July 2016 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Weekly Gun News – Edition 44

There are tabs to clear, and things to be done! But walking outside ain’t one of them, because it’s too effin hot.

Guidance issued by State Department on ITAR regulations and FFLs. This will require gunsmiths to register, which costs thousands of dollars a year, since the Administration has decided to label them “manufacturers.”

No, next question: are AR-15s assault rifles (warning, auto play video).

Gun club memberships in coastal New Hampshire on the rise. Note that the coastal areas are where a lot of fleeing Massachusetts people choose to settle, so a good sign.

“Knife Rights: The Unseen Side of the Second Amendment” This part of the movement has been enjoying a lot of quiet success.

This is not good news. The cause? Bloomberg’s money, pretty much.

You don’t say? New York Times argues that there might be a copycat effect in regards to mass shootings.

Joe Huffman on “proportional force.”Â This is found in a lot of other places, and it’s bunk. Deadly force is deadly force, and you should be allowed to defend yourself with deadly force.

Yes, there are still gun owners out there who are ignorant as hell,a n don’t mind advertising it to the world. They usually tend to be old fogies who don’t feel comfortable with changing technology and culture.

Derpwagon operators still in jail.

More women are viewing gun rights as a top issue.

No shocker: Hillary delegate to DNC says the whole “common sense” and “for the children” thing is just a sham, and the real purpose is to ban guns.

Speaking of Dems and Guns, support for the Second Amendment has been erased from the Democratic Platform.

Chris Cox: “Clinton Supreme Court means â€˜your right to own a firearm is goneâ€™” I’ve seen lefty sites mocking this, but it’s absolutely true. Ginsburg has been pretty up front about her desire to overturn Heller and McDonald.

Gun cartoon of the day. The internet, for the most part, is becoming a wasteland. Especially social media.

Twitter plummets! We’re probably going to be removing our presence on Twitter in the near future. Their censorship of conservative views is becoming blatant, and it just plain sucks. I don’t care what they are censoring, a social media platform needs to be neutral if it is to be useful.

Why the NRA isn’t talking about guns. The real truth is that a few years ago, when NRA experienced a backlash from its membership over their past endorsement of Harry Reid, they discovered their members didn’t really give a shit about gun rights, so much as making sure NRA is on the “right side” of conservative issues.

The Guardian: “Hillary Clinton’s focus on guns is politically bold. Her solutions are old school.” Well, she’s an old white woman, the gun control crowd’s core base.

I have to agree with SayUncle that Trump played the Russian e-mail leak well. The best comment I’ve ever heard about Trump was “It’s like the comment sections of the Internet came to life as Donald Trump and decided to run for President.”

Positive Signs

NBC News is reporting “Millennials Are Less Likely to Support Gun Control Than You’d Think.” There’s a component of that generation that borrowed radicalism from their late boomer parents. But for the most part Millennials are more open to letting people do their thing if they aren’t bothering anyone. They are tolerant to a fault, if anything. There isn’t a whole lot of busy-body in that generation. So there is hope. But like I’ve said many times, if we can’t get them voting on gun rights, it won’t matter.

From the Columbus Dispatch, “More African-Americans favoring owning guns, but racial inequity alleged on exercise of rights.”

Smithâ€™s forum reflects what researchers see as growing interest among African-Americans in gun ownership. But becoming a black licensed gun owner is not a risk-free prospect, a fact brought to light this month by the police shooting of Philando Castile, who had a permit to carry a concealed weapon when he was shot in his car July 6, and by the presence at a Dallas rally the next day of perhaps 30 marchers openly carrying rifles.

Dallas police mistakenly labeled a black licensed gun owner as a â€œperson of interestâ€ after a black gunman who was not part of the rally opened fire, killing five police officers.

Read the whole thing.Â I’d expect that person would have been a “person of interest” no matter what color the protesters were. That isn’t intended to undermine the issue, because I think it’s real. It’s important that the RKBA movement keep spreading the history. If we can crack into the black community, women, and hispanics, the gun control movement has no viable future, even if Bloomberg keeps spending big.

Early Gun Control Meant to Disarm Blacks

For their own good, you see. This was the 1927 law that banned mailing of handguns through US Post Offices. The more things change, the more they stay the same. I’m reminded of this C.S. Lewis quote:

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

I think that describes a lot of our opponents in this fight.

Got Nuthin’

I spent the weekend doing good and wholesome thing like making beer, so I did not keep up with the news. I’ll go digging for stories later and post something later. I hate making beer during the summer, because other than the oppressive temperatures and humidity, I have to heat exchange the tap water with a bucket of ice water to get the wort chilled enough. My summer beers will be a Saison and a Leftover concoction that will resemble vaguely and American Amber Ale. It was just to use up ingredients.

Meanwhile, what do you guys think of this? I don’t think it’s any substitute for a good quick-open safe, but it has some interesting features. I think this is the kind of outside the box thinking that isn’t happening when (usually anti-gun) people are thinking about smart guns:

It’s being developed by Zore, which is an Israeli company. At the very least this should encourage safe makers to up their game. I’d love to have a safe that would tell me when someone is diddling with the lock, lets me know the door is open or the tumbler hasn’t been randomized or locked if I leave the house.

Democratic VP candidate announced

Hillary’s VP pick is VA Senator (and former governor) Tim Kaine – who has something of a record.

Jerry Brown Signs Serialization Bill

Jerry Brown signed the bill that requires serial numbers on all firearms.Â The basic law says that anyone who manufactures, sells or transfers a firearm must have a serial number engraved on it that has been assigned by the California DOJ. Based on my reading of the bill, it exempts antiques, curios and relics, and any long gun manufactured before the Gun Control Act. So it will at least, as far as I can tell, not compel people to take collectable firearms and destroy their value by defacing them.

Mass Shooting in Germany

“Several dead and 10 injured.” There’s no details yet on whether this is ISIS or not, and early reports are often completely wrong. Given that this apparently involves three gunmen, I’d say an ISIS inspired attack seems more likely than deranged nut job. Funny how ISIS doesn’t seem to have any issues getting guns in Europe, despite strict gun laws. Yet who do they want to disarm here? You and me.

UPDATE: One shooter, and looks like he offed himself.

Gettin’ Old

Got back from the doc this morning. I was worried my blood work would come back a hot dumpster fire, but I was happy all my internal organs are functioning normally. BP is down but still too high. I have high LDL (bad cholesterol) but my good (HDL) is also high. She predicts statins in my future, but BP is the immediate priority. Triglycerides were OK. The only real bad news is that I’m pre-diabetic. Liver enzymes were a bit off, but she attributed that to being overweight. I don’t have any problems that can’t be attributed to just getting old.

In short I need to diet, lose weight, exercise, and keep experimenting with anti-hypertensives. So all in all, I feel pretty good about things. It’s all stuff I can manage. Lack of control is a big driver in my fear of medicine, so when I learn it’s stuff I can control Â through my own actions, I feel a lot better.

Stun Gun Rights Spreading

Eugene Volokh takes a look at various stun gun bans. A lot of states and localities were moving in the direction of repeal before Caetano v. Massachusetts. So far, post Caetano repeals:

The US Virgin Islands
Baltimore County (though it is still on the books, but the County Attorney has announced it will no longer be enforced)

Philadelphia still has its ban in place, but at this point it’s hard to see how it would be enforceable in light of Caetano. Like I said when the ruling came out, I don’t think anything should be read into that ruling in regards to how the liberal justices would treat a firearms case, but I can’t discount the fact that Caetano was a good ruling. If we can defeat Hillary, and get a few more friendly justices on the Court, it would be possible to build on this ruling in a positive way. If things go the other way, I think we’ll be lucky to hold on to Heller and McDonald.

I hate to admit that, because I don’t like Trump, but that’s the way it is.

We Have to Reverse This

College rifle and pistol teams are coming under fire in the current fascist PC conformity that’s the current vogue in academia. What colleges and universities are doing is banning the groups from taking funding from NSSF and NRA to support their programs. The kids today are open to the shooting sports, because they don’t come with a whole lot of preconceived prejudices towards things. If we can get them hooked on shooting, it’ll be something they care about, and that will translate into something they vote on.