the news that’s fit to link:
On the offense in Florida. SayUncle notes we should go on the offensive federally. That would be a great strategy if the Republicans would go along with it, but I don’t give that much possibility. We’re probably going to be very lucky if the Republican Party does not sell us out and helps maintain status quo.
Good question for the antis (and funny).
Idaho bills moving forward. It’s actually surprising how fast we’re moving ahead in a lot of states while our opponents are distracted.
Clayton Cramer wonders why Colorado is fighting campus carry.
A couple faces a felony rap for sneaking into a movie theater. The gun control folks are naturally fine with this state of affairs, where everything is a felony, because it means fewer people can own guns. Forget ruined lives, we have to look at the big picture, you know. Everyone should read Glenn Reynolds’ “Ham Sandwich Nation: Due Process When Everything is a Crime”
Joe has some thoughts on the Canton police officer incident. Where did he learn that behavior from?
This week is the last week to stop the horror in Colorado.
I have to hand it to Magpul on the “Boulder Airlift” graphic.
Recalling anti-gun Democrats in Colorado? If this is possible, this is a great bandwagon to jump on if you live there.
The truth about assault weapons and background checks from John Lott.
A bill expanding the stand your ground law is floated in Florida. I’m not really a fan of encouraging warning shots but in terms of fighting off gun control, an offensive move forces your opponents to react. The goal is to come out on top in the legislative fight. When someone else starts a bar fight, any chair will do.
Manufacturers aren’t exactly lining up to produce 7 round magazines. A lot of people in New York are going to have expensive paperweights when all is said and done. There are some firearms out there for which there are no ten round magazines, let alone seven round magazines.
Bad bills are still moving forward in New Mexico. NRA needs phone calls.
The ‘Footlose Fix’. I really wish the GOP would put Glenn Reynolds in charge of their election strategy.