Sebastian – Page 713 – Shall Not Be Questioned

In Depth Look at Trafficking in Mexico

An example of the ways Mexican criminals sell guns to other criminals:

Merchants make it clear that prices are more accessible if the weapons have been ‘burned’ (used).Â Â A 9 mm ‘clean’ (new) [pistol] is 12,000 pesos [US$934.00], and assault [rifles] like the AK-47 are 15,000 pesos [US$1,168.00].Â Â The latter, like hand grenades, are only available ‘on request.’

In Tepito, those interviewed reported, monthly or bimonthly shipments arrive that are distributed to different destinations. The shipments include revolvers, submachine guns, rifles and grenade launchers, [and] many of them end up in the hands of organized crime groups, they acknowledge.

Naturally these all must be coming from US gun shows. Of course, toward the end of the article, they do note:

A percentage of the weapons, the seller said, come from Mexico via Ministry of Defense personnel who provide [them] in part from weapons seized in raids, or stolen from the ministry’s own arsenal.

You don’t say.

John Smith: Domestic Terrorist

Cemetery tells a story of a man with a common name who found out he was on the terrorist watch list. I was surprised that he has issues purchasing firearms, but New Jersey does a different background check than most states. Maybe that ends up showing up in New Jersey’s system. If it’s a NICS thing, that makes me wonder how the FBI is already using the list.

Licensing Journalists

There’s a Michigan lawmaker who’s proposing the idea. This is unconstitutional, of course, as there are a number of cases that put the kibosh on licensing the First Amendment. Â But I have to wonder how many of the journalists who might look at such a proposal withÂ righteousÂ indignation will turn around and propose allowing government to license the Second Amendment right?

Still Going

Joe notes that gun sales for 2010, so far, are only off a bit from 2009, when Obama took office. My guess is you have a lot of noobs in that crowd who bought their first gun, and are continuing to buy. Most people will never develop extensive collections, but every house ought to have a pistol, a shotgun, and a rifle.

Walking around the gun show this weekend, I was still hearing dealers explaining how the process worked. We’re still making new gun owners out there. I think this whole sales boom might continue until people start feeling better about the economy.

The Great Difficulty With Working Gun Shows

So we’re done with the gun show work on behalf of NRA for the weekend, and have the rest of the holiday to enjoy. This was a slow show, to be honest. Not many people seem to want to visit a gun show on a holiday. I would say about one third to one half the people in the show at any given time were from New Jersey, judging from the cars in the parking lot. Not fertile ground when you’re pushing Pennsylvania candidates.

This is a persistent problem working shows in this area. In the 2008 election year we managed to get several hundred McCain signs, which were impossible to get, for a show up in Allentown, which is close enough to draw a lot of people from our respective districts. Unfortunately, it’s also close enough to drawn down New Yorkers. Not that we don’t like New Yorkers, but we got about halfway through our signs before we started to wonder about the accents of people asking for them, and sure enough, they were mostly New Yorkers. If you saw any McCain signs on Long Island, they probably came from us. New York wasn’t set to get any, because they are blue state no matter what.

But the real difficulty in working shows is not spending money. I spent about 100 bucks this weekend, despite not getting any guns, on various things. I had my eye on an 1898 Krag that was absolutely beautiful. Virtually flawless furniture, mostly in tact bluing, and only some minor blemishes on the receiver. The bolt looked clean, and I’m assuming the barrel was in good shape too (didn’t have a bore light to look) 1400 bucks. Looked on Gunbroker for comparison, and it seems a reasonable price. Sadly though, it’s tough to justify dropping 1400 on a gun right now. If in our future show work, I find that gun haunting me, I may just have to buy it. Hopefully someone buys it before I do. Well, not really. That would make me sad. But you know what I mean.

Clayton Cramer on the Rand Paul CRA’64 Controversy

This pretty much reflects how I feel about the issue, but said much better and with more completeness than I did:

Would free markets have been enough to break this long history of governmental force in support of racism?Â I would like to think so â€“ but I also know that the libertarian solution requires a population of rational actors prepared to look out for their own economic interests.Â You let me know when you find a species that fits that model.

In my experience most extreme libertarian solutions require rational actors. Libertarians assume that most people are like themselves, when they generally aren’t. I still believe in small government, but I no longer care to go through mental gymnastics to try to figure out how to implement private market solutions to problems that Government is probably the only real viable solution. Anarchocapitalism is also one thing I’ve never really understood. To me it makes the same mistakes as to human nature that communism does.

Either way, when I was in high school I used to work in a union shop, in a job that was menial but was not union. The place never had an official policy of not hiring blacks, because that would be illegal, but I can tell you that no blacks worked there. I can also tell you that this wasn’t an accident. This is a shop that had serious problems getting and retaining good employees. Part of the issue is that people in hiring positions there felt that we can’t have “those people” coming in and taking our “good union jobs.” Maybe it’s gotten better since the late 80s, early 90s, but one of the reasons I’ve become so anti-union in my adulthood is because of what I witnessed growing up.

Uppity Northeasterners, who’ve never had to work in those kinds of environments, often like to pat themselves on the back that the North never implemented the kind of institutionalized racism that those cousin humping rednecks down south did. That is only superficially true. The North had, and probably still has plenty of institutionalized racism. We’re just better at hiding it.

Plans for the Holiday Weekend?

I hope everyone has an excellent holiday weekend, and get to spend time doing something fun with the family. We will be spending the holiday weekend working a table at a gun show. Now that the primary is over, and it’s officially election season, that means frequent appearances at places gun owners frequent, in an attempt to recruit volunteers for NRA endorsed candidates for November, and get the word out.

But this weekend I can’t help but feel like I need to BBQ some a piece of meat. But what piece of meat? Brisket requires me to lose sleep. Just did a pork butt a few weeks ago, so I’m pork butted out. Pork back ribs maybe? I like ribs, but I plan to make some ribs for my father in a few weeks. I like smoking fish, chicken, and sausage too, but it’s so easy it’s almost like grilling. If anyone has suggestions for a great meat to smoke that presents a bit of a challenge, but won’t keep me up, I’m all ears.

Thomas Not Happy About Defeat in PA House

Representative Thomas was the sponsor of three of the bills, the gun control bills, that were defeated in committee this week in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. He is not too pleased with the result, which naturally pleases me:

“There is no reason why anyone should bring a weapon with a 30-round clip into a residential neighborhood,” Thomas said.

Thomas said that, after much debate, his bills were not approved by a committee majority.

[…]

Thomas said he particularly thinks he will garner support for H.B. 1044 considering that the courts have already upheld the constitutionality of 37 local gun ordinances.

“Right now, municipalities’ hands are tied by the PA Uniform Firearms Law. I think it’s just a matter of time until my bill becomes law,” Thomas said.

Funny, I have several dozen 30 round “clips” in a residential neighborhood and they haven’t managed to jump out of the safe and kill anyone yet. I have to admire his optimism in the face of a stunning defeat — the votes in all three cases were very lopsided — but we will continue to oppose his agenda. I’m sorry, but you’re not going to make me a criminal because I happen to go through the wrong town on the way to a shooting match. Especially not when the state police commissioner, a guy who is thoroughly anti-gun, and aÂ cronyÂ of Ed Rendell, is the one making that call.

Juries Must Decide on Machine Gun Possession

The government made the claim that the federal law providing for a thirty year sentence for the commission of a crime with a machine gun was a sentencing enhancement, and therefore whether the gun was a machine gun could be decided by a judge by preponderance of the evidence, and applied during sentencing. The Supreme Court has ruled against the government’s position, ruling that the federal law in question 18 USC 924(c)1(B)(ii) was a separate federal crime, and that it had to be charged in an indictment and proved beyond a reasonable doubt to a jury.

Not much of an effect on gun owners here, unless you plan to rob a bank with a gun the feds later claim to be a machine gun.

High Tech Shooting in Germany

This post comes to us from the Firearms Blog:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyq90LEZe4k[/youtube]

I’m going to guess that membership in this club isn’t cheap, but it’s an interesting way to solve a lot of problems shooting ranges have. Namely, I’m going to guess that lead management is no issue here. I notice they have neat buckets on the trap range, and you see no shells on the ground. I guess no good German would want to dirty the range.