Category: Gun Rights

Dave Hardy notes the Senate passed a repeal of one-gun-a-month. It’s on its way to Governor McDonnell, who has said he will sign it. [UPDATE: I’m told the House and Senate passed different versions of the bill, so it will take another vote of the House on the Senate bill before it’ll head to the Governor.] This is a significant victory, since I believe Virginia and South Carolina were the only states guilted by the New York establishment into instituting these useless schemes. South Carolina repealed theirs several years ago, and now Virginia is finally nearly rid of it. Let use review quickly where criminals get their guns from:

Purchased from --           13.9
  Retail store               8.3
  Pawnshop                   3.8
  Flea market                1.0
  Gun show                   0.7
Friends or family           39.6
Street/illegal source       39.2

One can see that the most significant source is friends and family, and sources like that are not going to be affected by any rationing scheme, since they aren’t doing their straw buying in large quantities. It’s also been shown that straw buyers, in states that have instituted rationing, are just forced to rotate their buyers more often. It’s often falsely believed by our opponents that most trafficking of guns are large and organized. Most crime gun sources are not organized sources. Even this relatively hostile study notes:

Multiple sales are probably fairly common, considering that three-quarters of gun owners possess more than one gun (Cook and Ludwig, 1996: 15).17 Yet many who purchase guns in multiple sales are likely to be low-risk buyers (e.g., gun collectors), so the risk that guns sold in multiple sales are used in crime is likely to vary across different groups of buyers.

The study admits there’s no real evidence that gun rationing works as a solution to straw purchasing. I don’t think that’s changed in the past few years. Given that this impacts a fundamental constitutional right, that ought to mean that it’s prudent for Virginia to eliminate this law.

It’s been a while since I’ve seen gun control moving in the states, but now we have a fight on our hands in Oregon, where the legislature is considering banning guns on college campuses. More importantly:

(b) A person who intentionally possesses a firearm or any other instrument used as a dangerous weapon, while on school grounds, commits a Class C felony.

A class C felony? Really? Hey, if it puts more gun owners in prison where they belong, all the better, right? A misdemeanor, or even a petty offense, is enough to deter an honest man, and a person intent on breaking the law won’t be deterred. I’m also not certain, given the way this is worded, that it would be unlawful to drive through a school zone with a pistol in your glove box. Better also hope you aren’t out for a walk and fail to realize a lawn you’ve been walking near is actually property of a school.

According to a blog over at the Village Voice, and also an update over at the Huffington Post:

Late in the afternoon, a Komen spokeswoman told reporters that breast cancer advocacy group had nothing to do with this so-called “Hope” pistol, and that the non-profit plans on sending a cease and desist order to Discount Gun Sales.

I would advise folks to not jump the gun (no pun intended) unless we receive word from DGS that they have, in fact, been ceased and desisted. As the article notes, Komen has taken money from gun related promotions in the past without issue, as they should. Organizations like Komen should be not be inserting themselves into political causes by not taking money from those kinds of people.

I am also interested in the content of said letter if and when it arrives. I believe Komen would be within their rights to demand DSG change “is proud to team up with the Susan B. Koman [sic] Foundation” which implies some form of partnership. If Komen merely demands that they change that language, they are merely asking that DSG clarify the lack of an actual partnership. I think it’s fine.

However, if Komen demands they remove any reference to their name, they are essentially saying they don’t want money from gun owners. If that’s the case, I will do my level best to make sure everyone within the reach of my voice gets the message. We’ll be more than happy to oblige.

I just had a thought, in thinking about safe storage laws. It’s pretty clear that safe storage laws that impede the right to self-defense would not be constitutional. But could Congress use its militia powers to demand everyone have a safe, and store their firearms in the safe when, say, you aren’t home?

One could argue that it’s necessary and proper to protect the nation’s arsenal of militia-ready weapons. If Congress can use the militia power to demand people keep arms, and show up to muster, why couldn’t it demand people buy a safe and keep their guns in them when they are not home?

I should note that I’m not advocating Congress do this, but it’s hard for me to see a way to defeat such a proposal on constitutional grounds. The only thing that would make such a requirement impractical for the purposes our opponents may want is the actual enforcement is left to the states, who don’t have any mechanisms to enforce this. I think you also may be able to argue that such an exercise of militia powers is a sham, and this either necessary or proper.

Does anyone who knows the case law around the militia power have an comment on this topic?

Clayton Cramer details how the Canadian authorities are currently charging an Ontario man who used a licensed pistol in self-defense. The way this works in most countries where self-defense with a firearm is still technically legal, is to charge the defender with violating the safe storage laws.

Fortunately for us here in the Untied States, Heller should put the kibosh on the worst excesses of our opponents, who have, in other countries, successfully outlawed self-defense with a firearm through strategic use of safe storage initiatives. If you used the gun for self-defense, then you couldn’t have been storing it safely, now could you?

And update from Gene Hoffman on the issue mentioned yesterday. It would seem all parties, including Dave Clark, the initiative sponsor, and Ignatius Piazza, founder and director of Front Sight, have come to an agreement that the measure will be pulled this cycle so that court cases can proceed. We are pleased that everyone managed to come together and do the right thing here.

Joe has an observation about our favorite Brady Board member, which makes him ponder:

If the lack of critical thinking skills was something that common it makes me wonder how we ever made it out of the dark ages. And much more important is the answer to this question, “Is the prevalence of Peterson Syndrome evidence we are headed into dark age?” Freedom and enlightenment may have been just a short twinkle in the big picture of human history.

It really is kind of amazing. How many Jeffersons, Madisons, or Adamses were there ever in the world? Clearly not enough, and I don’t think our elite today can even live up to their example. I don’t think people’s lack of critical thinking skills is harbinger of a dark age, because I’m not sure your average people had much in the way of that even in the age of enlightenment.

Ultimately, we still aspire to critical thought in the sphere of the public debate. If this were not the case, the Brady folk wouldn’t need to do studies, or publish papers in an attempt to convince the greater public to accept their political agenda. Instead they’d be doing things like performing exorcisms in houses they’ve recently removed guns from in order to get rid of the evil spirits that inhabit them. While I think many of our opponents certainly have the menality that would enable such thought, when it comes to convincing others, they know they have to go the way of reason and data, which probably has something to do with why they lose today… modern means of horizontal communications has allowed many of their assertions, accepted as truth by dead tree media, to be challenged and swept away as weak arguments.