The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State …
A Reno gun show promoter has agreed to require background checks for all guns sales, under pressure from the Mayor of New York City. I believe promoters need to do a lot more self-policing where pretty clearly there are vendors who are dealing without a license. But some guy showing up to sell his SMLE is not really a concern. Kick out the people who are breaking the law. Leave everyone else alone.
Caving into Bloomberg isn’t the answer. That just guarantees he’ll continue with this.
ATF has opened up a public comment period on its shotgun study:
You can comment on the report by e-mail to shotgunstudy@atf.gov or by fax to (202)648-9601. The deadline for comments is May 1, 2011.
We should be sure we’re heard from, but I’d limit responses to productive feedback. Remember that they are not lawmakers. They can’t just repeal laws. But they can sure as hell interpret the sporting purposes clause very broadly, if they wish.
Oleg Volk is trying to raise money for Heller II, or perhaps we should call it Hellerbound: Hellerraiser II. Sorry, Uncle flipped the cheesy switch with his amply appropriate alliteration.
UPDATE: PayPal Link here. Sorry folks, doesn’t look like they have money for a good web developer either :)
UPDATE: According to Oleg and Dick Heller in the comments below, they have secured volunteer services of a web designer.
UPDATE: For those who might feel more comfortable donating to the Civil Rights Defense Fund, just follow the link. They are helping support Mr. Heller’s case as well.
From American taxpayers. Interior seems to have rolled over on this. And none of our civil rights lawyers have gotten paid yet.
The Washington Post is reporting up to 30%. This is, naturally, making our opponents quite upset. Times are tough, and cuts have to be made, and I think it’s fine for taxpayers to demand they get their money’s worth from federal law enforcement dollars. As previously mentioned, I don’t think gun laws qualify.
Michael Bane thinks this might be the start of other shotgun rulings. It’s certainly possible, but the root problem is how to interpret the sporting purposes clause. Congress wrote a bad law, which is bound to lead to poor interpretations of it. ATF’s assertion, at it’s core, is that there would be hardly anything that wouldn’t be importable if IPSC and IDPA were considered to have a sporting purpose, and thus it would render meaningless something Congress clearly intended to have meaning.
There’s two thinks I think we need to advocate here. One is that the sporting purposes clause be eliminated. The second is that destructive devices are increased to any firearm firing fixed ammunition with a bore diameter of greater than one inch. This is hardly radical, since the UK allows shotguns up to two inches, and doesn’t have any overall restriction on bore size. At the very least, we should demand any shotgun be legal outright, not under exception.
I’ve been reluctant to speak about the accusations going around the blogosphere about the extent that ATF was facilitating trafficking to Mexico. Not that I would put something like this past ATF, but serious accusations require evidence, and until today I hadn’t seen any. Having been in a position of having sensitive information shared with me, it never seemed a good idea to broadcast the fact publicly, rather than directing the information quietly to folks who have the power to do something with it. Otherwise you risk tipping off whoever’s ox is going to get gored, and hand them an opportunity to destroy evidence and discredit your source.
But now we have real evidence that whoever Codrea and Vanderboegh have been speaking with is the real deal, and is actively working with the office of Senator Chuck Grassley, as shown in this letter here, and also here, and as detailed on David Codrea’s examiner site. Grassley’s office notes that there has been “detailed documentation” which “lends credibility to the claims and partially corroborates them.” We will see where Grassley’s office goes with this.
The whistle blower in this case deserves quite a bit of praise. Federal whistle blower protections are applicable on paper, but are nearly non-existent in practice. Working with Grassley’s office is probably a career ending move for the agent in question, and on top of that he will need to retain a lawyer during this whole process. It’s not clear who’s come forward with this information at this point, but my hat’s off to them.
The House Judiciary Chairman is saying no on hearings on gun control. I guess the GOP is good for something at least.
Provided to us courtesy of Mayor Bloomberg:
Investigator: “So, you’re not one of those, you know, dealer guys, right?â€
Seller: “No. No tax, no form, you don’t have to do transfers or nothing.â€
Investigator: “Yeah, yeah.â€
Seller: “Just see an Arizona ID and that’s it with me.â€
Investigator: “So no background check?â€
Seller: “No.â€
Investigator: “That’s good, because I probably couldn’t pass one, you know what I mean?â€
The seller sold the gun for $500.
This transaction is already a felony under existing federal law. Why is this a case for new laws? If the guy’s going to sell the gun anyway, is he going to give a crap if the law requires a background check on top of it? More from John Richardson here. They keep saying these transactions are legal, but they aren’t.