Category: Gun Rights

Gun Control forces in Washington States are salivating over the chance to get their agenda implemented, in the wake of recent shootings, proposing numerous measures that would have done nothing to stop the tragedy they are exploiting. Tragedy is the currency of their movement. Without it, they’d amount to even less than they already do.

Second Amendment advocates in Washington need to stay mobilized. This is one of those states where the fight isn’t going to end. My own state is similarly situated.

Dave Kopel has an interesting article in a forthcoming symposium issue of the Fordham Urban Law Journal. A link to the full article is here. I’m also still reading through Dave Hardy’s latest draft article analyzing the opinions in McDonald. There’s also another earlier draft paper by Dave Kopel that I’ve read through, but haven’t had a chance to blog about yet. I’ll try to get to that later today, or maybe tomorrow. My time for reading papers is a bit short these days, so it’s taking a while to slog through.

It has finally caught up with the whole “the criminal will just take your gun away from you,” meme long beaten to death by our opponents. Only took them nearly a quarter century of shall-issue to finally come up with a concrete example, but here it is.

A bit more on the law of averages, unrelated to this incident, which suggests that if there’s, say, six million people with concealed carry permits, that some percentage of them will be total morons, even though they will have cleared the hurdles and jumped through hoops. That percentage can be extremely small, but it’s still going to be the case that in any group as large as the number of concealed carry permits holders, or gun owners in general, not everyone is going to be a real genius.

This creates an interesting paradox for our opponents. On one side of the paradox, there will be more incidents of stupid people doing stupid things with guns, or incidents where a long time meme plays itself out. On the other side of the paradox, more people keeping and bearing arms means there’s a larger constituency to fight new gun control, so I’m not certain it really helps our opponents any.

I’ve generally of the opinion that the vast majority of people can be trusted to do the right thing, exercise good judgement, and be responsible. For me that’s reason enough in society to tolerate the very small minority of morons and losers. A primary difference between us an our opponents is that particular philosophy. They are more of the mindset that everyone freedom needs to be restricted, because you might be a moron or a loser. It kind of makes you wonder what they really think about their fellow citizens that they are willing to do that over the poor judgement and actions of the very few.

Hat Tip to Common Gunsense for the link, who hopefully won’t think this post amounts to illegal harassment.

Looks like Chestnuthill Township in Pennsylvania is considering repealing a ban on guns in parks, which has been in violation of state law for some time now. A lot of towns and counties have these illegal ordinances still on the books. I’m glad people are bringing these issues to the attention of local communities. Many are unaware the ordinances are unlawful. Now if only we could get people hounding their MAIG mayors, we’d be set.

Well, it was either going to go one of two ways for Canadian gun owners once they succeeded in getting rid of the long gun registry: either the Tories were going to discover a new constituency to whose votes they were eager to keep, or they’d figure gun owners had helped them achieve power, were justly rewarded, and now it’s pretty much “Thanks for last night. Feel free to let yourself out.”

Well, it seems the latter is going to be the course. This is the real problem of trying to build a movement only through a single party. It allows that party to get away with being not as bad as the other guy, and not much more. That’s one thing that ought to awfully concern us about the extinction of the blue dog Democrats. There are times when voting the lesser of two evils can be the smart move, and there are other times when withdrawing support is the better option. If I were a Canadian gun owner, I wouldn’t feel like I really needed to get to the polls to help keep the Conservative Party in power next election. If it’s true that that registry was “unpopular with many Canadians, not just gun owners, largely due to its wastefulness,” then there’s not much risk a Labor government is going to want to re-instate it. Plus, you just might find an out-of-power Conservative Party willing to ride back into power on another issue that is upsetting to Canadian gun owners.

But first Canadians gun owners have to start becoming single issue, or damned near single issue voters on the gun issue. That’s the only way toward success, and is a big part of why the movement here has been successful.

I recently came across this cartoon by Khalil Bendib:

Replace GOP with Dems, replace Voter ID laws with gun control laws, and tell me why it no longer works. Both voting and buying firearms are a fundamental right, according to the Supreme Court. It’s apparently horrible to require ID for one, but perfectly fine for the other. Perhaps the left would like to agree that neither is fine?

Sorry for the lack of posting today. In the office for a meeting today to discuss the plan for the final push on my project. But in other news, looks like Louisiana is on track to have the strongest right to keep and bear arms language yet. The bill is now cleared the house, and Governor Jindal supports it. It’s on to the people of Louisiana next.

“The right of each citizen to keep and bear arms is fundamental and shall not be infringed. Any restriction on this right shall be subject to strict scrutiny.”

This is in response to the Louisiana Supreme Court essentially gutting their own state right to bear arms provision which currently reads:

The right of each citizen to keep and bear arms shall not be abridged, but this provision shall not prevent the passage of laws to prohibit the carrying of weapons concealed on the person. 

I consider projects like this important for a couple of reasons. For one, it reminds the courts what the people think their right means. Two, it’s batting practice in the event we end up having to do this federally because Obama manages to replace one of the Heller Five, and the Second Amendment is essentially read out of the constitution entirely, or narrowed into effective meaninglessness. Three, it demonstrates to our opponents that we can indeed do this, putting to rest any argument that this is an antiquated right which is unimportant to the people.

The Daily Caller, a conservative leaning news outlet, is giving away one gun per week up until election day, in an effort to get people to subscribe to their newsletters. The fact the the DC is using firearms to promote their business is rubbing the right people the wrong way, such that Soros has his minions poring through everything the owner of the company that makes the gun ever wrote, looking for things to use against the guy. Sadly for the owner, they don’t come up empty, since he seems to have written several race-laced diatribes over at his blog on the topic of Obama.

They paymasters who are bankrolling Media Matters have to understand that mainstreaming of guns in America puts them on a road to utter defeat on this issue. That’s why they are quick to dig to try to discredit those who undermine their agenda. What would be really nice is if people on our side didn’t make their job so easy. I’m not of the opinion that race discussions are never to be had, but I do indeed question someone who seems hung up on Obama in the race department. I’ve never been of the opinion the man’s skin color really needs to be an issue in this debate. That particular fever swamp is really best left to the left.

But I don’t believe this ought to reflect badly on the Daily Caller, who I doubt had the time or inclination to pore through everything the owner of the company ever wrote to see if they could find anything to use against him. I guess the folks over at Media Matters are upset that the owner of that company never offered to give away a gun to David Brock so he could have an assistant illegally tote it around D.C.

Thirdpower shows that the Illinois State Police are threatening to further delay FOID approvals, and stop processing background checks if they don’t get a bill they want, which has a number of gun control measures attached to it.

It’s going to take incidents like this to convince the Supreme Court that there can’t really be any licensing of this right. Not when people like Mayor Rahm are out there, and view licensing as a way to limit its exercise. Ironically, I think these kinds of childish tantrums might be able to help move the courts in the right direction over the long term. If they were willing to treat gun licenses like hunting licenses or marriage licenses, I would be worried the courts may uphold them. But they still view licensing as a means of disenfranchising people, and turning a right into a state granted privilege. It shows no more clearly than it does in this case, and I don’t think the Court should stand by it.

A letter to Congressmen Stearns and Shuler, from 22 state Attorneys General. Who is not among the signers? Linda Kelly, the Attorney General of Pennsylvania, who replaced Tom Corbett when he became Governor. Disappointing.