Year: 2013

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.

There’s a mental health bill, scheduled to be heard, that would allow seizure of firearms with no due process.

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.

The Republicans are floating a bill to make gun trafficking more illegal. This is something that ATF and federal prosecutors have crowed about for years, namely that there’s no specific federal trafficking statute, even though all the components that go into trafficking a firearm are already illegal.

During a press event, the bill’s sponsors — Reps. Patrick Meehan (R-Pa.), Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), Scott Rigell (R-Va.) and Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) — said their legislation would create a single section of federal code to give law enforcement the ability to prosecute gun traffickers.

The thing to watch for is their definition of “gun trafficker,” because if anything like this is poorly drafted, there is the potential for the otherwise law-abiding to get caught up in it. I doubt this is an attempt at screwing us, but is rather an attempt by GOP lawmakers in tough districts (like Meehan) to say they did “something,” without that “something” being things like banning private transfers, registration, magazine or gun bans.

In our communications with lawmakers, I think it should be stressing “No new gun control!” as simply and directly as possible. Something may still get through, given the resources we’ve had lining up against us, but the stronger message we send, the more likely it is we’ll take a slap rather than a punch in the gut. If all the other side gets out of this is a bill making gun trafficking more illegal, they’ll have a tough time spinning that as a real win. Also, see this about the Senate effort:

Barring an unexpected turn of legislative affairs, a ban on military-style semi-automatic assault weapons will not make it into law, top Hill aides and gun policy advocates say […] The other three — a universal background check for firearms sales, a federal trafficking law, and a ban on high-capacity magazines — are likely to be part of a final bill, Democratic aides say, though there is growing concern about whether a ban on high-capacity magazines can make it into law.

I am sincerely hoping that the plan is for the GOP to float this trafficking measure as their “See, we did something,” bill and for the Senate to float their bill, and say “See, we did too,” and for each respective body to hew and haw, and for neither body to take up the bill of the other. But that’s a lot of speculation and wishful thinking on my part, and I absolutely would not count on it. Keep calling, especially your Senators. The more people they hear from, the less likely it’ll be that anything horrid comes out of the sausage grinder.

UPDATE: John Richardson doesn’t like the looks of the supporters.

I’m heartened by reports form Minnesota of huge turnout to fight semi-auto bans. Minnesota is not alone, as Maryland also had similar turnout to their hearing, with the line for people waiting to speak snaking out of the Capitol in Annapolis.

I am heartened by the fact that people are turning out, but what keeps me concerned, what I can’t shake, is the fact that we had this kind of mass mobilization to defeat the health care law, which was, by polling, more unpopular than gun control. There was many times during that fight I didn’t think the Democrats would be crazy enough to actually pass it. But pass it they did. That’s why this isn’t the time to depend on a belief that someone else will take care of things.