Dave notes that the judgement is a significant part of Bradys’ income and assets. Are we witnessing the dying gasp of the Brady Center? Let’s hope so. Preying on the families of victims to raise their profile by filing frivolous lawsuits is beyond the pale. Recall they recently withdrew from another suit for ethical lapses. Depending on how the judgement is structured, it might be possible for Brady to leave the victims holding the bag; on the hook for the 280 grand. If they do scurry off and leave the judgement to the family, it’s beyond the pale to exploit victims like that.
I think it’s time for the Brady Center to quietly disband. Even looking at the situation from the perspective of a person who supports gun control, the Brady organization no longer serve any useful purpose. How the mighty have fallen.
This issue has kind of flown under the radar, but the gist of it is that the Obama Administration made changes to the procedures for traveling internationally with a firearm that made it impossible for ordinary people. NRA notes in it’s press release:
Fairfax, Va. – The National Rifle Association today claimed victory for beating back an Obama administration policy that would have essentially stopped American hunters and sport shooters from travelling internationally with their personal firearms and ammunition. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) announced today that it is returning to its previous system of facilitating the international transport of personal firearms and ammunition, after meeting with representatives from the NRA, firearms industry and sportsmen’s groups, and key members of Congress.
“We are pleased that we have been able to reverse a bureaucratic nightmare that would have jeopardized the freedoms of law-abiding gun owners,†said Chris W. Cox, executive director of the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action. “On behalf of our five million members, I want to thank Senator John Hoeven and Representatives John Carter and Chris Stewart for their work to protect American hunters and sport shooters from a web of bureaucratic red-tape when traveling outside the United States.â€
CBP recently began enforcing regulatory changes requiring Americans travelling abroad to comply with commercial export requirements when transporting firearms and ammunition outside the U.S. for personal use. Under these requirements, in order to take personal firearms and ammunition to another country on a temporary visit, the individual would have to register the firearm in the Automated Export System (AES), after completing a 30 question test with 34 pages of user instructions, and provide their transaction number to CBP.
As the AES is designed for commercial exporters, it requires all users to obtain an Employer Identification Number (EIN) from the IRS in order to access the system. According to the IRS, however, EINs are issued for business purposes, and applicants have to specify a business reason for obtaining one. This left American hunters and sport shooters with no recourse. In today’s announcement, CBP affirmed that it will allow international hunters to use the same paper system they have used for years, while it works with the Department of State on automating that system in the future.
This is the second high-profile defeat of a proposed Obama administration anti-gun regulation in recent months. Earlier this year, the NRA led the effort to defeat an attempt by the Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms, Tobacco, and Explosives to ban commonly used rifle ammunition.
“It is clear that in the final years of his presidency, President Obama will stop at nothing to push his gun control agenda. This merely underscores the importance of electing a pro-Second Amendment president in 2016,†concluded Cox.
To learn more about the NRA’s efforts to resolve this issue click here (https://www.nraila.org/articles/20150417/you-cant-get-there-from-here-obama-administration-shrugs-off-woes-of-international-travelers).
They are going to keep trying to see what they can get to stick for the next two years.
Most everyone is aware of the effort by Senate Republicans in Colorado to repeal Colorado’s post-Sandy Hook gun control laws. That effort runs into issues in the Democratically controlled house, and then finally with Governor Hickenlooper. So you’d think of the Democrats conceded that maybe they went too far, and they’d be willing to consider a bill that would ease the magazine ban to 30 rounds, you’d jump at that right?
“It is unforgivable that it is RMGO and not Michael Bloomberg keeping me from buying a 30-round magazine,” Caldara said Friday. “Just as every gun owner needs to know who was behind the terrible gun laws in 2013 — Bloomberg and Gov. John Hickenlooper — every gun owner needs to know that Rocky Mountain Gun Owners is stopping a huge step toward fixing it.”
Dudley is holding out for full repeal, suggesting the Dems need to repeal the law or “face the election consequences in 2016.”
First, I’d never be that confident that the 2016 elections are going to go our way. If the GOP fails to take back the Colorado House, you’re probably stuck with the 15 round limit, unless the courts come through, which I also would not count on. If Colorado stays in Democratic hands through the 2020 census, there’s a very good chance there is no saving the state at all, and it’ll continue to get worse.
On the other hand, 30 rounds is on the table now, which would mean the vast majority of magazines people tend to own in Colorado would be legal. It would render the magazine law essentially meaningless, which would mean getting the other half of the pie later would be an easier sell. If the GOP does prevail in 2016, well, then you’re one step closer to full repeal already. I just don’t see any downside to taking the House Dems up on their offer.
Rep. Jon Keyser (never returned the NRA questionnaire
OK, I’d give Dudley challenging Keyser, and maybe Willett depending on whether or not that district can support a better candidate, or whether replacing him with a stronger gun rights candidate would throw the race to an anti-gun Democrat. I don’t know the district. But the first three are solid people on the issue, who perhaps voted against the maneuver because once you unleash a weapon like that, you invite your opposition to use it on you. There is a reason deliberative bodies have procedures.
We all want the magazine ban completely gone. But we can get 95% of the way there now, or hold off and rely on vague hopes that things will go as well or better for the GOP as they did in 2014. I’m for taking what we can get now. This no compromise stuff just doesn’t work in the real world. If Dudley were really the powerhouse he claims to be, and if he were truly a strategic genius, Colorado would never be in this mess in the first place.
It seems that Mike Bloomberg’s gun control cash can’t buy PA Attorney General Kathleen Kane’s way out of more legal drama.
Kane is being sued by a former agent from her office because he says she fabricated a story about him, claiming that he says his sting was only targeting black people. He claims that he never said that, and he says it seriously harmed his reputation as an investigator. He even took a polygraph test that he says he passed.
In fact, the story highlights that Kane claims she had a sworn statement by the agent’s boss that the agent suing her did say it. The problem is that there was no sworn statement. There was an unsworn statement (aka no legal accountability if they prove the boss lied) written more than a year after the supposed racial comment. To top that off, it was only written after Kane made her public claim. In other words, Kane made the claim that the agent with 20 years on the job made a statement. Then, four days after she issued the public attack, the agent’s boss magically writes up a statement fitting the narrative Kane told the media.
Remember folks, this woman won partly due to the huge financial investment made by Mike Bloomberg specifically because her views on gun control. She has repeatedly screwed with our reciprocity agreements, and she started lobbying against federal pro-gun bills before she even took office. But, hey, all those voters in the traditionally Republican parts of Pennsylvania felt like a vote for her was a vote for Penn State. No, it was a vote for corruption and abuse that not even the Philadelphia media can tolerate.
According to NRA, Brady Center Attorneys Jon Lawy and Alla Leftkowitz got in hot water for posting inadmissible evidence on the Brady website, which is a violation of Wisconsin ethics rules:
Milwaukee County Judge Jeffrey Conen may have given Lowy and Lefkowitz the benefit of the doubt when he said, “I don’t how things are practiced in Washington, D.C., or New York or anywhere else, but out here in the Midwest we have certain rules.â€Â Judge Conen’s reference to Washington, D.C. and New York was likely due to those being the jurisdictions of Lowy’s and Lefkowitz’s bar membership, respectively.
NRA also notes, “all attorneys are charged with understanding ethical rules in the jurisdiction in which they’re licensed,” and note that both New York and D.C. have substantially similar rules.
This is more evidence that the Brady Campaign and Brady Center are becoming the Junior Varsity of the gun control movement. They lack Bloomberg’s deep pockets and strategic acumen, and lack CSGV’s willingness to troll the depths of the Internet in search of mouth foaming supporters. This leaves Brady without a real niche. PLCAA pretty much prevents the Brady Center from doing anything useful, so they are stuck pretending to their supporters that they are making a difference.
The article notes that celebrities and anti-hunting advocates don’t attack or issue threats against male hunters at nearly the same rate as they target women or frequently even with the vitriol that they reserve for women.
Ultimately, it comes down to sexism in their movement. Women and guns, oh my! The article quotes a Vanderbilt professor, Kelly Oliver, who said:
“We expect men to be hunters, but we’re surprised when girls are hunting … Whatever we think about hunting the ‘Big Five’ in Africa, it’s clear that we still have issues with women and girls carrying guns and using them.â€
Ah, gotta love sexism on the part of the animal rights activists that forces women into a box of pre-selected labels and hobbies just because of their sexual organs. Oh, wait, isn’t that what they often accuse us of doing?
The article does cite another professor who claims it isn’t sexism that motivates these attacks, but they are rooted in other judgements against the women hunters – their race, their socioeconomic status, and even their nationality. However, the second professor doesn’t appear to answer the challenge of why these attacks target female hunters when men share the same types of photos without nearly the level of antagonism. That’s still gender bias at work, even if the people issuing Twitter threats may also have an issue with a hunter’s race or class.
Update in the Bushmaster et al. lawsuit. Although the case was removed to federal court back in January, the plaintiffs have filed a Motion for Remand back to the Connecticut state court. It does not look like the plaintiffs’ Motion should be successful, but the fight over jurisdiction could continue for awhile. The plaintiffs are fighting hard to get this back to state court.
At least some of the defendants will to file a Motion to Dismiss based upon the PLCAA and for failure to state a claim – FRCP 12(b)(6).
I think their strategy is just to waste time and force the other side to keep running up the legal fees. Maybe then they can hope for a settlement? I can’t really see them succeeding on their bizarre theory of negligent entrustment (that essentially selling AR-15s to civilians at all is negligent entrustment), unless they completely luck out by drawing the most severe of Obama appointed hacks to preside over the case.
Pew Research released a poll showing their highest documented support for gun rights, and 63% of their respondents said the best way to protect yourself against crime was with a gun. The survey also specifically says that Americans do not believe that more gun control will keep them safe.
Pew says that there’s a disconnect between perceptions of crime rates and actual crime rates. That’s not at all news for anyone who reads Free Range Kids and the kind of attitudes they are trying to battle with a little sanity and a lot of information. What I find interesting is that, in my experience, the serious gun owners I know do realize that crime is trending downward. It’s the people I know who either don’t own guns or who just have one locked away somewhere who believe crime is on the rise.
It’s been a long week for work, what with taking a few days off to attend the NRA Annual Meeting. But I have been trying to keep up with the news, and with that my tabs are quite constipated.
The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board banned firearms in Pennsylvania Casinos, a relic of the fact that it was Ed Rendell who set up that board. The Board just rescinded that regulation. Good. It was never really legal to begin with.
I admire this guy, but he’s lucky he didn’t become the next George Zimmerman. The system doesn’t want you to get involved. They’re designing it so you won’t.
If this study were true, America would be awash in blood. It’s not. Violent crime has dropped as gun ownership has increased. The problem these people have is that they would like to disbar people from owning guns if they were “angry” people. But owning a gun is a right, and that should, necessarily, take certain policy options off the table.
A lot of people are upset NRA didn’t invite Rand Paul, and fewer that they didn’t invite Chris Christie. Rand shills for a gun organization, NAGR, that opposes federal civil rights legislation to protect the RKBA. Federal Civil Rights legislation is the only way we’re going to free people in anti-gun states. Even though Paul voted for National Reciprocity last time it came up in the Senate, the organization he supports and promotes opposes it.
