Clayton Cramer has a new book out, My Brother Ron, about the deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill, and its consequences. You can get it either on Kindle or Nook.
Author: Sebastian
Second Amendment Applies to Stun Guns in Michigan
This is an excellent ruling. I have hopes other courts will look at this opinion when they consider similar cases. The City of Philadelphia currently bans stun guns. I am particularly pleased to hear the court looking at prevalent use in law enforcement when considering a weapon’s utility for self-defense. I think law enforcement use has to be considered when the state claims a weapon is dangerous or unusual, and therefore falls outside of Second Amendment protections.
Meme: Law Enforcement is on the Side of the Anti-Gunners
Or not. The man largely responsible for transforming NRA into a political machine was a Border Patrol Agent. There are former law enforcement officers in high-ranking positions in NRA currently, and a recent President had a law enforcement background.
14.9mm Sniper Rifle
This is the craziest thing I’ve seen in a while:
It has more kinetic energy at the muzzle than a 20mm Vulcan, and far more kinetic energy downrange, although the Vulcan is carrying an explosive payload (chemical energy).
Go take a look. Madness!
The Latest Fast and Furious Deflection
The whole scandal never happened! The tale being woven starts thusly:
The ATF is hobbled in its effort to stop this flow. No federal statute outlaws firearms trafficking, so agents must build cases using a patchwork of often toothless laws.
Given that it starts with this patent falsehood, you know you’re going to be in for a doozy. I’m sure this will be news for criminals chilling in the federal pen right now for, well, firearms trafficking. The act of buying guns for criminals is a 10 year federal felony. The act of smuggling guns across the border is as well. Conspiracy can be used to reach people who knowingly further these activities.
Quite simply, there’s a fundamental misconception at the heart of the Fast and Furious scandal. Nobody disputes that suspected straw purchasers under surveillance by the ATF repeatedly bought guns that eventually fell into criminal hands. Issa and others charge that the ATF intentionally allowed guns to walk as an operational tactic. But five law-enforcement agents directly involved in Fast and Furious tell Fortune that the ATF had no such tactic. They insist they never purposefully allowed guns to be illegally trafficked. Just the opposite: They say they seized weapons whenever they could but were hamstrung by prosecutors and weak laws, which stymied them at every turn.
This is such a naked attempt to make this story goes away it defies credulity. The story is also a naked attempt to smear the whistleblowers in the case:
The prosecutor had told Dodson that an assistant U.S. Attorney “won’t be able to approve of letting firearms ‘walk’ in furtherance of your investigation without first briefing the U.S. Attorney and Criminal Chief.”
It was the first time Voth learned that Dodson intended to walk guns. Voth says he refused to approve the plan and instead consulted his supervisor, who asked for a proposal from Dodson in writing. Dodson then drafted one, which Voth forwarded to his supervisor, who approved it on May 28.
If Dodson was really a rouge, irresponsible agent, why wouldn’t the politically expedient thing to do be to throw those responsible under the bus, come clean to Congress, produce all the documentation, and move on. But that’s not what is happening. The Administration is hiding something.
Winning the Culture War
Ian Argent has more indications that gun rights are going mainstream. They are appearing in mainstream advertising:
I’m going to suggest this ad is going to make many of our opponents in the gun control movement throw up their Moons over My Hammy, which is the best reason in the known universe to go to Denny’s. 9mm is now as American as Apple Pie.
UPDATE: Even more.
Latest from Lucky Gunner Labs
They wade into the 5.56×45 vs .223 debate. Some of the data they have discovered will surprise you.
The Stupid Party Strikes Again
I would like to congratulate House Majority leader Mike Turzai for giving the lawyers who will eventually challenge Pennsylvania’s voter ID law their core argument, which is that, rather than being aimed at preventing voter fraud, it was aimed at delivering Pennsylvania for Mitt Romney. I can understand why Turzai wants to brag about having accomplished something, given how many slam dunk causes, like liquor privatization, the Pennsylvania GOP hasn’t been able to accomplish.
You could probably make a case, even under strict scrutiny, for an ID requirement for voting, with an aim to prevent fraud. It’s not slam-dunk, because voting is among the fundamental rights recognized by the Supreme Court. You can’t make a case for an ID requirement aimed at limiting the voting franchise. Turzai has, essentially, just admitted that Voter ID was not about prevention of fraud. I would encourage gun owners to think about this from the point of view of gun rights. If Mayor Rahm or Bloomberg suddenly admitted the purpose of their gun laws was to limit gun ownership as much as possible, rather than to prevent crime, we’d be quietly saying, “Jackpot! Keep talking buddy.” But neither Rahm nor Bloomberg are that stupid. Only Pennsylvania Republican leaders are that stupid.
Another Deflective Tactic for Fast and Furious
The other deflection seems to be to try to tie Mike Vanderboegh around the neck of Fast and Furious and hope it sinks. The most telling example of this comes to use courtesy of Rachel Maddow (h/t Kurt Hoffman), who would have you believe that this scandal was cooked up in Mike’s tinfoil hat, and was latched on to by the Republicans in Congress. In Maddow’s world, there was never whistles blowers. There were never mainstream media outlets that found Fast and Furious to be credible. Maddow isn’t the only example of this tactic, however. It can also be found in the Baltimore Sun and the Los Angeles Times.
The idea that this whole scandal depends on the credibility of one person is, well, incredulous. There have been whistleblowers, there have been documents that point to other documents that are not in possession of Congress as they should be. It’s been no big secret that Vanderboegh and I are not exactly fond of one another, but the media really is reaching quite a bit with these ad hominem attacks on him to attempt to discredit the scandal. His role in this, of connecting whistleblowers to media contacts and Congressional officials, discredits the scandal exactly how?
These people in the media, who are ordinarily just soooo concerned about “gun violence”, seem perfectly willing to make excuses for our government actively facilitating it, rather than trying to prevent it, in the name of getting Obama re-elected.
RMGO Loses Its Tax Exempt Status
I’ve often been pretty critical of Dudley Brown and the National Association for Gun Rights, but it’s looking like another one of Dudley’s outfits, Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, has lost its tax-exempt status from the IRS, because they have not filed tax returns for three years. I wonder how long it will take the inevitable fundraising letter to go out, talking about how the Obama Administration, through his Internal Revenue Service, is trying to silence the voice of gun owners, and surely won’t you donate some money to fight Obama.
To be fair, most any tax-exempt political organization is pretty shameless when it comes to fundraising, but I’ve always thought Brown’s organization was an extra shade of shameless. I’ve also never really understood what they are really contributing. From what I’ve been able to find, NAGR doesn’t even have a lobbyist registered on the Hill.