Year: 2013
Quality of Life & Gun Ownership
ExurbanKevin has a story out of north central Massachusetts that highlights the issues with may issue concealed carry laws. The Fitchburg, MA police chief takes pride in the fact that he denies carry permits to about 90% of new applicants. To those 90%, he adds the restriction that they may only use their firearms for hunting and target practice.
What’s interesting about the story that isn’t explicitly stated is that the other town he mentions, Leominster, will issue a concealed carry license without restriction to new applicants, or at least they would 10 years ago. I know because I got mine through Leominster.
In fact, due to the Massachusetts gun laws, I couldn’t look for housing after I graduated college like most recent grads–finding the cheapest place with the fewest possible roommates in the neighborhood least likely to result in a stolen or damaged car.
My first step was drawing a circle around the city in which I would be working to encompass any city within reasonable driving distance where the gas wouldn’t make me go broke before I even took home a paycheck. Then, I checked with the local gun community about all the cities within that circle. The cheapest and closest apartments I could find were in a city that refused to issue concealed carry licenses. That was off the list. Eventually, after taking several other options off the list either due to the unknown issuing policies or because it was widely known they add restrictions to licenses, I found a place that I could just barely afford in Leominster.
I admit that I really liked Leominster. My apartment wasn’t in the greatest of neighborhoods, but the crime rate was sure as hell better than the neighboring Fitchburg (which does not issue for carry, and, according to what I’d heard, did not issue then, either). It was a cute apartment; my car remained safe, as did my boyfriend’s when he came to visit. The times I did have a scare–when there was a domestic dispute involving some death threats outside my bedroom windows and when maintenance accidentally left my door partially open after fixing the a/c–I didn’t have to worry about restrictions on my license getting me into trouble. I could grab my gun out of my purse and have it ready if needed. As a woman living alone in an area where family was a good 14 hours away, a boyfriend who lived about 4 hours away, and my closest good friends were back in Western Massachusetts a good hour or more away, I appreciated the fact that I had a tool to defend myself if needed.
But the fact remains that I had to spend substantially more money in rent and living expenses in order to have that peace of mind. That single decision by the police department to issue or deny my right to self-defense changed the entire equation about my lifestyle choices. At least I had the economic freedom to have a little wiggle room that would allow me to choose a jurisdiction that recognized self-defense. For those less fortunate, they still don’t have those options, and that’s a problem we need fix.
On Sending Weapons to Syria
I’m a little puzzled why we’re going to give small arms to Al Qaeda in Syria without requiring universal background checks on each one of those so-called “rebels.” I mean, it’s for all those little Middle Eastern children, isn’t it? And is there gong to be a registry of the serial numbers of all those small arms so we can trace them back to the individual terrorist we gave the guns to when those guns are used against Americans — as they inevitably will be? And I’m concerned that those containers full of small arms being shipped Al Qaeda Syria may all feature magazines with a magazine capacity greater than 10 rounds! And real assault weapons!
And here we’ve been told, again and again, by Obama’s supporters that small arms are useless in the face of a government armed with airplanes, tanks, artillery, and weapons of mass destruction. This is pretty good evidence that none of these people actually believe their own bull.
A Response from MSNBC
MSNBC has quoted us on an article, based on my Thursday post on the topic. This article was actually released Thursday night, but I have not honestly had time to link it until now. It’s actually a pretty balanced article, on the whole. But I never know ahead of time when contacted by a reporter whether it’s something looking for some balance, or whether it’s going to be a hack job. Unfortunately, when it’s MSNBC, my gut tells me hack job. In this case that wasn’t the case.
No doubt MAIG is going to try to drive that 1.5 million number as hard and far as they can. The question is whether any politicians will buy it. Regardless of whether it’s real grassroots or not, it’s likely MAIG has accomplished more here than the Brady Organization has, even in the past.
Your Friday Laugh
Even the most jaded should be able to find a little humor in this take on the massive NSA data collection:
Spoofs like this are great ways to spread larger ideas.
Administration’s Gun Control Priorities vs Senate Democratic Priorities
This is a great day to call your Congressional Representative and let them know you stand for gun rights, and you want to make sure they remember to do the same. Today, the Obama Administration is pushing gun control again. I mentioned the rallies previously, but people on his mailing list are also getting an email pitch from the daughter of the Sandy Hook principal urging phone calls to Congress.
In the weeks and months after that horrible day, lawmakers from across the country told us, the families of the victims, that they’d take action to make our communities safer. What we found out is that, for some of our members of Congress, those were empty promises.
It’s very sad about those empty promises. It’s not quite as sad as the blatant partisan nature of this call to action that is designed to try and demonize the GOP-controlled House when it’s the Democratic Senate that acknowledges they should be the first to pass a bill with any chance of moving.
What I find most interesting about this partisan pitch by a gun control activist is that it shows how unserious they really are about the actual cause as opposed to the politics of promoting their party. All of my local lawmakers know that I’m with them because of gun rights. I’ll be against them, should it be warranted, because of gun rights. My support focuses on actually getting things accomplished or keeping threats at bay rather than simply using the issue to hurt a political party. That does not appear to be the case for many of the new advocates for gun control. If this woman wanted action, she would insist that her email be targeted to Senators, not Republican House members.
Meanwhile, Charles Cooke from National Review highlights the rather shocking (to none outside of the White House) news that contrary to what the Obama Administration is trying to demand of Democrats, they have no serious desire to keep harping on gun control.
Do you mean to say that a couple of months after the bill went down, there isn’t, magically, a groundswell of support for its revival? That the statistics showing that Americans really don’t care about this and don’t want the Senate to spend its time on it haven’t changed? That the 2014 elections are still going to be held in 2014, and that conservative Democrats still fear the voters on this issue?
When you combine the efforts of Bloomberg with the Obama team, I have to wonder if they have decided it is time to purge the Democratic Party of all leaders who find gun ownership remotely acceptable. While Obama isn’t being quite as hostile to pro-gun Dems as Bloomberg, he’s still trying to brand the GOP as the party to save gun rights with his attacks on the House.
Priorities in Washington, DC
If you’re a Washington, DC resident, you can qualify for a license to purchase marijuana, a substance banned under federal laws, for $100.
Meanwhile, a license to possess a handgun in your home, a constitutionally protected right, will set you back nearly double that amount.
Priorities.
Yes, Gun Control is Still Pretty Much Astroturf
An MSNBC contributor e-mailed me looking for a statement. As a policy, I don’t return e-mail from the Administration’s propagandists, but I figured a public response would do just fine:
You have accused Mayor Bloomberg of being “Astorturf-in-Chief” and the gun control movement of being “astroturf” instead of a grassroots movement.
Mayors Against Illegal Guns now has 1.5 million supporters, and they organizing events in ten cities. The Newtown Action Alliance also held an event today on Capitol Hill.
Does the mean the “astroturf” efforts are becoming a grassroots movement for control? Or does it still just amount to “astroturf”?
What Bloomberg is likely defining as “supporters” are people who have gotten on his e-mail list. How one defines a supporter is quite flexible, but that’s a vastly different animal than a dues paying member. NRA actually has one of the strictest standards for membership of any interest group that plays in DC.
NRA has 5 million members. That’s 5 million people who forked over money, usually 25-35 dollars to become members, and who have to keep paying that every year to remain on the rolls. Voting members, which includes life members (who forked out anywhere from 300-1000 dollars) and people who have been members for 5 unbroken years, number 1.72 million by the number of ballots that went out for the last Board election.
But it’s not just that. Where are the anti-gun blogs? Where’s the anti-gun convention that turns out 82,000 people like NRA did in Houston last month? Why are we able to mobilize bigger protests ad-hoc than they can manage even with professional organizers and slick ad campaigns. If Bloomberg has grassroots why is his bus tour schedule not being made public? Perhaps because he is well aware our people will show up and risk MAIG not getting the media’s undivided attention?
If I wanted to play Bloomberg’s game, just doing a quick query on the blog’s database, I have 7139 supporters in just my small corner of the pro-2A universe. That’s how many unique people have ever commented on this blog. We’ve had 1.9 million unique people who have visited this blog since I’ve been keeping stats. Of those, about 260,000 have returned to the site at least once. The metric I use to determine how many regular readers I have comes out to about 2300 now, and 7000 over the years if I take the data back far enough. We have 520 Facebook fans, and between Bitter and I, we have 2500 followers on Twitter. I am a blog about gun politics, and that’s all I generally blog about. That’s a pretty niche topic, as things go, and I’ve never spent so much as a dime on an ad campaign, or made any effort to compile a list of “supporters.” What could I have accomplished if I had sunk even a million of Bloomberg’s money into marketing?
So yes, I believe the gun control movement is still mostly Astroturf. I am sure millions of Americans are willing to say they support gun control, and some might even be willing to sign up for an e-mail list. But it takes more than that to win in politics. Bloomberg’s 1.5 million doesn’t matter if none of those people are willing to act or vote on the issue. NRA’s 5 million people will act, and will vote, and largely on that one issue. We will crawl over broken glass to defend the Second Amendment. In fact, most of us would do more if necessary.
Bloomberg Peeing in a lot of People’s Pools
There’s been a lot of people getting upset at Bloomberg’s insistence in taking his fight a bit too far. Even Chucky Schumer seems to be getting a bit peeved with Bloomberg’s antics. It’s pretty simple to see why. If you count up the number of states that went blue in 2012 you get 25. If the Democrats are going to hold a majority in the Senate, they need to be able to appeal to red state voters. Even Chuck Schumer is more interested in holding onto power (and being Majority Leader someday) than he is in advancing gun control.
But that’s a separate issue from whether Bloomberg’s strategy is a smart one, if you concede Bloomberg is actually a true believer when it comes to gun control. Over the short term, I think Bloomberg’s strategy is disastrous. At best it weakens red state Dems with their base, and throws the seat and possibly the Senate to pro-gun Republicans. That lays the groundwork for us to take National Reciprocity, and make Bloomberg eat it (along with plenty of salt and a 20oz Coke). At worst for Bloomberg the ads have no effect, or actually help, in which case we can probably count on that Democrat to be a solid vote for us in the future. Not only that, but it would make Bloomberg appear impotent politically at a critical time for the Democratic Party.
Over the long term, Bloomberg’s strategy could be beneficial if he can make Democrats afraid to cross his money and influence. If he can win, he could succeed in cementing the Democratic Party as the anti-gun party, with gun control as a lasting major party plank. Will it work? It’s a bit of a long shot, but there’s only so much you can do when you’re just one rich asshole. Keeping the Dems anti-gun, and then waiting for the inevitable political winds to shift in their favor might be a strategy that can pay off eventually. But given the force disparity between the pro and anti camp, I think gun control being front and center will make it much harder for the Democrats to crawl their way back to a majority. Bloomberg needs to be careful. NRA is always careful not to pee in too many people’s pools. If you threaten to upset the apple cart too much, even your allies will turn against you.
The LTC Process in Philly
Despite the state making an effort to standardize the LTC application process, Philly is still wants to do things their own way.
The application itself is 4 (four) pages if you print some of them front/back. Doesnt that go against what is outline in:
18 Pa.C.S. § 6109: Licenses (c) Form of application and content.–The application for a license to carry a firearm shall be uniform throughout this Commonwealth and shall be on a form prescribed by the Pennsylvania State Police. The form may contain provisions, not exceeding one page, to assure compliance with this section. Issuing authorities shall use only the application form prescribed by the Pennsylvania State Police.
Or am I just dense?
You’re not dense, no. But the law doesn’t honestly mean anything to these people, and it’s always just been cheaper to go get yourself a Florida license that to try to challenge the system. Kathy Kane might have just changed that equation, however. In every jurisdiction except for “cities of the first class,” which Philadelphia (and only Philadelphia) is under PA law, the issuing authority is the sheriff. For Philadelphia it is the Chief of Police. One bill I’ve seen would allow applications to be made to neighboring jurisdictions. This would be a useful first step, on the way to fixing this issue by not requiring permits, and may be useful for people who live in sprawling counties where the neighboring sheriff may actually be closer.