Category: Gun Rights

I have obtained a copy of Bloomberg’s secret “Blueprint for Federal Action on Guns” which is really a blueprint for how the Obama Administration can screw gun owners without needing anything from Congress. Chuck Michel is responsible for filing to FOIA request to get this one out and public where it belongs, [UPDATE: If you want to get the exclusive on this kind of stuff, I would suggest heading over to calgunlaws.com and registering. Their law firm does a lot of cutting edge Second Amendment legal work. It’s a great resource.] This was the infamous 40 recommendations that the Washington Post reported on a few months ago. It this document doesn’t convince you that MAIG is a significantly more serious threat than any other gun control organization out there, nothing will. Whoever wrote this knows ATF very well, and understands federal gun laws well enough to know how to effectively make changes using only administrative and regulatory changes, which do not require action from the US Congress. While some of the 40 recommendations are not objectionable, quite a number of them are. Let me go down the list and pick out some of the worst offenders, and this is by no means a comprehensive list. Look at the document yourself to find others:

• Require REAL ID compliant identification for all gun purchasers. Those in non-complying states, which are many, will no longer be permitted to buy firearms.
• Recommends a ban on the importation of all “non-sporting” firearms and ammunition, and specifically calls for banning the FN Five-Seven. Kiss cheap imported rounds of military caliber goodbye. Maybe kiss Glock’s goodbye too. MAIG isn’t all that specific on what would be sporting or non sporting. Also note that MAIG can no longer claim they do not advocate banning guns. They do.
• Calls for keeping records for people who get a NICS default proceed, which means your background check has not “cleared” but you went through the required three day waiting period. These records can be kept for up to 20 years, in the case of someone who’s name matches someone on the “terror watch” list and six months ordinarily. Default proceeds can happen if NICS has incomplete records, or the system is down for a protracted period of time.
• Calls for more enforcement of gun shows using the Richmond model. The techniques used at the Richmond gun shows were bad enough that Congress held hearings about the methods, and demanding ATF put a stop to them. They actually recommend rescinding a number of the changes made to prevent these abuses.
• Recommends ways for the administration to exploit loopholes in Tiahrt to publish information on “problematic” gun dealers (so they can be sued by New York City, no doubt). As we’ve pointed out on this blog before, having a lot of traces doesn’t necessarily mean a dealer is breaking the law.
• Lots of recommendations for new record keeping requirements on the part of FFLs
• Requiring placement of alternate serial numbers of every newly manufactured gun, and requiring serial numbers to be deeper and larger. Also require that a consistent serial numbering scheme be adopted across all manufacturers and importers.
• Asks ATF to promote MAIG’s Responsible Dealer Partnership Program that they foisted on Wal-Mart, much like they do with NSSF’s “Don’t Lie for the Other Guy.” They imply NSSF’s program does not go far enough.
• Asks the CPSC to mandate gun safety lock standards. Gun dealers are required to provide these, but many gun owners are older, or younger, and do not have children. This would be a way to add substantially to the cost of a firearm, if a 30 dollar lock needed to be included with each sale.
• Extend the multiple purchase reporting requirement to long guns, especially ARs, 50 caliber firearms, and Kalashnikov variants. MAIG is not very clear on this, and I think it would be difficult for dealers to keep track of the current state of regulation.
• Specifically calls for the Stinger Pen Gun to be reclassified as an AOW. I had never heard of this before, but I guess it really pisses off someone in the New York Mayor’s office, which is a good enough reason, if any, to go buy one.

There can be no doubt now that MAIG is a gun control group, and a particularly dangerous one. This blueprint is comprehensive, and very well put together. Whoever helped MAIG with this knows what they are talking about, and I would imagine is a former higher up at ATF, since it evinces a detailed knowledge of how ATF works, and what their weaknesses are.

Please, if you have a MAIG Mayor in your town, or near your town, we need your help in getting them out. After the holidays, we’re all going to have some work to do in this regard, especially here in Pennsylvania. We’re pretty screwed if Obama even does some of these things. Let’s hope he has the good sense to know that the rest of the country isn’t New York City when it comes to this topic.

Many folks might not be aware, but there’s a push going on to try to take Iowa into the “shall issue” camp. I don’t follow Iowa politics terribly closely, so I can’t pretend to be an expert, but based on what understanding I do have, a great challenging in moving Iowa is similar to that of Delaware, in that though it may technically be may-issue, as a practical matter it’s not hard to get a license for most people who want them.

But my understanding in Delaware is that all three counties will generally issue, though I’ve heard New Castle County is a bit tougher. In Iowa, there are a number of counties that simply will not issue a permits to carry concealed, or are very restrictive. In addition the state is lacking in any reciprocity, because the current law doesn’t allow for it. In that sense, Iowa’s situation is considerably worse off than that of my southern neighbors.

To me, the goal should be to move Iowa into the shall issue column. The Firearms Coalition is pushing for an Alaska style carry bill, and has numerous criticisms of the NRA bill, to support their position on the bill, they say:

The Alaska bill had 25 cosponsors among the 100 members of the Iowa House and failed to pass by just one vote ending in a 49 – 49 tie in the final minutes of the legislative session.(Note: This was not a straight up or down vote, but a procedural vote on whether to suspend the rules to allow the Alaska-style bill language to be amended onto a must-pass bill.  It still demonstrates a surprising level of support.)

I wouldn’t be so quick to make the assumption that a close procedural votes reflects the amount of support the bill has overall, since there’s a lot that goes into passing a bill. Being able to clear a procedural hurdle is certainly a good thing, but that’s only the beginning, and Alaska carry didn’t make it. How long are we going to make Iowans wait for a perfect bill? The Des Moines register is reporting that late last week, before the holiday, NRA got some improvements on this bill. Firearms Coalition helped create some noise, which gave cover to improve the bill, and for that I applaud them. But I am hoping when push comes to shove, they aren’t going to make Iowans wait any longer for a plausible, shall-issue bill, in the same way Rocky Mountain Gun Owners for years created problems moving Colorado into the shall-issue camp. We’ve shown in other states that making that move is the biggest hurdle, and that further improvements can be successfully pushed once legislators realize the sky hasn’t fallen. We can use that model for Iowa too.

This is interesting, as it could have come from an NRA press release, rather than being published in an Indian paper:

Many may say,’What difference will possessing arms make?’. The right answer to this question could be perfectly answered by ones logical mind. On 26/11, even if 10% of the crowd at Taj Hotel beared arms, there wouldnt have been a human slaughter! The simple reason being atleast 50% of the 10% arms owner would have had the guts to shoot-down the terrorist. It has been one complete year for 26/11 event and still our Indian Government are busy requesting quotations from foreign arms manufacturers .

All is not lost on the International Front just yet, even if it’s largely lost in Europe.

Hat Tip to MikeB

The Bucks County Intelligencer does an article on H.B.40, the “Castle Doctrine” bill in Pennsylvania, which contains some law enforcement opposition to the bill:

Still, the Pennsylvania State Police, Pennsylvania Police Chiefs Association, CeaseFirePA and the Pennsylvania District Attorneys Association oppose the bill.

That the Pennsylvania State Police are lining up in opposition should be no great surprise, considering the Police Commissioner has been actively working with gun control groups, including CeaseFire PA, throughout the Commonwealth. You can see this letter here where the Commissioner of the PA State Police is working actively with MAIG Mayors to violate the state preemption law. He was appointed a few years ago by Governor Ed, so you know where his loyalties lie.

We have to make the State Police Commissioner an issue in the 2010 election for Governor. Any candidate we endorse has to be committed to making sure the State Police concentrates on their job of policing, and stays out of gun control as an issue. If that means firing the Commissioner, we need our candidate to be supportive of that end should it become necessary.

See this article here:

The suspect, who carried the explosive in his underwear, passed through security at two airports — in Nigeria and Amsterdam, Netherlands. Plus he was not on any “no-fly” list, even though he was on a massive federal database of people with suspected ties to terrorists and his father apparently had warned U.S. embassy officials in Nigeria about his son.

Didn’t work to keep airline flights safe, which was its primary purpose, it’s not going to work any better to keep them from having access to guns.

Jacob is speaking of Chuck Schumer’s hunting trip, and mentions:

Common sense = New York City-style gun laws.  He does brag about his shooting medal too whenever he feels it would score him some political points.  For some reason, though, he doesn’t brag about when as State Assemblyman he voted to gut the Sullivan Act and make all of New York (and New York City) right to carry.  I have the vote sheet of him doing that.

So in this sense, Chuck Schumer isn’t that different than other half of New York’s Senate delegation. There’s not much in the way of principles in the political process. Everything is up for negotiation. Like Kirsten Gillibrand sold the Second Amendment out for down state votes, so did Chuck Schumer once upon a time. There’s a word for Senators who stand fast on principle, the political consequences be damned: “Former Senator.”  It’s our job to make sure the political consequences line up on the side of being pro-Second Amendment.

NRA is reporting:

In a press release issued December 10 from Bloomington Harley-Davidson the business states, “Harley-Davidson of Bloomington believes in freedom and is a strong supporter of Second Amendment rights … We believe the decision of the Herald-Times, a valued business partner, to publish a searchable database of gun permit holders in the state of Indiana by street, is an unnecessary and dangerous practice.”

“I want to sincerely thank Harley-Davidson of Bloomington for their strong support of Indiana gun owners.  Gun owners appreciate their principled denunciation of the Bloomington Herald-Times’ reckless action of publishing a database of law-abiding right-to-carry permit holders,” said Chris W. Cox, executive director of NRA-ILA.  “Our freedom is the cornerstone of our democracy, and we are grateful to have businesses like Harley-Davidson of Bloomington on the side of the Second Amendment.”

Good news. Maybe some of their other advertisers will respond as well.

Accidental death statistics someone sent me are interesting, mostly because it gives total lifetime odds.  You have higher lifetime odds of accidental death from the following sources more than guns (which are 1:5981):

• Drowning in a swimming pool (1:5501)
• Drowning in a lake or other natural water (1:2384)
• Being struck by or striking against an object (1:4555)
• Contact with machinery (1:5189)
• All types of falls, including falling from furniture (1:4238)
• Plane crash or spacecraft explosion (1:5862)
• ATV accident (1:3579)
• Being a pedestrian (1:623)

It’s not an excuse to get lax about safe gun handling or education, but in the realm of ways to die accidentally, guns are not a problem. When you consider how many households have a gun in them, it’s really not a problem. Fewer houses have swimming pools, and overall lifetime odds of dying from a swimming pool are more than guns, and this is whether you own a pool or a gun or not.

When we talk lifetime odds of being killed by criminal action rise to 1:207, which is roughly on par with a lot of transport accidents. Yet someone who wears a seat belt is sensible, and someone who carries a gun is crazy.

Marketing guru Seth Godin has some useful thoughts that could be applied to our issue:

If they only thought like you, of course, and knew what you know, then there wouldn’t be a problem.

The challenge doesn’t lie in getting them to know what you know. It won’t help. The challenge lies in helping them see your idea through their lens, not yours. If you study the way religions and political movements spread, you can see that this is exactly how it works. Marketers of successful ideas rarely market the facts. Instead, they market stories that match the worldview of the people being marketed to.

RTWT. That’s why we have to think very carefully about messaging. Lots of people got angry at NRA for “enforce the laws on the books,” who in my opinion were falling victim to this kind of problem when it comes to marketing ideas. Most people do not have a constitution theory on gun rights. They might say they support the Second Amendment, and in some form they do, but they don’t really have a strong theory about it. You’re not going to get them to think too hard about it either, because they really just don’t give a shit. There’s two ways to deal with that, one productive and the other unproductive. The unproductive way is to just get angry with them, and write them off as stupid fools. The productive one is, as Godin says, making arguments “that match the worldview of the people being marketed to.”  That doesn’t have to mean sacrificing our constitutional theories, but it does mean having to use language and arguments that ordinary people can relate to. That helps suck energy from our opponents’ world view, and make it less appealing, which does have real value.

GOA was really the one to raise the alarm about the Health Care Bill, but Politico reports it’s been fixed regardless. I suppose that’s a positive development, since it looks like Harry Reid managed to buy off Ben Nelson and Lieberman, giving him the 60 needed votes.