A great way to explain the situation to customers, and I really appreciate the bit at the end where they compel people to write their representatives. If every gun owner who was panic buying guns and ammunition wrote their lawmakers, we wouldn’t have anything to worry about.
Author: Sebastian
Amazon and Gun Products
The Firearm Blog points out that Amazon is removing gun products. I decided to look at Amazon’s policy in this regard, and I don’t notice any changes from the last time I looked at it. Obviously there are products some regulated products Amazon doesn’t want to deal with, but for the most part they have allowed accessories and related products. Without knowing what product was threatened, it’s hard to say whether it fits into Amazon’s policy or not. A book on home made firearms doesn’t seem to violate their restricted products, however, but that might just be a better of a stupid employee rather than representing a major change in policy. Or they might be making some creative interpretation of their policy on books that teach people how to make explosives. While I certainly don’t agree with all of Amazon’s policies in terms of items they won’t deal with, I can understand why retailers might not want to deal in certain highly regulated items, like firearms, magazines or ammunition. I’m not going to call for tar and feathers yet, but it might be something to watch.
UPDATE: Just noticed this: “Parts or accessories related to assault weapons.” Was that there before? Is Amazon aware that “assault weapon” has no clear definition? It is a made-up term.
Thursday News Dump
A rather lengthly gun club board meeting last night interfered with by ability to get anything ready for this morning, so a news dump it will be. Sometimes our club meetings go late. You know when it starts off with 7 agenda items, and then works up to 10, you’re going to be there for a while. But I digress:
People are still angry in New York. To paraphrase the most interesting man in the world, “Stay angry, my friends.” At least some in the GOP aren’t happy with the sellout.
NRA scrubs its “enemies list.” Big news to MSNBC. People kept bringing that up, but it was ancient history. One of the companies listed was “Bell Atlantic.” How long has it been since Bell Atlantic existed? It needed to either be revised or taken down, because it was dated.
Some guy claiming to be an NRA lobbyist talked about some “Connecticut Effect,” except it turns out the guy isn’t an NRA lobbyist, by contract or otherwise.
NFL players are being featured in MAIG ads promoting gun control. If anyone bases their public policy opinions on what NFL players think, I really wish they’d stop voting.
Stay tuned to the Colorado State Shooting Association for the latest news coming out of the… err… hang on, let me look this up… Centennial State? You should also join.
Biden notes the sense of urgency over gun control measures. Well, sure he does. If people spend too much time researching it, and thinking about it, they’ll realize gun control is what you do instead of something. He also notes that the Administration is counting on “legitimate media” for a successful gun control effort. Legitimate in this case meaning media willing to lie through their teeth.
The Full Monty in California. A comprehensive semi-auto ban. Back to the 19th century with you. Why are gun control advocates so… reactionary? Also, a ban on shotgun rifle combinations? Is this even an imaginary problem, let alone a real one?
Americans are losing trust in government. Some of we Americans never really had any to begin with. Ann Althouse looks at why Americans have lost their devotion to the future.
Joe has a quote that warns against complacency. Probably every gun-rights activist out there had a point where they realized the Second Amendment was considered no real barrier to the power elites, and got very angry. The pity is a lot of people still have the mindset of “This couldn’t happen in America. We have the Second Amendment!” The truth is it can, and it’s happening right now.
Gun Control and the Constitution.
“I’m a hunter and gun owner, but”…. is just as much of a refuge of scoundrels as “I support the Second Amendment, but.” You ever notice that these self-hating gun owners never appear on forums, blogs or other online places to actually argue their point of view? They only appear in the media when it becomes convenient for the powers that be. If you’ve never met hunters and shooters who support some gun control, you haven’t been in this issue long enough, but I think a lot of these guys are frauds and sheissters who are trying to buy legitimacy for bankrupt arguments. Remember that John Kerry is, legitimately, a life-long hunter too.
Bloomberg can have my styrofoam when he pries it from my cold dead hands. The good news is that 2013 is a mayoral election year in New York, so we only have to put up with this insufferable busybody for another year. Not that I expect he’ll go away and retire quietly.
Gun Owners Can’t Have Bad Days. You have to develop a certain sense of not giving a shit what other people think about you in this issue. But making it hard for gun owners to seek mental health treatment without risking their right is a real problem, and is something that deserved to be talked about.
Helping Gun Grabbers Write Better Legislation
I think we might be helping the other side write better legislation. I’m just as guilty of this too, and likely one of the biggest offenders, but I’m hard pressed to not notice that every magazine ban proposed doesn’t have the obvious flaws we pointed out in previous bans. They’ve also learned not to ban this. Previous magazine bans proposed in the Congress and in some State Capitols were so broad they covered things like tube fed .22s and lever action rifles, which commonly hold more than 10 rounds. What’s worse is that we made these arguments on bills that weren’t going to go anywhere, and weren’t going anywhere. All that was accomplished was teaching the other side how to write better legislation so that now, some very effective arguments against the current bills are off the table. It’s making me think.
I will continue to do reporting on bills that have legs, and offer legislative analysis. But for bills that aren’t going anywhere, I’m really going to have to think twice about tearing apart the flaws, because the next bill, one that might start to move, won’t have those flaws, and I scuttled those arguments for no gain. Gun owners today are much harder to divide than they have been in the past, but it definitely helps when you can point out to someone, say, in the cowboy shooting community that it is in fact your guns they are after. People are always going to be more fired up when they are directly affected than when it’s the other guy who’s ox is getting gored, even if they still oppose what’s happening. I will try to think carefully from now on about what I’m saying.
Colorado At Grave Risk
A bill, HB1224, has passed out of committee in the Democrat-controlled Colorado House. HB1224 would ban magazines that hold more than 10 rounds, and shotgun magazines that hold more than 5. This would ban many common shotguns. It doesn’t matter of the magazine is detachable or fixed. It would make it a crime to give a magazine to a friend to shoot, and then take it back. It also prohibits manufacture for civilian use. Magpul has threatened to leave the state, and take approximately 1000 jobs with them, if this passes. Democrats are showing they care more about their far-left agenda than they do about jobs.
Gun owners in Colorado need to do everything they can to assure that this does not pass. Flood the Capitol!
Live Blogging the SOTU
On Twitter. Brought to you unofficially by Jim Beam Rye, which is the only rye carried by the state monopoly in my town. I can’t promise to be witty or to even keep up, but I will try.
NRA Response to Obama State of the Union
ILA is tweeting this out ahead of the State of the Union. Apparently Eric Holder’s DOJ have been busy bees studying the gun control issue:
The document NRA is speaking about can be found here, and is a January memo from the National Institutes of Justice, part of the Department of Justice. I think it’s important this is spread far and wide.
The Lies of the Other Side
Listen to this nonsense, and note that YouTube allows you to express disapproval of this video. I would encourage you to do so. Unfortunately, Reasoned Discourse is in full effect for comments, though I don’t honestly blame anyone for doing that on YouTube:
I guess I should be glad our opponents don’t heed the first lesson of conflict, which is to know your enemy. I used to think these people didn’t actually believe this stuff, and it was just spin designed to make Second Amendment rights seems freakish and out of the mainstream. But after having interacted with many of them on social media, many folks on the other side of the issue are utterly convinced everything here is truth. As I’ve said, NRA is a manifestation of the gun culture. The gun culture is not a manifestation of NRA. If NRA were working for the gun industry, they’d support ending private sales, because it drives more dollars to dealers, and by making guns harder and more costly to trade, drives people to newly manufactured firearms. The only reason the gun industry hasn’t gotten on board with this already is because we’ve gotten very talented, as a community, at rooting out and destroying the businesses of traitors.
I’d encourage everyone to spread this video far and wide and get people to give it a “thumbs down.”
Not a Winning Issue for the Prez
Gallup polls shows most Americans do not approve of Obama’s gun policies. Is everyone stocked up enough on booze for the State of the Union tonight? You’re bound to hear more of it. I used to have to drink through Bush’s SOTU speeches too, because he was bloody awful at public speaking. Barry is at least good off a teleprompter, but the booze will help fight the urge to defenestrate my monitors* as I’m told I have to give up my rights for the President’s notion of the greater, collective good.
* Well, at least as long as my temporary office is up here three stories. When I move my office back to the basement, throwing electronics out the basement window wouldn’t be very satisfying, would it?
h/t Instapundit.
Letters Submitted to the Durbin Hearing
Bitter alluded to the Durbin hearings earlier today. We aren’t watching this particular dog and pony show live, because it’s a side-show of a dog and pony show. But Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) has been quite effective at organizing a counterweight to Durbin’s push for draconian gun control. We’ve had several of our pro-gun scholars contribute, and I think their articles are all worth highlighting.
Many thanks to all three for publishing the contents of their letters.
UPDATE: