Category: Gun Rights

TTAG has been promoting the Starbucks Buycott, which is greatly appreciated in terms of helping get the word out to a wide audience. One minor note, however: I’m not really on board with the paying with $2 bills. I’m not going to say it’s a bad idea, but nor do I think it’ll accomplish much in terms of influencing Starbucks. Corporate is the one that will make the decision about guns, and I can promise you what denominations people pay in isn’t among the things reported up through the chain of command. All paying in $2 bills is going to accomplish is making the person handling the money ask you for something else, or be annoyed they have to deal with an uncommon denomination. It’s not likely to percolate up to the decision makers. But Barron Barnett came up with a great variation on the two dollar bill idea that I think works:

Shove the 2 dollar bill in the tip jar. There will be 0 complaint for that. I can understand being annoyed if you were needing change. Taking their few remaining 1′s and giving them 2 dollar bills would be a PITFA.

Putting a 2 dollar bill in the tip jar and telling the Barista why would go a LONG way in putting a smile on their face.

I think that’s a pretty good idea, and I’ve actually done that to get rid of two dollar bills in the past. Everyone appreciates a tip, even if its in an oddball denomination. One thing I would encourage folks to do is take pictures of their receipts, post them online, and send a note to corporate along with a link to the receipt, telling them that you’re a gun owner, and you appreciate then staying out of the gun control debate. Don’t say you appreciate them being pro-gun or supporting the Second Amendment. The corporate guys at Starbucks don’t want to be pro-gun or anti-gun, and aren’t going to be comfortable being seen as either. What they want to do is sell more coffee, and a good way to do that is staying out of contentious political debates. What the Brady and NGVAC folks want them to do is take a stand, which is exactly what we don’t want them doing.

Extrano’s Alley points to some new polling showing strong support for the Second Amendment and gun ownership among Americans. The poll also shows low support (30%) for ownership of semi-automatic firearms, but I’m not too pleased with how that was polled. They first asked about handguns, and then rifles and shotguns. They asked about semi-automatic firearms as a separate category, which probably greatly confused people into thinking it was something else other than ordinary rifles, shotguns and handguns. The vast majority of handguns sold today are semi-automatic, as well as large numbers of rifles and shotguns. It seems hard to believe support for ownership would be so divergent if people understood the question well.

A bill that allows any soldier, regardless of age, to be able to get a Florida Concealed Weapons Permit, has passed with a unanimous vote. Robb notes that means even the die hard anti-gun folks didn’t want to touch this one. Like I said, it’s hard for the anti-gun folks to find friends these days.

We have an announcement from the National Gun Control Victims Action Council, an umbrella group for the usual suspects, that they are going to boycott Starbucks on Valentine’s Day 2012, which is February 14th. I am going to declare February 14th Starbucks Appreciation Day, by encouraging gun owners to head to Starbucks to buy some of their fine coffee and pastry products. Bitter and I will certainly participate. I encourage everyone to follow through to the link to the official event to take a look at what they are encouraging folks to do, and do the same, only with a pro-gun or gun-neutral message. You can e-mail Starbucks here. and tell them you appreciate them not taking a position on this issue, and following state laws, and that you appreciate their products. Don’t use the gun control organization’s form, even though you can change the message. They will likely use that to present to Starbucks corporate and spin your name on the list as a supporter of Starbucks banning guns.

I can promise you we can more than offset whatever paltry decrease in sales the anti-gun people will cause. Nontheless, our opponents have once again brought this deceased equine out for a flogging, so we have to once again show Starbucks there are a lot more of us then there are of them.

NRA had already lost on the challenge of the Federal ban on 19-20 year olds purchasing handguns, now they’ve also lost on the challenge to the Texas law that denies permits to 19-20 year olds. Looks like it went before the same judge, so not too surprising it’s the same result. I think the challenge to the purchase restriction is in principle a good idea. I don’t agree with running a carry-based case at the same time. Let the Supreme Court and circuit courts decide on carry independently, and let them decide on the purchase prohibition for 18-20 year olds. Then take the two concepts and tie them together for a challenge to carry. Once Judge Cummings had ruled on the 18-20 year olds for purchase, carry was fore drawn conclusion. I don’t see what strategic sense it made for NRA to fund these in parallel.

SayUncle notes a victory in the First Circuit which thew out a gun charge for someone who had been involuntary committed under state procedures that did not offer proper due process. This looks like a circuit court ruling, which is a bigger deal. This is now law in Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Puerto Rico, and Rhode Island. Interestingly, it looks like the attorneys for the defendant (it’s a criminal case) were from the Federal Defender Office.

At the same time, there’s been a setback in the Ninth Circuit, where the Supreme Court has denied cert on an appeal of a ruling upholding a California Law which banned domestic violence misdemeanants from having firearms for ten years. For the record, I hate it when reporters, who ought to know better, characterize this as some kind of approval by the Supreme Court as to the law being challenged in the cert petition. Denial of cert means very little. For all anyone knows, the Court is looking for a better case through which to take up that issue. Certainly, if I were looking at it, I wouldn’t like the added complication of the prohibition being only temporary under California law. There could be a lot of reasons for cert being denied.

Also, ANJRPC/SAF recently lost a motion in district court challenging New Jersey’s carry statute. The judge ruled there was no right outside the home, but ANJRPC/SAF are appealing.

Titled “A Resolution urging the State of New York to use common sense and sound judgement in the disposition of the case against Meredith Graves.” This would have about as much impact as New York asking 1950s Tennessee to go easy on the poor black fellow who happened to not understand that sitting at the wrong lunch counter was a problem. As it is, if they go easy on Meredith Graves, it’ll be because they fear spurring the passage of pending civil rights legislation and the filing of civil rights lawsuits. They certainly won’t be doing it out of a sense of justice, or because they’ve finally seen the light about the Second Amendment. The only way jurisdictions like New York join the rest of America when it comes to respecting all of the Bill of Rights is if it’s forced on them.

Emily Miller, who has been documenting her attempt to acquire a pistol legally in the District of Columbia, is apparently finding that obtaining crippled 10 round capacity magazines for some of the guns she wants is now rather hard. It would seem it’s turned on its head from the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban. While for most firearms, >10 round magazines were always plentiful during the ban, for a few models, finding the standard magazines was difficult. I remember paying 130 dollars for a new standard factory magazine that held 15 rounds for my Glock 19. Ironically, 17 and 30 round magazines I seem to recall being much cheaper.

Either way, these are the reasonable gun laws that are supported by our opponents. Remember, they don’t support prohibition, and never have, according to them, but they sure don’t mind supporting what amounts to practical prohibition. Imagine how hard this would be for a poor person living in a crappy neighborhood who has to work two jobs to pay rent and put food on the table? Heavens… we don’t want those kinds of people having guns now, do we? Maybe we should be asking CSGV and Brady why they hate poor people.

Stranger over at Extrano’s Alley is doing a series on some of the history behind the Gun Control Act. This post is November.