Category: Gun Rights

They are fast approaching the final vote to repeal the long gun registry in Canada. The gun control groups there are doing everything they can to prevent it from happening. To me the greatest argument against the registry is the cost, and the fact that it diverts law enforcement resources from catching actual criminals to bureaucratic administrative functions that have little or nothing to do with catching criminals and preventing crime. Canada’s number look somewhat similar to ours in this respect:

There are nearly 7 million registered long guns in Canada, the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics reports. Yet, the public safety department adds, of 2,441 homicides recorded in Canada since mandatory long-gun registration was introduced in 2003, fewer than 2 percent (47) were committed with rifles and shotguns known to have been registered.

So we’re talking two percent of homicides. Imagine if the billions of dollars the registry cost were instead spent on increasing the number of police on the streets of Canada’s major cities?

This big story in the Washington Post is that a Washington man was charged with threatening to kill Senator Patty Murray over her vote on health care. It has implications for us:

Wilson has a .38-caliber revolver registered to him and has a concealed weapons permit, Woodbury wrote.

You know, it used to be the really hard-core anti-government whack jobs didn’t get concealed carry licenses, because they didn’t want to be on “some government list”, or didn’t want to have to go beg to “the man.”  I yearn for those good old days.

Clayton Cramer is co-author on a law review article in George Mason Law Review. The title is “This Right Is Not Allowed By Governments That Are Afraid Of The People”: The Public Meaning of the Second Amendment When the Fourteenth Amendment Was Ratified. Go have a read.

According to NSSF, apparently the UN believes they have lawful authority to demand manufacturers turn over information about guns they have sold. Manufacturers and Dealers are required to run trace requests at the request of their regulating agency, which is the ATF. The UN is not the H&K USA’s regulating agency, last I checked; all they can do is ask nicely. If you look at the PDF of the UN request, you will note in the bottom right corner a request to “Please Recycle” which is exactly what I’d do with this “trace request” if I were the manufacturer.

Governor Manchin of West Virginia has vetoed two NRA backed bills. I have to give him credit, at least for principled opposition on the bills. The one, which was a tax free holiday on guns, he’s opposed to because it would undermine revenue for the state at a time when the state was struggling to make ends meet. As a person who’s fairly neutral on these tax holidays for guns, this doesn’t particularly dismay me. The other bill the Governor vetoed is the Bloomberg Bill, which would have make his “stings” illegal, and his opposition to this is far more interesting:

“I am in full support of this legislation,” Manchin said of SB515, “However, I must veto the bill for technical reasons. There is a faulty cross-reference in the bill that would purportedly penalize violations of an unrelated code section.”

I’m not one to trust a politician at his word, but sure enough, you go into the bill and you have a drafting error:

(5) A person who knowingly solicits, persuades, encourages or entices a licensed dealer or private seller of firearms or ammunition to transfer a firearm or ammunition under circumstances which the person knows would violate the laws of this state or the United States is guilty of a felony. A person who willfully procures another to engage in conduct prohibited by this subsection shall be punished as a principal. This subsection does not apply to a law-enforcement officer acting in his or her official capacity. Any person who violates the provisions of section five of subsection (5) of this section is guilty of a felony, and upon conviction thereof, shall be fined not more than $5,000, imprisoned in a state correctional facility for a definite term of not less than one year nor more than five years, or both fined and imprisoned.

Emphasis mine. Section five is relating to revocation of permits, and it’s not part of any subsection. In fact, it’s not really possible to have a section of a subsection, and section 5 doesn’t have a subsection 5 regardless. This is completely nonsensical if you look at the layout of West Virginia’s statutes. I’m not sure I agree with the Governor that it criminalizes an unintended section, but it’s definitely wrong and needs to be fixed. It can easily be fixed by replacing the bolded portions with “this subsection.”  Hard to believe this made it all the way to the Governor without anyone noticing.

This here is exactly why we’re against wide discretion:

Based on their experience and contacts, sheriffs sometimes “just know” without written documentation that a person can’t be trusted with a carry permit, Gardner said.

No, you don’t just know. When someone comes in the door to hand you an application, you don’t know him from Adam. Talking to someone for a brief period isn’t like to be more revealing. If you can’t articulate the reasons a permit should be denied, you should issue. That’s how it works for most Iowa counties, and how it works in most states in this country.