Quote of the Day

From Ace, who notes that as a nation we’re “amusing ourselves to death.”

I pledge allegiance to the Meme of the Viral States of America. And to the Listicle, for which it LOLs, one tweetstorm, under Buzzfeed, with liberty and gawker for all.

I used to be very optimistic about the Internet, and where it would take mankind. Then social media happened.

Brady Loses Another “Bad Apple” Dealer Suit

This was the case in Alaska, where a guy came into Rayco Sales gun shop and stole a gun when the dealer had his back turned. Remember that the Brady Campaign are preying on grieving families by backing their filing of these meritless suits:

“The family is crushed,” Mark Choate, co-counsel for the Kims, told the Empire. “… There was so much evidence that showed there was something being hidden about (Coxe’s) behavior.”

I feel sorry for those people, but the odds were very much stacked against success from the beginning. Their grief was exploited by a gun control organization that is struggling to find relevance in a movement increasingly centered around Mike Bloomberg and his fat wallet.

Choate said even though the jury found Coxe did not sell the weapon to Coday, it doesn’t mean Coxe wasn’t negligent. But a federal gun law — called Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, or PLCAA for short — shields guns dealers and manufacturers from claims of gross negligence, he said.

At first I thought he was wrong about PLCAA covering gross negligence, but it only exempts negligent entrustment and negligence per se. That means they had to prove that Coxe violated a statute or regulation, and couldn’t just argue that overall, he was a sloppy dealer. They jury did not find Brady’s argument credible. Negligence and gross negligence is a more subjective standards, which is probably why they were not exempted. Find the right jury, and they might be willing to side with a plaintiff on those claims even if they are meritless.

This was the Brady Center’s best case, and best hope for a victory, and it’s now gone down in flames. PLCAA is not quite a brick wall for the Brady Center, but it’s certainly harding up very quickly.

Guest Post: CeaseFirePA – So Small They’re Almost a Rounding Error

Introduction (By Sebastian). I’ve decided that since I’m having more spouts where I’m unbelievably busy these days, I would start taking guests posts from readers who had some writing skills and something to say. If you’d like to take a stab at your own guest post, contact me via e-mail (address on the sidebar) and tell me a bit about what you want to write. We can do submissions anonymously, or with credit. Your choice. This article is from a reader who asked to remain anonymous.


RocketWe recently had a chance to look at CeasefirePA’s financials. The only conclusion you can draw from them is that CeasefirePA is not nearly as mainstream or well supported as they would have anyone think.

Every non-profit is required to file an IRS Form 990 and to make that form available for inspection. Many can be found on the Internet at sites like www.charitynavigator.com or www.guidestar.com.

CeasefirePA, dutifully filed its forms and we got copies of their filings from 2012, 2013 and 2014.

Like the NRA, CeasefirePA has two different entities, a 501(c)(3) non-profit that is also a charity (to which contributions are tax deductible) and a 501(c)(4) political entity (to which contributions are not tax deductible).

According to CeasefirePA’s 2013 Form 990, their Education Fund – their charity – received 605 individual donations totaling $71,000 in all of calendar year 2012.

By comparison, in that same year, NRA had nearly 200,000 paid members in PA.

To understand how much bigger NRA is in PA alone, Veteran’s Stadium in Philadelphia once held 71,000 people. Lincoln Financial Field holds 69,000 people. The Wells Fargo Center holds 20,000 people for basketball. Citizens Bank Park where the Phillies play holds 43,500 people. NRA’s paid Pennsylvania membership could simultaneously fill all of these facilities to capacity while CeasefirePA’s 2012 paid membership could barely fill your local Cheesecake Factory restaurant.

Collectively, in 2012, CeasefirePA’s board raised $3,000 – a pittance for a board. Most of the rest of their funding (then and now) comes from liberal foundation grants (Heinz, Joyce, William Penn).

In more recent years, they have raised more from their board, but still nothing compared to NRA.

Fast forwarding to calendar year 2013, CeasefirePA reported that they received donations from 766 people totaling $58,280. That’s 161 more people than in 2012. In total. Across the Commonwealth. That’s nearly 2.5 new supporters per county in PA or .79 new paid members per PA General Assembly House District. Way to go! Literally.

In their Form 990s, CeasefirePA tries to make up for this pitiful number of paid members by talking about how many people they send e-mails to – 30,000. Even there, however, NRA’s efforts swamp CeasefirePA’s.

In the 2012 election cycle NRA’s political arm (NRA-ILA) dropped a 715,000 person mailing – physical pieces of mail – to support gun friendly candidates. That mailing reached about 8.5% of the Commonwealth’s 2012 registered voters. And that was just one of the NRA’s activities in Pennsylvania that year.

Next time you meet one of your state legislators, ask them whether they’d rather side with the 766 or the 200,000.

Time: “Gun Control Stricter in 1920s and 1930s”

ThompsonSubmachineAdAnti-gunners are busy spreading this story around, about how the gun laws of the 1920s and 1930s were more strict than they are now. I’ll call that bluff. If they really believe that, then let’s introduce a bill in Congress that takes us back to the gun laws of the 1920s and 1930s then? Repeal the Gun Control Act and subsequent amendments in its entirety? Where do I sign up? Hey, let’s pick a year in the 1930s. How about 1932? That would get rid of the Federal Firearms Act of 1938, and the National Firearms Act of 1934. Basically, in 1932, there were no federal gun laws, except that you couldn’t ship a pistol by US mail without a license. Or maybe the 20’s instead, say 1922? In 1922 there were no federal gun control laws whatsoever. Let’s just list some of the things we could do.

  • Up until 1968, you could mail order a rifle. Up until 1927, you could mail order a pistol too. After that 1927, you needed a license to mail order a pistol though the US mail, but you could still do it via other carriers without a license, and doing so was common.
  • Sears was a big seller of firearms via the mail order.
  • Firearms could be purchased cash on the barrel. No background check, no forms. Up until as late as 1938, dealers didn’t even have to record sales.
  • Machine guns could be mail ordered until 1934. After that, they still could be as long as you paid the transfer tax and the gun was registered.
  • Soldiers could bring back rifles, pistols and even machine guns as late as 1968, as long as they registered them and paid the tax.
  • After 1938 and before 1968, a Federal Firearms License cost $1. The only requirement was that you keep an acquisition and disposition record. No form 4473. Prior to that anyone could get into the gun business, no questions asked.
  • Until 1938, it was legal to sell a firearm to anyone. Classes of prohibited people didn’t exist until the Federal Firearms Act of 1938.
  • In the 1920s, only a handful of states had any gun control laws, and those that did weren’t much more numerous than the states that have even worse gun control today (and they were in many cases the same states)
  • There were no federal laws restricting firearms to young people until 1968.
  • Firearms were not required to have serial numbers until 1938.
  • Until 1934, there were no restrictions on suppressors, short-barreled rifles, or short-barreled shotguns.
  • As late as when Antonin Scalia was a teenager in the 1940s and 1950s, you could openly carry a rifle on the New York Subway without anyone batting an eye. How’d the antis like to go back to that culture?

Of course, most states by then had restricted concealed carry, but you could still carry openly in most states without a license. In the 20s and 30s, what prohibitions on carry that existed were not uniformly enforced in many states. Either way, those are state issues. It’s absolutely ridiculous to argue that the 1920s and 1930s guns were more regulated than today. The market was a relative free-for-all compared to the restrictions we have today. Hell, I’ll even offer to go back to the federal gun laws of 1965! How about that deal?

These people really can’t be taken seriously most days of the week. The notion they are floating here is absolute pablum, and that’ll be evidenced by the fact that no one on the other side, in their right mind, would take me up on this offer. The majority of federal gun controls we have in this country came with the Gun Control Act of 1968 and subsequent amendments. Then, as now, most states are permissive except a small number of states where gun control is popular. The only thing they’d really undo is the gains we’ve made in reversing concealed carry limitations, and I doubt any of them would make that trade.

A Long Overdue Bill for Pennsylvania

The Pennsylvania House of Representatives are debating allowing the use of semi-automatic rifles for hunting. We are the only state left in the United States that does not allow hunting with semi-automatics. If I were to take up hunting, I’d have to resort to an old military bolt action with open sights. I don’t actually own a scoped bolt gun, muzzleloader, or shotgun capable of firing slugs. Now I’m assuming this bill will only legalize semi-autos where it’s legal to hunt with rifles (around here in the Southeast, it’s mostly limited to shotguns (which ironically can be semi-auto), muzzleloaders, and bows).

It looks like there’s two competing bills. It would seem one bill would  allow the use of .223 for hunting coyotes, with six rounds allowed in the magazine while hunting, while the competing bill would allow five rounds, but doesn’t mention species or caliber. Given the increasing problems with coyotes, either bill strikes me as a welcome thing for people living in the more rural parts of the Commonwealth.

I don’t think the Senate should be as much trouble as it has been with our bills last session. Where we had trouble previously is with Judiciary Committee Chairman Senator Greenleaf, a C- rated Republican from Montgomery County, bottling up our bills. Since this is a hunting bill, it would go through the Senate Game and Fisheries Committee, which is  Chaired by Senator Scavello, who has an A rating and was endorsed by NRA in his last election. Even the minority chair on that committee, Senator Brewster, is A rated and was endorsed in his last election. If we can get this bill to the floor in the Senate, we’ll pass it. The elephant in the room with moving this bill forward is whether we can score a signature from Governor Wolf. Wolf might not want to upset hunters, but so far I he has not impressed me with his political acumen. It’s a good bill to send him, since it’ll make him put his cards on the table.

Maine is on a Roll

Maine passes a supressor hunting bill. Maine would be the 36th state to allow the use of suppressors while hunting. Many of these just never prohibited it. These bills are an important part of building a constituency for getting suppressors moved from Title II (NFA) to Title I (GCA), or just getting them delisted entirely (after all, it’s a hunk of metal. I suppose you could throw it at somebody).

As I’ve said before, hunting is a particularly good context to make the case for suppressors, since it’s one shooting sport where hearing protection can be a real burden, and even most anti-gun folks approve of owning guns for hunting, or at least feel the need to pay lip service to it.

DC Concealed Carry Dealt a Blow

It looks like the May 18 decision that ended Washington DC’s “good reason” provision to approving concealed carry licenses is now on hold.

The U.S. Court of Appeals on Friday evening stayed a ruling that had overturned a key provision of the District’s concealed carry law, giving city officials a legal reprieve and opportunity to prepare an appeal arguing that the law is constitutional.

That means anyone rushing out to apply will now have to fit the criteria in place as of early May.

More Anti-Gun Bills Introduced by Dems

Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA) is introducing a bill that would ban the carrying of firearms in the unsecured part of airports unless they are “unloaded and contained in clearly marked, locked cases.” This is, of course, a reaction to the doofuses openly carrying rifles into Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. While I don’t think this bill is going anywhere, it’s always refreshing to have to go on the defensive to fight for what’s already legal and no one was worried about until somebody gave them a reason. But I’m sure some “awareness was raised,” and travelers “educated.”

What’s with the clearly marked cases though? You know that just says “steal me” right?  Theft from airports is already a big problem without having clear external indications as to what’s in the bag. Either way, this is solving a non-problem. What’s interesting is that his bill is being backed by the usual suspects, but not Everytown.

Department of State Comments on ITAR Rule Changes

The proposed ITAR rule changes impacting free speech aren’t quite getting the media coverage we need to get the word out to our people, and this has me concerned. This article that appears in Defense Trade Law seems to agree with our interpretation that the proposed rule change is very broad. I’ve seen a few different opinions on this topic in the comment section over at The Firearm Blog’s post on the topic (in addition to a few trolls). The State Department had a press conference last week where the topic of their proposed ITAR regulations came up.

 

QUESTION: Did you get an answer the question I asked yesterday about these ITAR – revisions to the International Trafficking in Arms Regulations?

MR RATHKE: I did. I’m happy to go through that, if that would be helpful. You asked yesterday, Matt, about a June 3rd publication in the Federal Register by the State Department of proposed changes for public comment to several regulatory definitions under the International Traffic in Arms Regulations. These proposed changes in definition are part of our broader effort to streamline and modernize a Cold War-era regulatory system to better safeguard against illicit attempts to procure sensitive U.S. defense technologies.

These proposed definition changes – which, as I pointed out, are out for public comment – they seek to account for technologies that were not envisioned when the regulations were initially developed. Otherwise these definitions are intended to be a clarification of existing law and regulations, technical data, and detailed schematics that are required for the manufacture or production of defense articles already require U.S. Government authorization before they can be disseminated by U.S. manufacturers.

Now in contrast, general descriptions, public discussions, and imagery of defense articles, including firearms, have never been the subject of – to these regulations and they would remain unaffected under these proposed revisions. As I said at the start, they were published in the Federal Register for public comment. That’s a period that runs through August 3rd of this year. So I’d refer people to the text of the Federal Register notice for details about providing —

QUESTION: Okay. So these rules would not apply to private citizens, only to manufacturers – and only to highly sensitive technical details? Is that —

MR RATHKE: They apply to the technical data and detailed schematics for the production of defense articles.

QUESTION: So they don’t apply to private citizens.

MR RATHKE: Well, they apply to anything that relates to those areas of subject matter, whether discussed by —

QUESTION: Okay. Well, the concern that had been raised by the Second Amendment groups is somehow this is going to restrict or stop or ban discussions about gun – about firearms —

MR RATHKE: Well, I go back to the – also the point that general descriptions – that is general, not technical and detailed ones – general descriptions or public discussions and imagery of defense articles would – have never been subject to these regulations and wouldn’t —

QUESTION: So the concern that has been expressed is misplaced, yes?

MR RATHKE: Yes, that would be our view.

Okay, anything further? Thank you.

QUESTION: Thank you.

None of us ever thought just a picture of a gun or “general descriptions or public discussions and imagery of defense articles” was going to get us in hot water. The issue is a lot more complicated than that. It’s become pretty apparent to me on reading and re-reading this proposed rule change, and the existing ITAR rules, that this is targeted squarely at 3D printing, CNC milling, and Cody Wilson more specifically.

Notice when asked whether it would apply to the public at large, he basically concedes the issue. The big problem is that previously, we were all protected by the public domain exception to the rule. I’d encourage everyone to follow that link, and note subsection (b) which is reserved. This public domain exception is obviously dated in the Internet age, but it’s pretty apparent if one publishes the information through “unlimited distribution” that material is the public domain. Now, for the reserved subsection (b) The new proposal spells out what is to be done with it:

(b) Technical data or software, whether or not developed with government funding, is not in the public domain if it has been made available to the public without authorization from:

(1) The Directorate of Defense Trade Controls;

(2) The Department of Defense’s Office of Security Review;

(3) The relevant U.S. government contracting entity with authority to allow the technical data or software to be made available to the public; or

(4) Another U.S. government official with authority to allow the technical data or software to be made available to the public.

By my reading, if you shared a straight-up CAD drawing of an AR-15 or 1911, you’d be fine because those designs are already in the public domain. However, if you developed your own wildcat load for a cartridge, or you came up with a novel design for a rifle, pistol, shotgun, scope or accessory, or you created a modification to an existing design, you’d have to seek clearance from the State Department prior to publishing it. It’s going to be exceedingly difficult for people who aren’t lawyers to understand the difference. My opinion is that this rule is meant to stifle people’s ability to discuss gun making with 3D printers or CNC milling machine’s online, due to the legal complexities and risks involved in doing so. Despite the fact that we shared no CAD drawing or plans in our experimentation with this technology on this blog, I still do not know whether my posts on the subject would fall under ITAR pre-clearance or not, and I’m a good bit more legal savvy than most hobbyists.

Connecticut Senators Push Federal Gun Licensing in Senate

Isn’t it widely accepted that Al Gore’s position on licensing gun owners was a big reason we ended up with President George W. Bush rather than President Al Gore? Now Bloomberg and Obama have sold the Democratic Party that gun control is a winning issue again! That must be why Connecticut’s Senators have floated a bill requiring licenses to purchase handguns nationwide.

This probably won’t gore their ox, since I doubt there’s too much risk for either of them to lose their seats over the gun issue in Connecticut. This will only get worse as the hard core owners flee the Nutmeg State for freer pastures. But it certainly isn’t going to help the Democratic Party brand itself to successfully compete in places where gun rights are an issue.