Ian Argent – Shall Not Be Questioned

Warning signs

I saw this tweet in passing earlier in the week and thought nothing of it at the time, other than “What a bad idea.”

https://twitter.com/EWErickson/status/1348795165880803328

But a friend of mine pointed out that this didn’t “look right” for what it purports to be: a call to action from “right wing elements”

Things that I noticed, more or less off the top of my head:

The color palette is Red/Yellow/Black. It should be White/Blue/Red. A white or blue background, blue or white text, and red highlights/background elements
The stars are wrong – they should be regular, filled, and either white or silver (as on the US Flag), not freehand yellow and distorted. Plus they are point-down, not point up.
The Statue of Liberty is an unlikely choice. Either a “generic government building with columns” or an image of the “WE THE PEOPLE” from the Constitution would be more likely, and either photorealistic or line art, not posterized. Or as in one of the VCDL examples, a “minuteman” or other recognizeably Revolutionary War Patriot
The text layout is wrong – both in being slanted, in color (see palette issues) and in kerning/justification (see the VCDL examples below)
There’s no exhortation to follow state and local laws concerning the carriage of firearms or other weapons

This design language screams Soviet/COMINTERN to me, from color palette to layout to image elements.

But the biggest missing item?

Attribution!

There’s no organization logos on this. No social media calls to action, no promotion at all. None of the most likely candidates for organizing this would ever pass up the opportunity to self-promote, and neither would the unlikely candidates.

I hesitate to label anything a “false-flag” operation, but this is certainly a “no flag” operation. And that is what rings the most false to me.

For comparison, see these posters from VCDL

https://vcdl.org/postercontest/

Needless to say, even if this event was actually being formented by people nominally on my side, I’d say it was a Bad Idea to go. But all of the above make me think it is a really Bad Idea.

And I’ve seen several gun rights groups say the same thing – that this isn’t coming from Our Side, and to not show up; or if you simply must, don’t show up in violation of local laws concerning carriage of arms.

Signs and Portents

Politico reports on what is alleged to be a White House proposal (PDF link) for increasing background checks. Only, something is kind of fishy about it. The Politico story quotes a White House spokesman

As far as the document circulating on the Hill, [Hogan Gidley, a White House spokesman] added: â€œThat is not a White House document, and any suggestion to contrary is completely false.â€

And when I actually read the (alleged) document, I have my doubts. It’s possible that the White House drafted a proposal that starts with the premise that there are Unlicensed Commercial Sales, and that there are commercial sellers who are not licensed dealers, but that doesn’t seem all that likely to me. Unless they’re expanding the definition of “commercial sales” to include all sales (there’s a reference to “Manchin-Toomey draft legislation” as well, which I haven’t seen the current iteration of).

Anyway, with the White House disavowing the proposal, and the Republican Senate refusing to move without clear guidance from the White House, things are looking a bit less grim? No reason to stop paying attention, though.

I am the NRA again

I’d let my membership lapse after the initial period through a combination of apathy and a mild distaste for the undertone of politics beyond their mission that I felt the NRA had allowed to creep into their advocacy.

But the recent organized and directed assaults on the 2A reminded me that they are still the most effective advocacy for firearms freedom, so I re-upped. And this time I can’t let the membership lapse, I went for the Life membership. At least partially so I can vote and pretend I have input.

I am reasonably sure I’m not the only lapsed member come back to the fold; I certainly hope not, anyway. And here’s hoping they can continue to be effective.

If at first you don’t succeed, Try Try Again

ANJRPCÂ is taking another shot at NJ’s May Issue permitting regime. The actual complaint can be found here (PDF).

Amusing quote:

“Plaintiffs acknowledge that the result they seek is contrary to Drake v. Filko, 724 F.3d 426 (3d Cir. 2014), but, for the reasons explained in Wrenn v. District of Columbia, 864 F.3d 650 (D.C. Cir. 2017), that case was wrongly decided.”

That’ll do well at the Circuit Court, I bet.

I wonder what Scott Bach thinks is going to change at SCOTUS in the next couple of years than will get SCOTUS to take this case up instead of letting it languish like all the other may-issue cases?

The Senate Math for CCW in 2017

It’s not looking probable; we would need a miracle. Here’s the breakdown

Starting with the 2013 vote (57 Ayes to invoke cloture), I did up a spreadsheet of the likely vote results in 2017, based on current occupancy, the 2013 vote, and the Senators political stances on the issue.

I came out with maximum of 59 Aye votes (assuming Luther Strange gets to vote Aye or his replacement votes Aye).

The vote delta (because we had both gains and losses)

NH: -1 (Maggie Hassan replaced Kelly Ayotte)

IA: +1 (Joni Ernst replaced Tom Harkin)

SD: +1 (Mike Rounds replaced Tim Johnson)

WV: +1 (Shelley Moore replaced John Rockefeller)

However, what IÂ don’t see is the 60th vote. I broke out the Nay votes who are in seats up in 2018 in states that voted for Trump

Bill Nelson is a hard NO
Claire McCaskill is a hard NO
Sherrod Brown is a hard NO
Bob Casey is a firm No
Tammy Baldwin is a hard NO

And, if anyone flips to be the 60th, I wouldn’t put it past some of the presumptive Ayes to flip to Nay to prevent it. Fix NICS is already being pulled out as a cover for voting Nay (and was used for that purpose in the House).

Now, maybe the GOP leadership knows something I don’t, or this really was a setup to burnish everybody’s 2A pro/con credentials. Whichever way that goes, if you want reciprocity this year, better start praying.

Reciprocity for non-resident permits

Via the NRA’s FB page I just found out thatÂ Rep. Richard Hudson (R., N.C.)Â does intend that his bill cover reciprocity of non-resident permits. Which means I probably ought to start looking into getting a non-resident permit from someplace, so I can join Sebastian and Bitter in a small victory dance in Central Park :)

From a purely pragmatic viewpoint, this may make it harder to get passed, because states which have training requirements might object to having them bypassed. So we shall see how that fares in the sausage grinder. And then it has to survive the inevitable court challenges. That having been said, that the bill’s author is starting with that as the base is something I wouldn’t have expected even a couple of years ago.

Big Brother of King Country

I rank the “third-party doctrine”Â as one of the gravest sins against the Constitution; and were I able, I would expressly repeal it via constitutional amendment.

Because otherwise you end up with stuff like this, where King County is using store loyalty card data to enforce pet licensing.

The perils of going it alone

Commenter Patrick suggests that using “commercial” social media platforms leaves the user subject to being censored by the platform owner, and that to be more free one should use blogs and RSS.

The problem with this is amply illustrated by the recent (temporary) takedown of Brian Krebs’ self-hosted blog. His analysis is here. At least with a commercial hosting solution, you’re at the mercy of one, somewhat predictable, potential censor. One that can be named and shamed, or even sued for breach of contract if necessary. If you go it alone, you’re a lot more vulnerable to attack.

It’s all very well and good to say “well, this shouldn’t be possible.” But when you get down into the nitty gritty, it gets a lot more complex. And the easiest (and therefore cheapest) way for your upstream provider to protect their own interests is to cut you off. Facebook, Twitter, and Google can afford to pay for world-class DDoS protection. And, in fact, their “normal” traffic would look like a DDoS attack to Sebastian’s self-hosted solution.

There is no perfect solution, no magic bullet. But the reason people have gravitated towards Facebook and Twitter (and the rest) is because it makes a lot of the problems of running an internet presence Somebody Else’s Problem.

Instapundit to Twitter: Drop Dead

Glenn Reynolds is not staying where he isn’t wanted. For all the same reasons that Sebastian pulled the plug here.

Twitter seemed to be much more about filling the niche of an RSS feed than a peer to peer content network. And Facebook is just as good for keeping up with commercial content (and somewhat better because it doesn’t have the message size restrictions, it has publishable calendars and native media storage).

Gov Christie isn’t done with the 2A

Hot off the ANJRPC’s presses:

Christie Vetoes Seek Shall-Issue Carry & Clean Repeal of Smart Gun Mandate!

Wednesday August 24, 2016:Â

In a blockbuster announcement today, Governor Christie conditionally vetoed two pieces of anti-gun legislation (A3689 and S816), imposing dramatic conditions that would change them into pro-gun measures establishing shall-issue right-to-carry and repealing New Jerseyâ€™s 2002 â€œsmart gunâ€ law mandate with no strings attached.

That’s interesting. I mean, it’s certainly a push-back against his political enemies, and an indication that he’s not going quietly off the national political stage, but it also means he’s making a bet that a bold move now will be remembered in 4 years.