On the 3D Printer Hysteria

There’s a lot of talk out there about the 3D printed gun, much of it hysteria. Daniel Terdiman of C|Net likewise thinks this issue is overblown, and I tend to agree, at least from a technological perspective. A few people have sent me this example of a zip gun, to show how much the concept of a homemade gun can be improved upon just using a little ingenuity and some handiness. If you can’t print, you can always freehand.

While zip guns have been around for a while, I think the hysteria over Defense Distributed’s liberator is more over what it portends than what it actually is. While it’s always been easy to make single shot zip guns, a lot of people uninitiated to firearms wouldn’t ever think they could make one, and probably don’t realize it’s stupidly easy. But most people by now are familiar with printing from computers, and a technology that promises to be as easy as that, but make things like guns, is quite astonishing. While the truth is making a printed gun is not that easy, and making an improvised zip gun not that hard, in the rhetorical debate, it’s easier for the average low-information voter to see the connection between this technology and the obsolescence of gun control in a way that handiwork could never accomplish. I think that’s why the reaction is so strong. The idea of printing a gun floats a “you could do this to” meme that scares the hell out of those in power, and those who aspire to control power.

Monday News Dump

I sort of feel like I need to come with a better name for these things than news dumps. One that seems to allude to bowel movements would be nice. Though, in a sense, these do serve to clear the constipation in my browser tabs.

These news dumps will probably start happening less often as gun control moves its way out of the news cycle. Though, given that there’s Benghazi hearings going on, and we’re learning the IRS is being used to go after political enemies of this administration, the media may decided that staying focused on guns is a fine and good thing. So we’ll see. But now, the news:

SayUncle notes that the market speaks. While everyone else who’s selling guns is doing brisk business, Dick’s Sporting Goods isn’t.

Saying bad things about open carry in the gun blogosphere is always bound to attract the Drama Llama, but Tim decided to do his best llama call over at Gun Nuts with two articles on “Open Carry Myths & Misconceptions.” Here’s part two. He speaks about the issue from a self-defense point of view.

The North Carolina Democrats are trying to fundraise off gun control. Running on gun control in the South is never a winning idea, even in the “California of the South.”

The New York Daily News is laying off workers. Sucks for the workers, but I’ll celebrate the misfortunes of outfits that advocate against our rights.

Jacob also takes on some optimistic thinking by the antis.

A gun safety measure in Congress I’d be willing to support!

Gun control ads have Democrats worried. Bloomberg is doing his level best to ensure that pro-gun red state Democrats are replaced by pro-gun red state Republicans.

How Feinstein fiddled while America burned.

A high capacity magazine of high capacity magazines!

These idiots are very very lucky no one got shot.

Now it’s the NRA’s turn to understand us. We do understand you. That’s why we oppose you.

The WaPo thinks NRA may have won for now, but faces long term challenges. One of those challenges, apparently, is Cato Institute chair Robert Levy, who unfortunately appears in the article promoting gun control.

How Can We Defeat the N.R.A., the New Yorker asks. Well, you can start by actually having grassroots, rather astroturf paid for by asshole billionaires. It would also probably help for the media and political elites to stop manipulating people with unresolved grief, and parading them in front of cameras in an attempt to emotionally blackmail fellow Americans.

When is Gun Control Not Political?

When it’s “public health,” lead by meddling doctors:

To pediatricians, gun control is a public health issue, not a political one. But they’re treading a fine line, and they know it.

The American Academy of Pediatrics has begun a renewed push to try to get Congress to pass gun control measures, sending more than 100 pediatricians to Capitol Hill earlier this month.

Gun control is always political. Doctors should focus on healing patience, not butting their noses in where they don’t belong.

Miller’s done research on gun deaths using what CDC data he could get — dating from before Congress cut its funding.

He divided the U.S. population in half, classifying half as living in high-gun-ownership states and half in low-gun-ownership states. In the “high gun states,” 21,148 people were murdered between 1988 and 1997, compared with 7,266 in the “low gun states”.  He found 369 kids up to 14 of age who were murdered using guns in states with high rates of gun ownership; 97 were killed deliberately with guns in low-ownership states.

That’s just simply bogus. There’s no earthly reason to make that kind of division unless you’re trying to get a result. It’s possible to analyze the 50 states individually, without arbitrarily dividing your data points. But there’s probably a reason he did that. With murder rates there’s no correlation to gun ownership. There’s also no real trend when it comes to Brady scores. There isn’t a correlation Internationally, and nor do suicide rates correlate.

These people have an agenda, they are willing to lend the credibility of their profession to bad research and lies, and their funding for this kind of garbage must remain cut off.

Starbucks Fight Round 3?

The gun control groups are already all over this story out of St. Petersburg Florida, where someone ND’d inside a local Starbucks. The anti-gun groups have twice tried to push Starbucks to change their policy, but Starbucks has maintained their policy of following state law on the matter. Regardless of that, however, I believe the mall is a gun free zone. I can find other evidence online that other malls owned by the same company are posted. I’m not sure what Florida law is on this matter, but it is not abundantly clear the gun was being carried legally yet.

UPDATE: Firearm not carried legally:

Beck does not have a concealed weapons permit, but says she never intended to carry the gun in the first place.

Of course, I agree with the reader who pasted this URL into the comments that it won’t matter to those who will try to get on this hobby horse and see how far it can be ridden.

Sorry About That

Apparently my “profile” at Verizon for my FiOS magically disappeared. I don’t know what they mean by “profile,” but I’m pretty sure, based on how this played out and on my end, and through my own troubleshooting, their routing protocols didn’t know where to direct my IP addresses. I’ve had that happen once before, about four years ago, when they upgraded my service speed and wiped all my static addresses. This time it just seemed to happen out of nowhere. At 14 hours, this was the longest outage I’ve ever had from Verizon FiOS in the eight years I’ve had it.

We will now return to our normally scheduled blogging.

Media Coverage of the Rally

All it takes is one ill-considered moment to ruin everything. (The picture itself is worth 1000 words) The woman who is being shouted at we’re pretty sure is an activist we’ve seen before at the Doylestown counter-rally, who was moving among the pro-gun people attempting to antagonize them. One guy on the pro-gun side got tired enough by it to call the cops over, who promptly told the woman to chill, and please return to her side of the rally.

But here the bait was taken, and they got what they wanted. Objectively, it is an excellent photo. As soon as I saw it online late last night, I figured that was front page worthy, and would be there the next morning. Both the Courier Times and the Intelligencer did as predicted. Our side has to be supremely careful, especially in hostile media environments, which this area undeniably is.

The Mother’s Day Rally & Counter Rally

Well, it’s been talked about, hashed over, and rehashed over, in the local media for days now. The Bux-Mont Peace Coalition finally had its rally on Mother’s Day, at Williamson Park in Morrisville. Here are some photos and some videos:



I’m particularly proud of catching Rendell’s bodyguard’s poorly concealed sidearm. Good enough for the former Governor, but not good enough for your family? And at a peace rally too? Tsk tsk. I did manage to get some video, despite the pouring rain. First, the invasion of Pennsylvania by the gun control crowd:

If you’re going to invade my state, you need more cowbell! And also a brief video of the mixed rally/counter-rally in Williamson Park. I could only film for a little bit because my iPhone we getting soaked in the rain. I had just missed Rendell’s rather short speech.

The gun control people outnumbered us, but not by a whole lot, especially once the rain started. That’s dedication for you. I’d estimate we had about 100 people, and they had maybe 200. They seem to have lost a lot of the marchers between the bridge and the park. It’s always hard to tell because a crowd marching will always look bigger than when you compress it. Despite all the folks walking around with openly carried and concealed firearms at a peace protest, somehow it managed to remain peaceful. Hardly a surprise to me, but as one women who spoke to the rally said “She was kind of scared, but not too scared to speak out.” She really had nothing to be fearful of.

Blame the Governor!

Here in Pennsylvania, our governor is just terrible. I mean terrible. His administration directed publicly funded colleges to review their rules and regulations and–gasp–make sure they are all constitutional! Oh, the horror of making sure that government agencies/departments/institutions aren’t violating the state constitution!

The directive that prompted Kutztown University to allow people to carry guns on campus came from Gov. Tom Corbett’s administration.

Corbett’s office of General Counsel directed all 14 state-owned universities to review their policies restricting guns on campus to determine whether the policies would withstand constitutional muster, said Kutztown University spokesman Matt Santos.

If I see an attack ad on this issue next year, I’m going to probably hit my head against a desk. I don’t care what side of the aisle you’re on, you should support a directive to make sure that the government isn’t violating rights. If anything, from a liberal perspective, it makes it less likely that these institutions will be sued.

“Confiscate, Confiscate, Confiscate”

From ANJRPC. I’m forced to swipe their whole release because they don’t provide links:

NJ SENATORS’ TRUE VIEW OF GUN OWNERS REVEALED BY HOT MICROPHONE FOLLOWING YESTERDAY’S HEARING 

Call the Senate Majority Office Immediately to Express Your Outrage

And Demand That Monday’s Bill Package be Held   

An astute person listening to the official audio recording of yesterday’s Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee hearing noticed that the official recording continued following conclusion of the hearing.  The discussion that was caught, apparently among several senators and staff, is outrageous, and reveals legislators’ true view of gun owners.

A YouTube video with an excerpt of that recording has been posted here.  The following lines can be heard in the recording:

“We needed a bill that was going to confiscate, confiscate, confiscate.”

“They [gun owners] want to keep the guns out of the hands of the bad guys, but they don’t have any regulations to do it.”

They don’t care about the bad guys.  All they want to do is have their little guns and do whatever they want with them.”

“That’s the line they’ve developed.” 

The discussion appears to be among Senator Loretta Weinberg (D37), Senator Sandra Cunningham (D31), Senator Linda Greenstein(D14), and at least one member of Senate Democratic staff.

This discussion can also clearly be heard at the end of the official audio recording, beginning at 1:52:30, currently available here (find Thursday, May 9 from the menu, then click “listen”). It is possible that the official recording will be sanitized following release of this alert, and the official YouTube video could be deleted, so be sure to listen to it promptly.

The discussion reveals absolute contempt for the Second Amendment and those who exercise it, as well as complete ignorance of the fact that gun rights organizations like ANJRPC have long advocated for clear and specific legislation punishing criminals who misuse firearms, instead of misguided legislation (like the bills currently being pushed by Senate Democrats) that demonizes hardware.  Senator Loretta Weinberg is the chief proponent of the anti-gun legislation being moved through the Senate.

In advance of Monday’s full Senate floor vote, please immediately call AND fax the Senate Majority Office, tell them you are outraged by the misguided, disparaging, and clueless comments of those pushing the anti-gun bill package, and demand that Senate Democratic leadership hold the entire package of anti-gun bills currently scheduled for consideration by the full Senate on Monday, May 13.

SENATE MAJORITY OFFICE

Phone: 609-847-3700

Fax: 609-633-7254

You know what would help prevent gun owners from always being paranoid that gun control activists and politicians were after their guns? Not actually being after our guns. Just because your paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you.