Category: Gun Rights

Senator Wayne Fontana is looking at legislation to expand mentored hunting to adults, instead of just children. As an adult who has never hunted, but would like to try, this is a program I’d take advantage of. The big problem for me is finding time to do hunters education. Hunting requires an awful lot of investment up front to get into it. Shooting not so much. I’m reluctant to put so much time into something I may not do more than once or twice, depending on how much I get out of it.

Dave Hardy picks up on an old story about the UN Arms Treaty. There was some buzz about this more recently due to a Washington Times article, but I haven’t been able to find anything new the Administration has said about this treaty. This might not be a tiger the Obama Administration wants to try to ride, because there’s a lot of information, some true, some exaggerated, making its way around to people. In the two gun shows we’ve worked, people have mentioned the treaty, and they are angry about it.

A lot of these stories are floating around in the boomersphere. What’s the boomersphere? It has to do with how various generations communicate. Younger people, notably those under thirty, are adept at using social networking such as Twitter and Facebook. GenX and late Baby Boomers do the blog thing, and often the forum thing. The earlier Baby Boomers, the ones in their sixties now, use e-mail chains to spread information. These e-mail chains I have dubbed the “Boomersphere.” While Baby Boomers seem to have poor Internet filters (half the things you read on the Internet are BS, and not to knock ‘Boomers, but the default seems to be to continue the e-mail chain rather than question in information within) the e-mail chains are remarkably effective at spreading information far and wide and getting people fired up. Now if only we can figure out a way to get them fired up over things that are actually true. The UN Treaty is potentially hazardous enough to lawful gun ownership there’s no exaggeration or deception required. It’s bad enough on its own.

We have another gun control bill coming up in Pennsylvania’s House Judiciary tomorrow. See here for contact information from the Committee. This is the bill that aims to close what the media has dubbed the “Florida Loophole.” If this passes, Pennsylvania will no longer recognize reciprocal licenses if you’re a resident of Pennsylvania.

It’s not uncommon for residents of Philadelphia to seek out the Florida license, because Philadelphia has an odious habit of revoking even for minor issues, like unpaid parking tickets, and has also been known to revoke if you’re the victim of a theft. Needless to say, given the problems we’ve had in Pennsylvania with Sheriffs and the City of Philadelphia abusing their discretion under the UFA when it comes to revoking permits, we can’t allow this to pass.

Thanks to commenter Sterling Archer for this story of Carthage:

History demonstrates that destruction awaits those who attempt to placate their enemies by surrendering their weapons. In 149 BC, half a million citizens of Carthage tried to appease Rome by turning over their armaments. But instead of buying peace, they only facilitated their own destruction. Ninety percent of the Carthaginians were killed, and the city of Carthage was razed. Those who survived were sold into slavery, and Carthaginian civilization was forever wiped from the face of the earth. The story of how the Carthaginians sealed their fate by delivering their weapons into the hands of their enemy is chronicled in my book, Science and Technology in World History, Vol. 1.

I’m trying to think of any point in history where appeasing an aggressive enemy has actually worked out pretty well for the appeaser.

This is a great story in Washington City Paper about what happened with the DC Voting Rights Act that NRA was moving. It provides some interesting insight into what might have happened to scuttle the bill:

Some aides on the Hill believe the Childers changes ultimately provided a convenient excuse to escape the pressure. “She got some bad editorials,” an aide to the Democratic leadership says of Norton. “She was looking for an offramp and she found one.”

“The language on guns was still being finalized,” adds another aide. “In that final go-around, Delegate Norton made a determination that it was not something the District could accept. She indicated that to the majority leader and a decision was made to pull the bill.” As reporters gathered Tuesday morning for Democratic Majority Leader Steny Hoyer’s weekly briefing, they were first told the vote was a go—and moments later they were told that it was being shelved. Again.

On the Hill, few people think that the bill will resurface. “At this point in time I do not see the ability to move it in this session of Congress,” Hoyer told the Washington Post.

So sounds like Norton might have been having doubts and getting cold feet, and the Childers amendment was her cover from pull out of a deal she wasn’t sure she wanted to make anyway. I can’t vouch for the authenticity of any of this account, as NRA does not share details of its legislative strategy with me, but it sounds plausible, and this is what the Dems are saying happened. Read the whole thing. It’s a great insight into the chess game Joe was talking about a few days ago.

A reporter tries to exploit the gun show loophole in Minnesota and finds it’s more difficult than he thought. What prompted him? Well, this:

Paymar [sponsor of gun show bill in MN] has never fired a handgun, nor has he ever attended a gun show. He was moved to act, he says, after seeing a YouTube clip. In it, Colin Goddard, a Virginia Tech massacre survivor who was shot four times, attends gun shows and successfully buys firearms without undergoing a background check or even being asked to show identification.

So I decided to try to buy a gun. To hear the Citizens for a Safer Minnesota tell it, this would be an easy task. I didn’t have a permit, but surely these gun merchants would insist I purchase their wares, federal red tape be damned. I might even enjoy it.

And he found out no one would sell one to him. He tried a few private buys and got no takers. What follows is a description of the gun show culture we’re all familiar with. Only it’s a fair description.

Cemetery tells a story of a man with a common name who found out he was on the terrorist watch list. I was surprised that he has issues purchasing firearms, but New Jersey does a different background check than most states. Maybe that ends up showing up in New Jersey’s system. If it’s a NICS thing, that makes me wonder how the FBI is already using the list.