Category: Gun Rights

It would seem that someone in Tennessee finally figured out something important about the culture of the Second Amendment:

Legislators are often scorned for being afraid of the National Rifle Association and passing gun bills, quaking in fear of the special interest group. Most Tennessee legislators are not afraid of the NRA, they are the NRA. Most rural Democrats and most of the Republicans have been members of the NRA for decades. They feel exactly like the NRA lobbyists on most gun issues.

It’s amazing that it took this long for them to notice. How many candidates use their membership in stump speeches and materials? It’s fairly common and yet the press just now noticed? Observant ones, they are.

The easiest lobbying job in Nashville is the gun lobby. The only controversy on gun issues is an argument over who gets to sponsor which gun bill.

Somehow I doubt that. If it was really that easy, there would never be debate.

It is also argued that the last session of the Legislature was only about guns and gun bills. The last session of the Legislature passed more bills than any other in modern history. The gun bills got coverage, as they should have, but it doesn’t mean the regular work of the General Assembly did not proceed as usual. There are always one or two big issues that suck up the coverage and the vast majority of legislation passes unnoticed. That’s how we get blindsided with bills like the workman’s comp bill, which turned out to be such a disaster it will have to be dealt with in a special session.

This is not the fault of the people who cover the Legislature. They get limited minutes and inches to report on the doings of the day, and gun bills are going to get more play than workman’s comp.

You mean the press purposely sensationalizes coverage and ignores major legislative concerns? Shocking, I tell you.

Yes, it is true that it’s not actually the fault of people who cover legislative news that Tennessee’s lawmakers screwed something up. However, perhaps if those covering the legislature were more interested in the overall work of the legislature instead of only the sensational stories, more of these problems would be caught. There is no excuse for poor work on the matter, especially when the coverage of gun-related bills is often terrible to begin with.

What two brothers are going to in order to get their permits approved for getting pistols before a ban goes into effect in Ireland.  Doesn’t look good. How would you like to find yourself having to do this?

“[IPSC’s] not in the Olympic arena?” the Inspector asked. “No,” the applicant replied.

“I’d like to say that the Superintendent might have had concerns at the level of security but that wasn’t being mentioned to us at any point,” he said.

His brother took to the stand and described a Glock pistol as a semi-automatic 9mm firearm which is used in competition.

He said the gun is “popular because it is reliable and cheap”. “Is it fair to say it is easy to conceal?” Inspector Ruane asked. “If you were wearing a trenchcoat it would be easy to conceal any gun.”

The Inspector told him he was engaging in semantics and put it to the applicant that a Glock pistol is “the weapon of choice to criminals in this jurisdiction.”

The applicant said he was entitled to a licence under that legislation in place in October, 2008. “You were entitled to be considered for the licensing of a firearm” Inspector Ruane clarified. The applicant agreed.

Yes, before a judge, being treated as if you might be a common criminal, just because you want a Glock to do IPSC competition. You might hide it under your trenchcoat, you know. It’s the “weapon of choice” for criminals. Where have we heard that before? Never here.

NRA is throwing its support behind an effort to improve the Law Enforcement Officer Safety Act, which allows retired and off-duty police officers to carry their firearms nationwide. I know this is not hugely popular among some of the grass roots, and even I have some reservations about whether it’s constitutional, but it’s important to keep law enforcement rank and file on our side. Remember the last time we lost support of the Fraternal Order of Police? It was the early 90s, and I don’t think too many of us need a refresher on what happened then. Consider this a favor in order to keep friendly relationships. I’ll support law enforcement in this, as long as the FOP keeps supporting us, especially on the Tiahrt issue, which MAIG and Brady are directly opposed to, and which the FOP favors.

NRA-ILA is reporting that New Hampshire is considering adding a whole lot of places you can’t carry. It’s been a long time since any state proposed restricting concealed carry. I’m thinking that the Democrats aren’t going to last long in the Granite State. New Hampshire is about as gun friendly as it gets.

It’ll be a fight, for sure, but the Virginia legislature looks more pro-gun than it did, and they have a pro-gun Governor in Bob McDonnell:

Del. Scott Lingamfelter, R-Woodbridge, is proposing to do away with the Gov. Doug Wilder-era policy that limits a person to buying a single gun a month, arguing the rule “has run its course.”

“I don’t think it’s been a very effective policy,” Lingamfelter said. “It hasn’t done much to prevent crime; it has done a lot to affect commerce.”

All the changes look good though, but Virginia will be the second state to repeal gun rationing because it doesn’t work (the other is South Carolina). Before the one-gun-a-month law, gun control advocates bitched about Virginia being a prime source of crime guns. After one-gun-a-month, they are still bitching. It doesn’t work. It’s time for the law to go.

Surprising that the Des Moines Register is willing to run a pro-right-to-carry op-ed, in this case by the Iowa Sportsmen’s Federation Executive Director Craig Swartz. Sounds like they are running a good media operation for getting this timely editorial placed in the state’s major paper. Good on them.

The Finns have traditionally had a strong shooting culture, often centered around using Russians for target practice, but that’s not going to last much longer because their shooting organizations are weak:

Shooting hobbyists and hunters campaign on behalf of responsible gun use. They want to secure the right to use guns as a hobby, while conceding the need for control.

“Sello involved an illegal weapon. Tougher gun legislation would not have been a solution”, says Markku Lainevirta,, head of a project on the development of the shooting hobby launched by the Shooting Hobby Forum.

“It is a step in the right direction that tougher restrictions are coming for the granting of a person’s first handgun licence.”

The Shooting Hobby Forum includes shooting hobbyists, hunters, and military reservists.

How is increasing the restriction on licensing going to help your sport? Will it help bring in more people? Will it help convince the general public that gun ownership in and of itself is not a social ill? I mean, by conceding that we need to increase restrictions, you concede that guns in the hands of individuals contributes to Jokela and Kauhojoki. You’re accepting blame for something in which you are blameless.

This will backfire. Next time this happens, they will come knocking on your door again, and again, and again, until they ask for something you don’t want to give up. By that time, you will have willingly reduced the number of people in your sport to such a degree that you will be politically powerless to resist their demands.

Looks like Tim Bearden is planning a pretty broad expansion:

The legislation he is working on, a variation of House Bill 615 that was presented before committee in the waning hours of the 2009 legislative session, would expand the possible places owners could legally carry their guns, changing the current law to allow owners to carry guns in all places except for courthouses and prisons and jails, effectively ensuring that no unauthorized person would be allowed to carry a gun where inmates are housed or transferred.

That would pretty much fix all the problems with concealed carry in Georgia. The only step after that really would be to adopt Alaska carry.