Category: Anti-Gun Folks

Mike Quigley is proud of his new bill, it would seem. Here are some things it does:

• A second, hidden serial number on every gun, “This provision would require gun manufacturers to install additional, tamper-resistant serial numbers either inside the gun barrel or visible only in infrared light.”

Inside the barrel? Are you guys nuts? Do you know anything about gun design? I don’t know if you realize, but that’s the part that’s supposed to contain a violent explosion, and kind of has to be structurally pretty strong. It also wears out. After 20,000 rounds am I guilty of obliterating the serial number? Visible only using IR light? Do we have a type of steel that accomplishes this? This is a stupid idea.

• Maintaining background check records for 60 days.

Sorry, no. I know backdoor registration when I see it. Records are already maintained for people who are denied. That should be enough. If they are clear, you destroy the record immediately. This is not open for negotiation.

• Requiring gun dealers to perform inventory checks to report lost and stolen guns: The ATF reported that in 2007 it found 30,000 guns missing from dealer inventories based on its inspection of just fewer than 10 percent of gun dealers.  If law-abiding dealers reported their inventories, the ATF would be much more effective at identifying and combating corrupt gun dealers.

Law abiding dealers already have to report their inventory upon ATF inspection. This is utterly useless and is designed only to make it harder to be in the gun business. The dealer’s A/D record should reflect current inventory. ATF declares a gun missing when A&D records don’t match actual inventory. This is essentially requiring dealers to keep inventory twice. All FFL holders are required to report lost and stolen guns. There’s already a form for that. Again, the answer is no.

Thirdpower points out that Coalition to Stop Gun Violence likes to point out that the English Bill of Rights allowed for disarmament, so by virtue of our Bill of Rights being based on it, ours must too. Obviously CSGV are concerned, much like the drafters of the English Bill of Rights, that we can’t have a bunch of armed papists and dirty street urchins wandering around this country with guns. Guns are for proper Protestant gentlemen! That’s a Bill of Rights they can believe in. Rights for some but not for others.

I’m sure that argument will go over well with our Supreme Court, 6 of 9 of which are Catholic. Oh yeah, and remember folks, we’re paranoid and delusional for thinking these people want to ban guns. They can have my guns when the Archbishop of Canterbury pries them from my cold dead fingers.

Heeding God’s Call is going to be out in front of Delia’s gun shop on Good Friday. It’s been long believed at Jesus suffered on the cross for our sins, and that event had nothing to say about weapons and everything to say about our sins. But that’s not the real story, you see. Once you understand, a Good Friday vigil makes perfect sense. Jesus really suffered a violent death at the hands of a swordsman, and the Romans couldn’t trace it because the big evil gladius lobby had Pilate cut the funds for tracing, which wouldn’t have mattered because it was likely purchased at a gladius show without a background check anyway. The serial number was filed off too. So you see the connection to Delia’s. It has nothing to do with attention whoring for the cameras using Good Friday as bait. No. Nothing at all.

I’ve been observing Coalition to Stop Gun Violence for the past several days on Twitter, trying to figure out what they thought they had to gain by debating this and that with pro-2A tweeters. Then, when they kept pushing this post on their Twitter and Facebook feeds it kind of clicked.

One of the great myths our opponents hold on to is that of fighting some nameless, faceless, and positively evil force that’s trying to bring more chaos and violence into the world in the worship of the almighty dollar. In the past this has been some faceless “gun lobby” who are, of course, intimately intertwined with gun manufacturers, who naturally want more gun violence, because it means more money in their pockets. You can see Violence Policy Center still pushing that meme heavily, even though the fact that the firearms industry provides a tiny fraction of NRA’s total operating income is easily verifiable.

They hold on to this myth because it is necessary for them. The more mainstream groups are starting to realize VPC’s ridiculous won’t hold up to even the slightest scrutiny. Newspapers know there’s millions of American behind this effort, because they get floods of e-mails and comments any time they bring up the issue. We’ve been visible, out there, and more importantly seen defending our rights. The loss of this myth is extremely devastating to the anti-gun movement because it is much easier to convince your people to struggle against a faceless, evil force than it is to convince your people to take away something from fellow citizens that they think is important to them. What CSGV is trying to do is to replace the notion that the gun lobby is evil, with the notion that gun owners are evil. By showcasing some of our side’s more blunt and nasty comments, they can get their people fired up, and make them feel good that they are struggling against evil people. That’s reflected in the comments:

(Remember, they don’t want to ban guns. Right? Right!?)

I’ve also noticed that these particular threads attract more comments. CSGV knows that, which is why they are showcasing our nasty comments to their followers. I think we do better as a movement when we present ourselves as reasonable people, and flip the debate around to demand to know why they want to take an important constitutional right away from us. Why they don’t think we should have the ability to defend our families. Put a happy face on it, and watch it sap their motivation. These people are busybodies that want to insert their noses into places they don’t belong. Call them out on it. But it’s wise to not live up to everything they want to believe about us.

The new DNC chair being a gun controller does not bode well for us. The one thing that allows the Republicans to take us for granted is their knowledge that they don’t really have to be that pro-2A, they just need to be better than the other guy. With the past Congress having a lot of pro-gun Democrats, it actually forced the GOP to try a little. Tim Kaine was never all that pro-2A, but by the same token it wasn’t all that anti-2A either. The question going forward is whether the DNC chief will put gun control back on the Dem radar. If she does, look for things to get harder for us.

Some of the biggest egos in local politics are wasting time patting each other on the back. It’s a nauseating thing that’s not normally worth mentioning, except gun control is one of the things they congratulate each other on.

“Mayor Richard Daley and his wife, Maggie, took a bow for their stewardship of the city at an Art Institute of Chicago fundraiser held Friday night in their honor … New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg called Daley “the best damn mayor this country has ever seen” during post-dinner remarks … Bloomberg pointed to Daley initiatives on handguns, education, the environment and the arts that he said he has happily copied in New York …”

Feel free to copy the Daley policies on handguns, Mayor Bloomberg. In case your staff forgot to tell you, we defeated those policies once.

Tam notes that a New York mother who drowned her kids when she drove her minivan into the Hudson won’t be attracting any activists looking to ban minivans, boat ramps or motherhood. This is a pretty serious question our opponents should ask themselves. Obviously this is a tragedy, but why isn’t anyone demanding the government do something, for the children. Because doing nothing isn’t an answer.

In this case, we universally accept the mother snapped, and nothing much else is to blame. At most people might murmur a bit about more funding for counseling and women’s service. We don’t blame access to cars, or boat ramps. Why? Because none of these objects carry the same spiritual power as the gun. To the extent the other side likes to suggest the gun is our god, if that is true, it is most certainly their devil. I stand by my assertion that the other side is acting in an elaborate passion play. Otherwise, why is the car not to blame? Or the boat ramp?

Don’t forget to check out some of the commentary at CSGV’s Facebook page. You have Andrew Goddard, who’s Colin’s dad saying “they will all come back as cockroaches – if they are lucky.” Andy Pelosi thanks Joan for the work she does in the “face of cowards.” Another person suggests “never give into a bully.” I think it’s time to cut out the niceties for the moment, and have a little frank discussion, so that both sides may better understand each other.

I am not unsympathetic to your grief. I’ve lost people close to me, some agonizingly over time and others suddenly. I can relate to the pain of loss, and learning how to cope and continue with life. I truly am sorry for what you have gone through, and may be still going through. If I had a time machine at my disposal, I’d go back and undo everything so it never happened. I have no wish to see you continuously hurting.

But you folks have a lot of nerve calling other people cowards and bullies. Let me explain to you why you elicit such “underhanded hate and misguided personal attacks” from some of the people on my side. It’s important for your side to understand. We want nothing more than to stay out of your business, leave you alone, let you heal and get on with your lives. By the same token, we expect the same courtesy in return. That is the fundamental violation you are committing in our eyes, and it’s a serious one.

There is nothing more personal, when it comes to ones own business, than his or her personal security measures. That is not a topic I take kindly to other people poking their noses into, or demanding politicians do the same. This is going to sound cold, but whatever happened in your lives is your tragedy, and not mine. I am not responsible for it. So when you stick your noses in our very personal business, then demand we tolerate that because of your special status as “victims,” don’t then then act surprised and indignant when some of us rhetorically punch you in it. We would all gladly leave you alone. But it seems that your happiness and sense of well being involves trying to take away ours. Are we just supposed to roll over quietly in that case?

At this point, I think Paul Helmke probably wishes it were a beer summit, because at least then he could have gotten a free beer out of it, and maybe met the President. We initially were quite skeptical of Brady claims of success from the summit. With this report in the Washington Post, that skepticism would seem to have been warranted:

But the official the advocates wanted to hear from most stayed mostly quiet.

The silence of Steve Croley, the White House’s point man on gun regulation policy, echoes the decision by Democrats to remain mute on guns as a national issue, even in the wake of the Tucson rampage.

They later go on to say:

One area in which Croley has shown less interest, according to several people who have spoken with him about the issue, is restricting the large-volume ammunition magazines that allowed the Tucson shooter to keep firing. When Paul Helmke, director of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, broached the subject during the March 15 gathering with Croley, officials promptly adjourned the meeting.

That adds more evidence that the “assault clip” effort is just the latest ridiculousness from the other side. Though I strongly believe they have given up on passing legislation at this point, and are focusing almost exclusively on testing issues based on their ability to attract media attention, followers, and most importantly donations. Read the whole Washington Post article. This makes me seriously question why Brady is even keeping around a 501(c)(4). They are in hearts and minds territory at this point, and that’s not anything you need a (c)(4) non-profit to accomplish.