Cam Edwards of NRA News delivers the keynote at the Independence Institute’s Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Party.
Hopefully Colorado will be freed in short order. The Chair is Against the Wall.
Author: Sebastian
Putting the Screws to NFA Owners
NFA trusts are becoming increasingly popular, as a means to possess NFA items. For one, it gets rid of the LEO sign-off requirement, which can often be a problem if you don’t have a friendly local chief. For two, it lets you put multiple people, like children and spouses, onto the trust to facilitate sharing and to ease inheritance. Because it eases the burdens of possessing NFA items, the Obama Administration is naturally cracking down on it, and making possessing NFA items through a trust as burdensome as through the individual tax stamp.
In the wake of Republican opposition to gun control measures in Congress, the Obama administration has had little recourse but to target guns through executive action.
Yeah, because criminals are totally getting into this NFA trust thing. They are well known to use legal constructs like this that generally require hiring attorneys and filling out a lot of legal paperwork.
This isn’t about stopping crime, this is about revenge. It’s the standard operating procedure for this President. Having derailed his gun control agenda and embarrassed him, we’re going to be made to pay… by hook or by crook.
Thursday News
I appreciate everyone’s patience through this week’s dry spell. In addition to work related matters, there just honestly hasn’t been that much news. Or maybe there has:
The training arm of Troy seems to have hired an anti-gun ex Chicago chief to be an instructor, which grassroots action quickly turned around.
OFA engages in more emotional blackmail to try to keep the issue of gun control alive.
Glenn Reynolds sometimes helps promotes the books of readers. Here I will do the same.
Dave Hardy notes that Los Angeles Community College is even banning fake guns now. They made an exception for theatrical performances but not for gun safety instruction. Doesn’t sound content neutral to me!
Bryan Miller doesn’t seem to appreciate Chris Christie’s style. Miller is definitely trying to make a show of it.
Apparently Saturday is “Skip Starbucks” day if you’re an anti-gun activist. So head out for a double espresso on Saturday. Despite the fact that I’m trying to cut back on sugar and carbs to start losing some weight again, I’ll make an exception.
Jim Geraghty notes that the Colorado recall elections may have some legs. It’s critically important for every Colorado gun owner to be involved in some way, even if it’s just writing a check.
Megan McArdle wonders what happens if the Democrats lose their media edge, speaking of the decline of “objective” journalism and the rise of partisan journalism. Ilya Somin has more to add from a rational ignorance point of view. I don’t think political ignorance would be so much of an issue if the ignorant didn’t vote. But we tell people that voting is a civic duty. To me the civic duty is being informed.
How to Make a Small Crowd Look Big
Line up single file. The theme for OFA was “Hands Across Pennsylvania.” I live on a postage stamp, and I’m not sure this would even make it across my yard. This makes me think of the quote from Star Wars, “These tracks are side by side. Sand people always walk single file to hide their numbers.” A similar scene could also be seen outside of Jim Gerlach’s district.
Latest CSGV Ad
In an attempt to be relevant for a cause that’s increasingly irrelevant, the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence lets everyone know they oppose self-defense with a new video. At the risk of driving up their hit count:
The production values look pretty good, so I really hope they spent a lot of Joyce money on it, because the polling says this probably won’t shift the center of the debate much, and is as likely to motivate our side as theirs. I want people to realize these people are extremists who do not believe in your right to self-defense… period. This gets that across.
For a more detailed takedown of the video, see Legal Insurrection (h/t Miguel)
Shocker: NRA Finds Ways to Grow its List
Buzzfeed has run an article on the fact that NRA is “campaigning against the threat of a national database of firearms or their owners. But in fact, the sort of vast, secret database the NRA often warns of already exists, despite having been assembled largely without the knowledge or consent of gun owners.”
If they were like most groups that operate in DC, they’d consider themselves to have something like 33 million members (or however large their non-member contact list is), but are we supposed to be surprised by this? I only wish NRA was adept at using the types of sophisticated data mining techniques I’ve read about at work with the Obama Administration, but I’ve never gotten the impression their information technology capability even rose to close that level of sophistication.
Pretty clearly Buzzfeed is trying to damage NRA with this article. The fact is NRA would be stupid not to try to get lists of permit holders in states that have yet to make those lists private. It’s worth nothing that of the two states mentioned int his article, NRA has pushed for privacy laws in Iowa and passed the privacy laws in Virginia, the two states mentioned in this particular article.
But the biggest failing of the article is to assume that gun owners are opposed to gun registration for registration’s sake. We’re opposed to it because it gives officials a convenient list to come knocking on doors once the end game is reached, like they’ve done in New York City already. I’m really not concerned that Wayne LaPierre is going to come knocking on my door demanding I turn in my guns, and even if he did, NRA doesn’t have a list of every gun I own. I’m very concerned Diane “Mr and Mrs America, turn them all in” Feinstein would be quite willing to send government agents around, likely at gunpoint for dangerous folks like us, to collect them.
I’m far less concerned if someone knows I’m a gun owner, versus whether they know what guns I own. We already have de facto registration in this country via form 4473, but one reason the 4473 was preferred over a centralized registry is that in a desperate situation, 4473s are (well, mostly) local, in private hands, and can be effectively burned. Even absent that kind of civil disobedience, any list the government compiled wouldn’t be comprehensive anyway, because there are still legal avenues to transfer firearms without the 4473. In short, without a registry of guns, any confiscation effort will be futile, and will certainly be very incomplete.
Gauss Gun Theory
Last week SayUncle, in the daily Gun Porn, pointed to this fully automatic gauss gun. I have looked into the possibility of building such a device, but I’m troubled by the implications of some of the theory. At least if I’m understanding it correctly. From that, it would seem that a gauss gun that uses conventional non-superconducting electromagnets can never really perform as well as even compressed air, at least no without having impractically huge coils. I don’t know as much about this field (no pun intended) as I should, so if anyone who remembers electromagnetism wants to opine, I’m all ears.
What Safety Rule?
Far be it for me to defend Bloomberg, but the only problem I can see here is that the slides aren’t locked back to indicate an empty chamber. But not all firearms have slides that lock back, so I consider that splitting hairs. No one is handling the guns that I can see, so unless you violate gun safety rules every time you go downrange with weapons cleared, there’s no problem here. The rule involves guns that are being handled. Guns sitting on a display table don’t magically go off. Otherwise your typical gun show is an egregious violation of gun safety rules.
Listen, I appreciate that the right media is getting into the gun thing, and trying to defend the right. But sometimes it’s not only the mainstream media, or left media, that needs to learn a lesson or two about guns.
More on the Illinois Bill Signed by Governor
Thirdpower notes that they are playing up what they got as part of the concealed carry deal, trying to spin it as a much bigger victory than it really is. Specifically, private transfers in Illinois will continue to work as they have. The law specifically doesn’t apply any criminal or civil penalties for failure to comply. It’s all carrot and no stick.
Monday News Links
This week is going to be rough due to some self-imposed deadlines I am determined to meet for work. I’m mostly in documenting mode, and while you might think someone who bangs out five or more blog posts a day can probably bang out documentation just as quickly, I’m slow with documenting, unfortunately, at least partly because it’s necessary but thoroughly joyless and uninteresting work. But one must plan for the proverbial bus (which always seems to run over the IT guy). With that, there is still some news:
Rubber band gun with functioning slide and ejector. Very cool.
The difference between Massachusetts and Florida. Our opponents really do seem to think that violence that isn’t gun violence is somehow preferable.
Bloomberg gets a press conference talking about how New York City’s gun problems are blamed on other jurisdictions. He wants everywhere to be as strict as New York, which essentially bans firearms.
The Myth of the Atomic AR. Something is fishy with that claim. Unless the bullet hit a propane bottle, I can’t see how the fire would get going that fast. Even a gas line would give you enough time to get out.
Piers Morgan’s Misstatement on Virginia murder rates. “This is a teachable moment, because this is what rabid gun control proponents are prone to do—to argue from emotion rather than reason and throw out numbers that have no basis in reality.”
Some interesting history regarding passing FOPA, on how we outfoxed Rep. Hughes to get the bill to the floor. Of course, Rep. Hughes had some last minute revenge waiting for the bill, which we are all familiar. Most people I’ve talked to in the FOPA fight think if it hadn’t been for that bill, they would have succeeded in killing off the gun culture.
Not gun related, but one of my favorites series on PBS (or Channel 12, as we called it) growing up was Connections, with James Burke. So I was delighted to find the whole thing posted online.