Gun Rights – Page 262 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Fixing What Shouldn’t Have Been Broken

People are starting to notice that the gun rationing law passed in the fall at the behest of soon-to-be-ex-Governor Corzine has some serious problems. I’m put off though that the powers that be are claiming they just suddenly realized this:

“As it stands now, retailers would be prohibited from purchasing guns from their suppliers,” said Burlington County Prosecutor Robert Bernardi, who leads the task force. “I think that was an oversight when the legislation was passed.”

The law exempts sales between licensed gun dealers, but not purchases from distributors or manufacturers, which are classified differently under New Jersey law.

It wasn’t an oversight. They were told what this legislation would do, and they didn’t care. Once they bought the vote of Fred “One Gun A Month” Madden, they passed it, and Corzine signed it. Consequences be damned. We’ll fix the problems later, you know, if we feel like it.

We Have to Get Rid of Levdansky

After surviving a challenge from Monica Douglass last election, State Representative David Levdansky has been taking his “Lost and Stolen” show on the road, in an effort to weaken preemption in Pennsylvania by getting municipalities to pass illegal ordinances regulating guns.

“We are on the same team with him,” said Mary Beth Hacke, of West Mifflin, a board member of CeaseFirePA, a non-profit organization dedicated to preventing gun violence through advocacy and education in the communities.

“By this ordinance passing in communities it will make it easier for passage some day in Harrisburg. ‘You’re not hearing the voice of your own constituents,’ will be the message to legislators,” she said.

It’s worth noting that no local municipality has yet to charge a single person with violating these ordinances they are passing. So if they are so useful for fighting crime, why is that the case? This is useless legislation. The anti-gun people know it’s useless legislation. They are pushing it in a desperate move to find a working formula in Pennsylvania. If it works on this issue, you can bet they are going to try it on other issues.

Levdansky has hopped into bed with the opposition, and we have to get him out of office in 2010.

Plot Thwarted

I am happy to see the English Canadians not falling for this ploy to reclaim the French parts of North America for France. Clearly the first step was registering all the guns of the English folk. Now the plot has been thwarted! Citizens of Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Louisiana (among others) can sleep better tonight knowing that Alberta has your back, and isn’t giving up an inch to the damned Frenchies!

It Won’t Save You

Democrats refusing to vote for Corzine because of his crusade to bring gun rationing to the Garden State. As we’ve been saying for a while, gun control isn’t an issue that can salvage a political career, even in New Jersey. It really is the last refuge of scoundrels.

Hat Tip to Dave Adams

Movement on Castle Doctrine in Pennsylvania

Looks like the House Judiciary Committee will be considering the castle doctrine legislation next Thursday, the 19th of November. NRA is asking people to contact the members of the judiciary committee to support the measure. The actual House Bill is HB40. Look over it, it’s a pretty standard type bill. Major provisions:

Eliminates the duty to retreat within one’s home, including attached structures like porches, decks and patios. Exception for people who are using their property to further a criminal activity, so if someone is running a grow operation, and shoots someone breaking in to steal some pot, they can’t claim castle doctrine. Also applies to vehicles, including non-motorized vehicles.
Eliminates the duty to retreat on the streets provided you are in fear of grave bodily injury or harm, and provided you are not engaged in criminal activity. Criminal activity is this instance is narrowly defined as to not include things like spitting on the sidewalk. If you’re a drug dealer, you won’t be able to claim castle doctrine if you end up in a gunfight with a rival.
Clarifies the definition of loaded firearm to include magazines being secured in a separate pouch, rather than specifying a separate container, provided the magazine is secure, and the ammunition covered. This means you only need one range bag, provided it has a place to secure the magazines.
Provides for civil immunity for actions that are ruled self-defense. If the perpetrator sues anyway, it’s a loser pays system, so you can recover attorneys fees. There is no civil liability immunity if you accidentally hit a bystander, so this is not absolute.

To there you have it. Call the reps listed. No doubt there will be a lot of huffing and puffing by politicians, interest groups, and the media about the world will end if this passes. Many of them will never read the bill, or just have an agenda. But I have read it, and will continue to report.

UPDATE: Thanks to Sean for reminding that ACSL will be holding a lobby day on November 18th in support of the Castle Doctrine bill. I didn’t realize they had set a final date, but it looks like they have. Time will be from 9am until sometime in the afternoon. They will meet outside the security checkpoint at the South Entrance to the Capitol, the one with the water fountain outside.

Firearms Freedom Acts

Evan Nappen takes a look at the problems with the various Firearms Freedom Acts from a legal point of view. I can understand why the FFA’s are a useful tool for politicians to please an important constituency, and are useful symbolism, but I think time and energy is best spent actually expanding gun rights.

Crime and Punishment in Massachusetts

You’ll get more time for having a politically incorrect gun magazine than you will for molesting kids. Glad to see they have their priorities in order.

Important Battles Proceeding in Seattle

Joe is covering what’s happening in Seattle right now. Much like us here in Pennsylvania, the Washingtonians have a preemption fight on their hands. The instigator got ousted in his primary, but his successor, just elected last Tuesday, is vowing to continue the fight. Washington’s preemption statute is even more unambiguous than Pennsylvania’s. From the Revised Code of Washington, 9.41.290:

The state of Washington hereby fully occupies and preempts the entire field of firearms regulation within the boundaries of the state, including the registration, licensing, possession, purchase, sale, acquisition, transfer, discharge, and transportation of firearms, or any other element relating to firearms or parts thereof, including ammunition and reloader components. Cities, towns, and counties or other municipalities may enact only those laws and ordinances relating to firearms that are specifically authorized by state law, as in RCWÂ 9.41.300, and are consistent with this chapter. Such local ordinances shall have the same penalty as provided for by state law. Local laws and ordinances that are inconsistent with, more restrictive than, or exceed the requirements of state law shall not be enacted and are preempted and repealed, regardless of the nature of the code, charter, or home rule status of such city, town, county, or municipality.

Seattle’s ordinance banning guns on city property, including parks, is pretty clearly illegal. Hopefully this ordinance won’t last very long.

Getting Ahead of Ourselves

Cemetery reports that some Garden State Gunnies are getting all excited about the prospects of CCW since the election of Chris Christie. Three words, “ain’t gonna happen.” The fact of the matter is, no matter what Steve Lonegan told New Jersey gun owners in the primary, there is no support in the Assembly or Senate to pass a shall-issue bill. Gun owners would be mistaken to look towards Chris Christie as their savior, or knight in shining armor. He’s not. He is your star goalie. His job is merely to keep the opposing team from scoring goals until you can get your team back in the game. It is not realistic to expect anything more from him.

In short, there’s a lot of work to do in the Garden State. You got rid of one anti-gun Assemblyman in Fred Madden’s district and replaced him with a pro-gunner. You have to keep doing that, until you have the votes to expect more from Chris Christie. Until then, you can’t expect him to put his political capital on the line for a fight he’s not going to win. Understand what Christie is. Understand his role. And work on getting your team back in the game.

Playing the Odds

MikeB wonders why people who carry guns don’t also take protective measures against being killed by falling meteors. An interesting question, but probably the wrong analogy. The odds of a person being killed by a falling meteorite are astronomically small. Best estimates of lifetime risk of being killed by meteorite impact is 1 in 700,000.

By contrast the violent crime rate in the us is currently 450 per 100,000 per year. Presuming that’s entirely random (it isn’t, far from it, actually, but let’s just assume it is for now) that’s a total lifetime probability of nearly 40% of being the victim of a violent crime. I don’t have UCR statistics for how much violent crime is stranger on stranger crime, but I do have that for murder, and about 15% of murder is stranger on stranger. Extrapolating the data for violent crime, we have a total lifetime probability of 5.3%. Now, if you adjust for other things, you can probably get that down to under 1% for people who live in very safe areas. But keep in mind, in society we also protect against other very low probability events.

For instance, your odds of being killed by a terrorists are actually lower than being killed by a meteor, yet we take great measures to prevent terrorism. Odds of dying in an automobile accident are only about 1.4% over a lifetime, yet it’s mandatory in all but a few states to wear one’s seatbelt, and we spend billions each year on making cars safer. The total lifetime odds of dying in a fire are only about 0.09%, yet we say it’s irresponsible not to have smoke detectors in the home, and most people agree it’s sensible to keep one in your automobile. The odds of being killed by amusement rides is about the same as a meteor, statistically, yet amusement rides are typically subject to fairly rigorous inspection requirements for safety.

What MikeB fails to understand is that these aren’t really games of just odds. We believe in spending a lot on automobile safety, amusement safety, smoke detectors, fire extinguishers, fences around pools, and the like, because the safety we enjoy is almost entirely the creation of many of these things our society has put into place to create that environment. Remove those things, and the relative danger goes back up.

In the context of guns, this brings us back around to the heart of the debate: does the presence of firearms in society make that society safer, or more dangerous? Those of us who believe in relatively liberal gun laws believe their presence makes society safer, on the whole. Those who believe it makes society more dangerous, naturally they want to take guns out of the society. So we’re back to where we started. And odds argument isn’t going to carry any weight, because on these things, we don’t play odds.