The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State …
Looks like our buddy Gonzo got the correct marching orders now. He still doesn’t think it’s a good deal, but the language has been toned down quite a bit, and he’s added a few extra talking points about how we keep insisting that mere suspicion isn’t reasonable grounds for stripping someone of their constitutional rights.
Now that this fun is over, I will go back to ignoring him.
Looks like the bill has passed on a voice vote. Now it’s on to the senate. Given the speed at which it moved through the house, I don’t expect the senate to take long on it at all.
The NRA did win some concessions in negotiating the final product.
It would automatically restore the purchasing rights of veterans who were diagnosed with mental problems as part of the process of obtaining disability benefits. LaPierre said the Clinton administration put about 80,000 such veterans into the background check system.
It also outlines an appeals process for those who feel they have been wrongfully included in the system and ensures that funds allocated to improve the NICS are not used for other gun control purposes.
“It was necessary to make some accommodations to address the concerns of gun owners,” said House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., adding that he would be closely monitoring the provision on restoring gun rights to veterans judged to have mental disabilities.
Ron Paul, as would be expected, was the lone dissenter. Like I said, I would like to have gotten more out of this deal, but I’m not going to cry too much that it’s passing. In the big picture, it doesn’t really change much.
MotherTalkers has an update post up in regards to the situation I brought to light yesterday. And for the record, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a man being a hairdresser :)
It does bring up a good issue of when is old enough to start teaching the youngins about guns. I was 13 or 14 myself, before I even touched one. I’m actually a pretty firm believer in starting out with air guns, and breaking any unsafe behavior with something that doesn’t have quite so much potential for dangerous accidents. I once had a young kid sweep me with the barrel of a .22 rifle at the range, who promptly got yelled at by pop. I didn’t say anything, because his father dealt with the mistake, but to me it’s better to have kids make those mistakes with air guns, and only when they can consistently use those safely do you move up to firearms.
The panel appointed by governor Tim Kaine is finally hearing from the families. This has implications for us here:
Read and Andrew Goddard, the father of shooting survivor Colin Goddard, also urged the panel to consider recommending tougher gun control measures in the report it issues to the governor. Andrew Goddard graphically described the injuries his son suffered in the shootings, and attributed them to a combination of Cho’s mental state and “simple, efficient and readily available killing machines.”
Advocates on both sides of the gun control argument addressed the panel. Supporters of tougher gun control said the Tech shootings heighten the need to curtail access to semiautomatic weapons and eliminate legal loopholes that enable gun-buyers to skirt criminal background checks.
I’ve never been able to stomach the whole “we have to get to the bottom of this” attitude you have in politics after traumatic events. Tragedy doesn’t just happen. There must be scapegoats. There must be reasons. I suppose in simpler times people would blame such things on demons, the devil, or something similar. For too many the gun has become our modern demon. Once thought of as merely a tool, it now takes the spiritual role for people looking for something to blame.
I blame the deranged killer. Â I don’t really look much farther than him.
First the swordfish sword, now poisonous snakes.
Ahab thinks we all need to hang together:
I don’t suppose I’d have to explain why that’s so dangerous; it’s even more dangerous when that same “turf-war” mentality manifests itself on an organization level. I like the NRA; I don’t always support their actions, and I wish they’d send me less mail, but they generally act in the best interests of law-abiding gun owners. Similarly, I like the GOA, I feel like it’s good to have a less moderate voice for gun owners for the times that the NRA drops the ball.
I do not like it when the GOA (or anyone else for that matter) goes after the NRA in an effort to prove who loves the 2nd Amendment more. Take for example this new bill before the House, HR 2640. The GOA has been lambasting the NRA for their support of this bill for a while, despite the fact that the relevant text just became available yesterday.
I couldn’t agree more! I think GOA and other groups serve an important role in a) keeping the NRA honest, and b) concentrating on areas of gun law the NRA, for political reasons, can’t. But I do get kind of annoyed with them when they seem to be attacking NRA for political convenience rather than real and substantive criticism. The tone of many of the other groups communications seems to convey the NRA as the enemy, and I know there are more than a few out there who actually believe that. You’re entitled to believe that, but I think it’s a very incorrect view. I sure as hell don’t think the NRA is perfect, I do think they make mistakes, and this whole NICS deal may very well turn out to be one of them. But I don’t believe they actively work against gun owners. I believe that they did their best to make this bill a decent deal for gun owners, and to the extent that I didn’t get as much as I would have liked, I blame Congress.
The people I know that work for NRA, or have worked for NRA, are passionate about the issue, don’t get paid much for their work, and have to deal with a lot of crap that would drive you and me bonkers. It’s easy to be critical, but not easy to have to deal with a hostile media, hostile politicians, the courts, Congress and 50 state legislatures, all the while taking heat from your own side that you’re not doing enough.
What frustrates me is that the other side has all their factions working together. The people that want to ban .50 BMG rifles play nice with the people who want to ban all guns who play nice with the people who just want to ban handguns, and so it goes.
It’s much easier for them because they lack any serious grassroots. We’re millions of people, each with different quirks, views, and interests. When you’re well financed by the few, you get the advantage of having it be easier to stay on message, and keep your ducks in a row.
News 10 in San Diego’s article reads like a Brady Press release. Notice they fail to mention that two very key groups support the Tiahrt Amendment, notably the Fraternal Order of Police, which is the largest police organization out there, and the BATFE, who is the agency that collects this data. Having a laundry list of law enforcement organizations who mostly represent politically appointed police brass does not impress me.
After thinking about this NICS deal, and how it seems to be playing out, I’ve decided that it’s not really much to get worked up about at this point, either for good or for ill. The Democrats had a chance to build some trust and rapport with the shooting community, after years of sticking it to us, and they are failing.
While I think this deal does some good things, this was a good opportunity for the Democrats to address some real issues with the system, and help allay some of our long time concerns with it.  I’m not going to demand the Democrats dismantle all federal gun controls, make it legal for me to own a machine gun, or anything like that. I know what the political realities are. But there are some very legitimate issues in regards to the mental health and misdemeanor prohibitions, just in regards to language and rule clarifications, that I think could have been addressed here, that were not. Taking this in combination with Carolyn McCarthy being sponsor of this bill, they have slapped us in the face.
Am I going to pull out all the stops to oppose this bill? Well, not unless they tack on something more onerous to it. As it stands now, it’s not a bad deal, it’s just not nearly as good as I think it could have been. Am I mad at the NRA? No. I think the bill could have been a real problem for us, and they at least managed to turn it into something that’s, even if only minimally, a good deal. Am I convinced the Democrats have finally given up on gun control and are now our friends? Not by a long shot. If the Democratic party wants to impress folks like me, who certainly have no love or affection for the Republican Party, they are going to have to work a lot harder than this.
SayUncle says he can’t find where the language of adjudicated mental defective is clarified in the bill. After reading it again, I think I may have been mistaken. The following section is what I was reading as clarification:
(C) the adjudication, determination, or commitment, respectively, is based solely on a medical finding of disability, without a finding that the person is a danger to himself or to others or that the person lacks the mental capacity to manage his own affairs.
This is limited though, in that this only applies to federal agencies. This section details the circumstances under which a federal agency may NOT submit a mental health record to the AG for addition into NICS. This language is probably intended to head off a repeat of the incident in 2000 where the VA submitted 83,000 veterans to NICS. Under this rule, the person has to have been ruled a danger to himself or others, or a found unable to manage her or her own affairs.
After reading this again, this does not really clarify the GCA ’68 language, and leaves in tact the ATF’s interpretation of adjudicated mental defective.
You can tell U.C. Davis what you think about the Wintemute gun show study right here.