Category: Gun Rights

From Dave Kopel’s book, Aiming for Liberty: The Past, Present, And Future of Freedom and Self-Defense, Chapter Four, “Some Deceptions and Errors Used to Promote Anti-Gun Laws”:

The story of the nonexistent “cop-killer” bullet begins in 1976 in Massachusetts, when a handgun-confiscation initiative was defeated in a landslide. Then in 1982 in California, a handgun “Freeze” initiative also lost overwhelmingly. The gun-pohibitiation lobbies began to realize that they wold have to work more incrementally, rather than pushing for prohibition outright.

The prohibition lobbies also realized that the police were one of their worst problems. Wile a few police chiefs or sheriffs could always be found to support prohibition, the vast majority of police — both commanders and line officers — were extremely skeptical of gun control. Something had to be done to turn the police (or at least their Washington lobbyists) against the National Rifle Association.

The something, ironically, was an obscure type of ammunition invented by police officers two decades before. These bullets were known as KTW bullets, after the initials of the three persons who invented them: Dr. Paul Kopsch, and police officers Daniel Turcus and Don Ward.

The chapter goes on to describe what these so-called cop-killer bullets were actually created for, which was shooting through barriers. It also mentions their appearance in the Lethal Weapon series of movies, which is probably responsible for driving public misconceptions about guns during the late 80s and early 90s than a lot of others.

The problem with this gambit is that it worked, at least for a while. The anti-gun groups’ ability to drive misconceptions and public opinion on the gun issue used to be a powerful weapon against us, but it’s diminished quite a bit in the past decade. As much as I’d like to give new media the credit, I think it comes down to a lot of factors, one of which is changes in the shooting culture from the sporting orientation of older generations, to a more self-defense oriented mindset that started with the baby boomers in the 80s and 90s. There was a lot of changes in policing in the 80s and 90s as well, which may have helped the gun prohibition movement to drive divisions there as well.

Remember the case of that guy who got caught at LAX because he was picking up a friend to go shooting with a trunk for of so-called “assault weapons?” He plead guilty to Misdemeanor CCW and had his guns returned. Good work on the part of his attorneys. It’s a travesty that he was guilty of anything, but at least this lets him go on with life, and he won’t be a prohibited person. You’ll notice in the memo that the LAPD were trying to consider multiple firearms, including a Broomhandle Mauser, “assault weapons”, when they were no such thing according to the legal definition.

Saul Cornell’s Joyce funded center is no more. Apparently Professor Joe Olson got a rather hilarious e-mail about the same. We continue to rack up victory while detractors among us continue to claim Heller was really a defeat. Their prattle gets more and more ridiculous by the day.

From a chapter two in Dave Kopel’s book Aiming for Liberty: The Past, Present, And Future of Freedom and Self-Defense, called the same as my title:

Michigan’s law requiring a government permit in order to buy a handgun was enacted after Dr. Ossian Sweet, a black man, shot and killed a person in a mob that was attacking his house because he had just moved into an all-white neighborhood. The Detroit Police stood nearby, refusing to restrain the angry crowd.

Indicted for first degree murder, Sweet was acquitted after a lengthy trial at which Clarence Darrow served as his attorney. Black newspapers such as the Amsterdam News and the Baltimore Herald vigorously defended blacks’ right to use deadly force in self-defense against a mob.

Darrow summed up for the jury: “eleven of them go into a house, gentlemen, with no police protection, in the face of a mob, and the hatred of a community, and take guns and ammunition and fight for their rights, and for your rights and for mine, and for the rights of every being that lives. They went in and faced a mob seeking to tear them to bits. Call them something besides cowards.”

The name Clarence Darrow should ring a bell. Even progressives have historically supported the right to bear arms and the right to self-defense. The opposition it received from the modern left for the latter part of the 20th century is largely an anomaly, quite possibly a result of history largely ignoring the role the right to keep and bear arms had in the Civil Rights movement. Kopel’s chapter continues:

Black and civil rights workers armed for self-defense. Daisy Bates, the leader of the Arkansas NAACP and publisher of the Arkansas State Press during the Little Rock High School desegregation case, recalls that three crosses were burned on her lawn and gunshots fired into her home. Her husband, L.C. Bates, stayed up to guard their house with a .45 semi-automatic pistol. Some of their friends organized a volunteer patrol.

After the Bates’s front lawn was bombed, Mrs. Bates telegrammed Attorney General Herbert Brownell in Washington. He replied there was no federal jurisdiction, and told them to go to the local police. “Of course that wasn’t going to protect us,” Mrs. Bates remembered.

State or federal assistance sometimes did come — not when disorder began, but when blacks reacted by arming themselves. In North Carolina, Governor Terry Sanford (who later served as an anti-gun US Senator) refused to command state police to protect a civil rights march from Klan attacks — until he was warned that if there were no police, the marchers would be armed for self-defense.

There was a time when even the NAACP recognized the importance of the right to bear arms in protecting other civil rights. I will continue to bring other choice quotes from Dave Kopel’s book as I make my way through it.

Utah is warning that it needs more funding for its state background check system or “it could be forced to cut off all background checks next year unless lawmakers prop up its anemic budget.” The problem with this is you have a constitutional right hinging on the smooth operation of the system. I can’t think of any better way to get background checks thrown out than states messing with the system and causing real infringements on the exercise of the right.

Utah is among the states that are Points-of-Contact for the purposes of the Brady Act, meaning their state system serves as a substitute for the NICS check. One way Utah, and other states, could save money during these difficult times is by eliminating their state systems and relying solely on the federal NICS system. Most states rely on the federal system.

Dave Kopel has a look at the subject, and doesn’t think GOA is nuts on this one. The question for gun rights groups is whether they want to insert themselves into a contentious political debate over something that’s only tangentially related to their single issue. I think it can go either way, so while I’m normally not very complimentary of GOA’s political acumen, I don’t think they are wrong for raising concerns about what effect a massive government health care bill is going to have on our Second Amendment rights, even if the implications are only theoretical at this point. Plus, we’ve already seen our opponents willing to make arguments along those lines.

Some details are outlined here on her site, which contains some idea of what’s in this MAIG backed bill. I don’t have language of the bill yet, and exactly how bad this will be will depend on that exact language, but here is at least an idea:

• Makes it illegal to traffick or assist in the trafficking of a firearm, making it unlawful to deliver or receive two or more firearms where the individual knows or has reason to believe that the firearms are being, or will be, used in a felony. [Isn’t this already against the law?]
• Second, the legislation establishes stiff penalties that are a much-needed deterrent to gun trafficking.  Under this bill, traffickers could face up to twenty years in prison and be fined a significant sum of money.  It also provides greater penalties for kingpins who organize gun trafficking rings, subjecting them to an additional sentence of potentially five consecutive years in prison.  Penalties could increase depending on the number of guns trafficked. [What’s the definition of gun trafficker for the purposes of this bill?]
• The bill also treats individuals engaged in a conspiracy to traffic guns the same as those who actually traffick a gun. [Again, what’s trafficking guns?]
• Third, the Attorney General of the United States and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) are empowered to impose heightened restrictions, levy tough financial penalties, and suspend or revoke the license of any corrupt gun dealer.  Corrupt gun dealers will be subject to a license suspension of up to six months and a fine of up to $2,500 per violation.  This is the first time that the levying of civil penalties will be widely available as a deterrent for corrupt gun dealers. [This is part of NRA backed ATF reform, but who gets to decide the penalty? How are they so empowered? The devil will be in the details with this. Right now all ATF has is license revocation and criminal charges. There is no civil penalty structure for minor violations.]
• The Attorney General is given the authority to identify and impose special restrictions on high-risk gun dealers, which could include dealers who have been unable to trace guns as required by federal law or who report significant or frequent inventory losses or thefts, among other criteria. [How broad is this authority, and what does it encompass? Again, the devil will be in the details.]
• To prevent these high-risk dealers from supplying guns to traffickers, federal law enforcement would be able to impose conditions on them such as increased inspections, inventory checks and reconciliation, training dealers and employees in how to avoid illegal sales, and requiring that the dealer not complete firearm sales until the national instant background check system informs the dealer that they may proceed with the sale. [How do we define corrupt gun dealers? That’s loaded language. Will this bill make it legally impossible to run a gun business in an urban area? If that’s the case, this is a defacto gun ban for the poor and urban. That’s NOT acceptable.]
• To address this problem, the bill would authorize the Director of ATF to hire more personnel necessary to increase the average inspection rate of gun dealers to three years. [I don’t have a problem with every three years, but what regulations will they be prescribing with this new bill?]
• Finally, the legislation upholds the Constitution and protects the rights of law-abiding gun owners.  Specifically, the bill provides a defense for an individual seller who obtains a background check on the person to whom he or she is selling prior to the sale. [Specific defense? It’s currently a defense that the seller had no way of knowing they were selling to a prohibited person, are we imposing strict liability now on a sale that ends up being used in a felony? That’s a backdoor ban on private transfers and is not acceptable.]

My take on this legislation? Bloomberg knows that in short order we’ll be moving in to dismantle New York City’s gun control laws through the courts. He may be able to keep some restrictions, but for the most part, if someone wants to be able to own or carry a gun in New York City, there’s not much the city is going to be able to do to stop or frustrate them. Given that, it’s quite likely Bloomberg is going to appeal to the “conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms” language in Heller in order to try to make operating a gun store in an urban area so legally risky and subject to extreme regulation, that no one can make a living doing it. The Second Amendment can’t effectively mean anything if it doesn’t mean there’s also a right to manufacture, distribute and ultimately sell firearms, even if there are is some legal regulations and qualifications that the government may constitutionally apply to the process. Bloomberg wants to effectively destroy that right in urban areas through regulation of commercial sale.

The US Customs and Border patrol seized bullets headed for Mexico, along with some primers. Not loaded ammunition, actual bullets. Looks like Sierra Game Kings to me. I’ve said, restricting ammo is pointless, because it’s not hard to make your own, and it’s certainly no harder to smuggle components, or even ammunition, than it is to smuggle drugs.

The Firearms Blog has some coverage of the gun laws in Hungary. Looks like they mostly shoot air guns there, because that’s basically all that’s legal. There’s some kind of rubber ball gun that’s apparently relatively unrestricted that looks like it would do some damage if shot at someone. But everything looks pretty restricted otherwise. Sharp contrast from Neighboring Czech Republic, which is relatively unrestricted by European standard. Even Austria’s gun laws aren’t too bad in comparison.

Joe Huffman reports that the Bradys’ allies aren’t going a great job of hiding their overall goals. This is one reason MAIG scares the crap out of me. They don’t carry any of this baggage of the Ghost of Gun Control Past. They are a post-Heller group in both their strategy and their thinking. While I think they have accepted prohibition is off the table, they are still determined to destroy the shooting culture in this country by a death of a thousand cuts. And I think they can still do it too.