Category: Gun Rights

When I started this whole Election Volunteer Coordination thing with the NRA, one of my chief concerns was how few endorsed races we had in Bucks County. We were literally down to two state reps in the whole county who carried endorsements, Paul Clymer and Gene DiGirolamo. This election I’m happy to note that we have five endorsed races for state representative, Paul Clymer, Gene DiGirolamo, Frank Farry, Rob Ciervo, and Marguerite Quinn. I should note that four of these are incumbents. I think that’s a pretty good improvement.

There are probably a number of factors that have lead to this, but I’d like to think our efforts to raise the profile of this issue among the County’s political establishment has been a contributing factor. To do that we’ve really just made our presence known, both in the new media space but also by showing up to traditional political events, donating, and volunteering to help out. The big problem with more endorsed candidates is I have to stretch my volunteer resources thinner. Because I don’t want to short change any of our endorsed candidate, this translates into me having to work harder to make up the short fall. I’ll be phone banking both Saturday and Sunday on behalf of some of these endorsed candidates. We’re recruiting volunteers for the final push as we speak.

If you want to help out this election, give your local NRA EVC a call or e-mail. You can find out who they are on NRA’s web site. If your EVC is active, he or she should be thrilled to hear from you. If not, let me know and I can try to find out their status. Most EVCs are chronically short of volunteers to help out with things. Being able to send a few volunteers to an endorsed campaign, even for a few hours in an election cycle, makes a huge impression on the campaign and the candidate. Good volunteers are hard to come by, and given the other things NRA brings to the table, it’s a very powerful incentive to get them and keep them voting the right way. Once word gets out in the political circles that the gun issue brings money and volunteers, you’ll have other campaigns wondering what they can do to get that too. Answer? Vote the right way. At least one of these endorsed candidates above got that message loud and clear, and we’re going to try to help out their campaign this year as much as we can. The more people I have to send, the more incentive they have to improve. This program has the potential to work very well, but is entirely dependent on NRA members being willing to help out. This is the part where I beg you to help out.

Phoenix, Arizona has ads for gun training pulled. TrainMeAZ.com should hire a lawyer and sue. I’m fairly certain this runs afoul of the First Amendment.

I couldn’t have imagined Dan Boren was suddenly turning on us, which is why this headline appearing in my alerts made me do a double take:

Oklahoma Representative Boren: Microstamping Bill is Pro-Gun

They are talking about an NRA backed bill to fund a study on microstamping, not the act of mandating microstamping itself. I actually questioned someone at NRA about this wisdom of this when the issue came out a few weeks ago, but they noted that when they’ve done these kinds of studies (real scientific studies, as opposed to the crap our opponents peddle) they’ve been more useful for our side than they are for the other. The only serious study of microstamping done to date wasn’t favorable to the technology, so I think the hope is this study confirms those findings and helps put this issue to bed.

You’re going to be grilled by your “betters.” And this guy was a House Delegate! I’d hate to see what would happen to your average American. The process for carry rights is just beginning, but it’s happening. I’m glad Delegate Smigiel is getting the process started in Maryland.

As long as I’m already picking on her, here’s another gem:

And finally, at least for now: This man was just plain lucky that his loaded gun being shown at a gun show didn’t shoot another person.

Let me fix that for you:

And finally, at least for now: This man was just plain lucky that someone didn’t pick up his loaded gun being shown at the gun show and carelessly shoot another person.

Be careful what your words convey about your attitude, lest we start wondering whether you can really grasp who the responsible parties would be in that scenario. This might be nitpicking on anyone else, but I really do believe our favorite Brady Board member believes that guns kill people.

I’m rather amused at the irony of a Brady Board member speaking about the problem of handling loaded guns in public when their side promotes it every time they advocate creating another “gun free” exception to the rule that LTC holders can carry loaded firearms in public. It may not be the intent, but the practical effect is people removing loaded firearms from themselves in public places, and leaving them in vehicles where they are more susceptible to theft. That a gun is best left in a holster in control of the person carrying it is my definition of “common sense.”

The shows I’ve been to vary on whether they let you carry loaded. Some do. Others suggest any gun coming through the door get flagged (usually with a tie through the action or barrel). It only takes one incident, like this idiot, for a show to get kicked out of a venue, and most promoters don’t want to take the risk. But again, I think there’s a greater risk of a round going off having dozens of people loading and unloading firearms than someone carrying doing something stupid with it. Few shows I’ve seen have adequate clearing barrels or backstops for people unloading carry pieces. You want to promote gun safety? How about taking that issue up with promoters?

Now it is literally. The Center for Biological Diversity is our latest gun control group. “For the children” didn’t work too well. Now we’ll see if “For the Birds” has any better luck. As we’ve said time and again, there are legal problems with replacing lead with other materials in ammunition, in that depending on the material and composition of the bullet, it will magically become “armor piercing,” and thus be illegal for civilian use.

(B) The term `armor piercing ammunition’ means-

(i) a projectile or projectile core which may be used in a handgun and which is constructed entirely (excluding the presence of traces of other substances) from one or a combination of tungsten alloys, steel, iron, brass, bronze, beryllium copper, or depleted uranium; or

(ii) a full jacketed projectile larger than .22 caliber designed and intended for use in a handgun and whose jacket has a weight of more than 25 percent of the total weight of the projectile.

(C) The term `armor piercing ammunition’ does not include shotgun shot required by Federal or State environmental or game regulations for hunting purposes, a frangible projectile designed for target shooting, a projectile which the Secretary finds is primarily intended to be used for sporting purposes, or any other projectile or projectile core which the Secretary finds is intended to be used for industrial purposes, including a charge used in an oil and gas well perforating device.

Unfortunately, I don’t think Jeff Miller gives a birds butt about the legal issues. If this guy gets his way, we’ll only be able to possess ammunition that’s frangible, or under exceptions granted by the feds, or calibers for which there is no handgun made (which is almost none of them). This is a huge can of worms, and Jeff Miller is delusional if he thinks we’re not going to fight him and his group of bird loving hippies every step of the way.

UPDATE: It should be pointed out that hunting in California has not been unharmed, as the CBD is claiming:

Last fall, in the first hunting season after California imposed a ban on lead ammunition in the state’s condor range, hunting license sales fell considerably after three years of steady gains. In the affected regions, the number of deer hunters dropped nearly 5 percent and hog hunters dropped 15 percent—costing the California Department of Fish and Game more than $200,000 in lost tag fees alone, according to a March 13 story in the San Bernadino Sun.

So Jeff Miller is either ignorant or a liar. You generally can’t win in this issue being honest.

It looks like Illinois is taking the position that the plaintiff falls under one of their exceptions, given that she can lawfully possess firearms in her home state. I’m not an expert on legal matters, by any stretch, but it seems like this motion is going to be tough to overcome. The plaintiff is saying she can’t possess a firearm in the State of Illinois. The State of Illinois is saying she can, and is arguing she’s failed to make a case.

I’m not sure it matters if they later arrest someone for possessing a loaded firearm in, say, a hotel while staying in Illinois. The person they arrest will have a case. But it’s hard to see how to defeat the state saying “Yes you can,” when you say,” No, I can’t.”  It doesn’t seem to me that the state’s interpretation of the statute is wildly implausible either.