Author: Sebastian

Tam had a German guy link ot one of her posts about a Smith & Wesson revolver, and explains German gun laws thusly:

Now, the German government does everything but probulate you before letting you buy a gun; it’s a less-involved process to buy a tripod-mounted belt-fed machine gun in most states in the US than it is to buy a deer rifle in Germany. Further, they have stricter storage requirements for skeet guns and .22 ammo than the IAEC has for Iranian weapons-grade plutonium. Yet apparently if this guy gets a hold of the little commie vest-puncher, he will be driven slowly mad by its mind-control rays and then run around popping gendarmes until they put him down like a mad dog, kind of like you or I would do if we took an extra inch off our shotgun barrels.

The Pant Shitting Hysterics is really overflowing on this National Reciprocity civil rights bill, so now is the time to call your Senator’s office and make sure our voice is heard on the Thune Amendment.  This is going to be a tough vote, as this can be considered a major piece of legislation.  Let’s take a look at some of the hysterics:

From the WaPo:

Critics, including police organizations, big-city mayors and gun-victims groups, decried the legislation as creating “a new national lowest common denominator” for ownership of firearms.

Ownership of firearms?  Fact checking, it’s what’s for dinner.

Roll Call:

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) said Monday that she would vote against the Thune amendment, noting that gun laws should remain a state issue. Liberal Senators hope McCaskill’s opposition is an indicator of how other independent-minded Members, such as Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), might vote.

I guess ASHA doesn’t want their girl giving us self-defense whakos any goodies.

And, of course, Chuck Schumer:

“This amendment is a bridge too far, and could endanger the safety of millions of Americans. Each state has carefully crafted its concealed-carry laws in the way that makes the most sense to protect its citizens. Clearly, large, urban areas merit a different standard than rural areas. To gut the ability of local police and sheriffs to determine who should be able to carry a concealed weapon makes no sense. It could reverse the dramatic success we’vie had in reducing crime in most all parts of America. In the past, the gun lobby has had as its rallying cry, ‘Let each state decide.’ With this amendment, they are doing a 180-degree flip. Whether you are pro-gun or pro-gun control, this measure deserves to be defeated. We will do everything we can to stop this poisonous amendment from being enacted.”

Sorry Chucky, my rights don’t end just because I cross some arbitrary, artificial boundary known as “city limits.”  Do any other rights work this way?

We also have editorial PSH eminating from the New York Times, New York Newsday, Miami Herald, New York Daily News, and the Philadelphia Inquirer.  Notice a trend?  I wonder which city’s elites are pissing themselves the most over this.

Reports from around the gun blogosphere about the ATF’s response to the Tennessee Firearms Freedom Act have been filing in.  Now, as a symbolic middle finger to Congress, I support these kinds of bills.  But what were we expecting ATF to do?  Their response was entirely predictable, and is well within the legal framework that ATF operates in.  Like it or not, the current Commerce Clause jurisprudence allows the federal government to regulate the sale and transfer of firearms as part of a national regulatory scheme (see Gonzalez v. Raich).

There are many examples of ATF abuse of discretion out there, but this is not among them.  If we really want to limit federal power, we ought to concentrate more on Randy Barnett’s federalism amendment, and not merely just pass symbolic acts that have no real force of law behind them.

Son of Liberty makes some very astute commentary about the shooting in Jersey City which has its police chief calling for pump-action shotguns to be classified as assault weapons.