Category: Gun Rights

Arther Frommer thinks Arizona’s gun laws are horriffic.  Unfortunately for him they are very similar to the laws in the rest of the country, including his home state of Missouri.  If Art Frommer doesn’t want to be around people with guns on the streets, he better never leave New York City or New Jersey.  And even there, the criminals still carry guns anyway.  How can you write good travel guides if you know so little about the culture in the rest of the country?

Larry Pratt of GOA talks about a good reason to oppose National Health Care from the standpoint of gun rights.   What’s even funnier is that Helmke one ups him:

But Paul Helmke, president of the gun control group Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said Pratt has the wrong linkage between gun rights and healthcare.

“One of the burdens on our healthcare system are the 70,000 to 80,000 people that suffer gunshot wounds every year and survive, ending up in wheelchairs, or showing up in emergency rooms without insurance after being shot. There is a connection [between healthcare and gun rights] but it’s not the connection that Larry Pratt is talking about. We as a society are paying a large portion of the cost for this gun violence.”

Yes, the connection is we’ll end up with gun restrictions because politicians become desparate to control costs, and are willing to listen to anyone with an idea.  I find that to be much more plausible, and could justify wider restrictions on guns.  I guess Larry wasn’t thinking big enough, eh Paul?

At least one Reuters Columnist is setting this up as a clash of the Titans.

Patrik Jonsson of the Christian Science Monitor (remember him?) has written an article on the armed protester phenomena where he quotes Dave Kopel:

“This is really a form of expressive speech, and I think the fact that the Secret Service … hasn’t gotten particularly upset shows good judgement on their part,” he says.

Still, the man didn’t necessarily do the Second Amendment cause any favors, Kopel says.

“While I think it’s really paranoid for some of the media to falsely characterize this as people trying to threaten the president, I think it shows bad judgement to carry [guns] near a presidential speech,” he says. Protesters are “trying to make a statement about Second Amendment rights, but they’re doing it in a way that probably sets back that cause.”

I agree on it being a form of expressive speech, and on the latter part.  I support people’s legal right to open carry, but if open carry folks want people to get used to the sight of guns, and think “no big deal” then you have to act in a manner that makes it no big deal.  Last I checked, it was a big deal to end up on national television.

Kiwi gun owners are up in arms over changes to the licensing rules for semi-automatic rifles.

Many gun owners are angry at the changes, with some taking official steps to try to stop them. One has applied for a judicial review of the police decision, while a group has complained to the Independent Police Conduct Authority.

Compared to most of the world, New Zealand has traditionally had relatively sane gun laws, which is a bit like saying compared to Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia wasn’t such a bad place.  The problem for the Kiwis is they acquiesced to licensing.  We have avoided that in this country, even though for a lot of things licensing could make life easier.  But it’s a road to disaster.  It’s bad enough we have a licensing system to carry concealed, that creates a patchwork of different regulations from state-t0-state on where and whether you can carry.  We can’t really ever acquiesce to licensing for purchase or possession, unless we want to end up like the Kiwis, or, you know, New Jersey.

UPDATE: Looking at the Kiwi laws on the matter, it would seem the change is that you need a C (Collector) or (E) (Shooter) endorsement on you’re license.  Seems if you have a C endorsement, you aren’t allowed to fire the gun without an E endorsement.  With the exception of the B (Pistol) endorsement, which is common, the other two never applied to anything other than machine guns, so police in New Zealand often won’t issue C and E endorsements at all.  The Kiwi law is also very strict in it’s definition, and would include M1 Garands and the Marlin Model 60.

This would be roughly analagous to having a much stricter assault weapons ban here, where they were made to follow the same NFA rules that would apply to a machine gun.  A shame for the Kiwis.

I feel bad that Bitter’s lengthy and thorough work at researching a strategy that could be used to cut Mayor Bloomberg’s MAIG group down to size kind of got lost in the open carry hubbub from yesterday.  For those that might have missed it, a summary can be found at the other site we run for EVC activities, pagunrights.com

For those who’d like to see the whole thing, you can start following at this post here, and follow the links at the bottom.  Bitter has spent a lot of time on this, and on helping keeping the blog going in general when I’ve been too busy to do research, to look things up, or to go searching for news stories.  She’s my behind the scenes correspondent most of the times, even when she’s not posting herself.

Elanor Holmes Norton is asking — well, I don’t really know what she’s asking — I don’t know if she knows what she’s asking either.  But to try to make sense of it, she seems to be asking that the Secret Service expand its zone of protection around Obama to keep these nasty gun toters away.

I’m not sure why she thinks this makes sense, given that the toters were never anywhere near Obama to begin with.  Even if they move them a mile away, the media is still going to report they carried guns to an Obama event.  Pretty soon he’ll be visiting Phoenix, and some dude open carrying in Tuscon is going to get interviewed for why he was carrying a gun at an Obama rally.

The argument that these protesters with guns are a threat to the President are a more than bit rich.  First off, I’m pretty sure that assassins are not known to openly carry their implements of assassination openly.  Secondly, I’m pretty sure the Secret Service, who did not have concerns about these protesters, isn’t too worried about people packing small arms well away from where the President is or is going to be.

No responsible gun owner, law enforcement executive, or public official should endorse or allow these armed protests anywhere near the president.

They weren’t near the President, and that’s exactly why the Secret Service did not have a problem.  Look, it’s not the guy who’s open carrying his pistol or rifle to get press attention that I’m worried about.  The guy you have to worry about is the one you won’t see coming.  As I covered in excruciating detail yesterday, I think there are reasons this is a bad thing to promote, but the safety of the President is not among those reasons.

Some other viewpoints on the slung AR-15 at a rally incident:

Murdoc covers the story here, and here, largely in agreement with my position.  I also agree with Murdoc’s assessment of the potential gain from incidents like this.  I’m willing to take more risks with something that has the potential to greatly benefit the cause, like National Concealed Carry, or even National Open Carry, if Congress wanted to go that route.  But I just don’t see much upside potential to this for a lot of risk.

In contrast to Murdoc, Linoge takes great exception, and points out that the folks involved in this did everything right, from dress to disposition.  I actually agree with this portion.  I think the individuals who did this played their cards well.  I’m just not sure what I win in the end, and I see a great risk in encouraging other attention seekers to use this tactic.  Maybe I’m wrong and this will fizzle out, but what’s going to happen with some other fringe groups wants to use this to attract the cameras?

Jeff Soyer initially think it’s not helpful, but then softens his opinion based on how the White House handled it.  I think the reaction on the part of the White House was smart.  I think if the Administration had alluded to being displeased, or upset, it would probably mean more of these incidents would happen.  The White House’s goal is to take the message for their health plan to the public, and this is a distraction.

Instapundit covers a lot of reaction, and thinks the press is overreacting.  Certainly they are overreacting, because they think this kind of crap will get people to consume whatever media they are selling, and the more sensational the better.

Dave Hardy suggests maybe carrying rifles to rallies isn’t such a bad idea, but thinks these guys pulled it off very well, and hilariously suggests they do Monty Python or BlackAdder.

Robb takes pretty strong disagreement to those of us who think this isn’t the best public relations strategy for gun rights.  I’m not against people open carrying generally, and if this guy had just been some poor schlob who got picked out of the crowd by the media because he was openly carrying a firearm, I would have been sympathetic.  But I think there’s a difference between that, and strapping on, and going out and looking for the cameras to push issues only tangentially related to gun rights.  In short, I think open carry as a form of activism doesn’t have that much upside.  I’m not sure what I get in the end.  If people want to do it, it’s your right, but I don’t think it’s a great public relations tool for the cause.

UPDATE: More from Exurban Kevin and The Arizina Rifleman

UPDATE: Gun Nuts Radio had a whole show on this, which I haven’t gotten a chance to listen to yet.

UPDATE: Clayton Cramer

I think some people are misconstruing what I’m saying in regards to changing minds and pushing people’s comort levels.  I am not suggesting that we, as gun owners, have to always be accommodating to people’s sensibilities, and I’m certainly not saying we should never push people’s comfort zones.  But I think it’s foolish not to be aware of them, or to have no regard for them, especially in a medium that’s more prone to soundbites and memes than actual discussion.  But let’s look quickly at one of the thoughtful arguments made in the comments:

Imagine the following was written in the early 1960s, and change a few terms.

“We can’t have people openly violating laws on buses or at lunch counters. We can’t get this radical over our rights, even if they are rights. The white people outnumber us by the millions. They out vote us.

We’ll never convince the white people to accept us if we keep having people on “our side” doing stupid things like sit-ins at lunch counters, violating state laws on public buses, or blocking public roadways with organized marches.

That kind of radical behavior will only cause more backlash against us, and won’t accomplish anything.

It’s sad we have such radicals messing up our public image like this.”

There’s a great difference between standing up for your civil rights, and engaging in civil disobedience, and what these armed protesters are doing.  There’s a difference in both the moral gravity of what they are doing, and in the strategic implications of each act.

Let me first concentrate on the analogy from a moral perspective.  Open carry is not unlawful.  In fact, in Arizona, as it is in most states, it’s a constitutionally protected right.  It is not an act of defiance or civil disobedience to show up at a public event and engage in a shocking, but legal activity.  There is no civil right being defended, because, as far as I am aware, there is no serious movement to make open carry illegal in Arizona.  If this guy had just been a man in the crowd open carrying a pistol, hey, it’s Arizona, and I would have agreed the press was just out looking for an issue.  But that becomes different when you sling a rifle on your back and head out looking for the press.  By contrast, Rosa Parks was committing an act of civil disobedience.  It was illegal for her to refuse to move to the back of the bus.  Same with the folks who refused to sit at the “right” lunch counter.  These were people who were prepared to suffer the consequences for violating an immoral and unjust law.  These incidents can’t be compared to that.

I also think you have to look at the strategic implications of getting people to accept your point of view.  Nearly all people can understand why someone would want to be treated as an equal member of society, and be afforded the dignity of not being treated like a second class citizen because of a condition of birth.  While there are certainly many parallels that can be drawn, and lessons that can be learned between our struggle, and the struggle to end Jim Crow, I do not think you can make direct comparisons.  Gun ownership is not a condition of birth.  You choose whether or not to be a gun owner.  Sure, you have a right to choose that, and I certainly don’t believe we should acquiesce to that right being stomped on, but it’s not the same, and I doubt most people would view it the same.

We also have issues we can use to appeal to ordinary people to accept our point of view.  Most people can understand wanting to protect themselves and their families.  Americans, quite uniquely among peoples of the world, generally don’t believe in relying exclusively or nearly exclusively on community protection.  Even very liberal Americans tend to understand this, even if guns make them uncomfortable.   Most people also understand having a pastime, hobby or interests, and generally aren’t all that interested in interfering with someone else’s enjoyment.  If this wasn’t the case, the gun control movement wouldn’t  have had to go to great lengths to convince the public that the gun controls they propose won’t affect people’s pastimes, or their ability to protect themselves.  When we push people’s comfort zones based on these kinds of common values, I think we can win people over.  But you have to appeal to a common value.  Few men were better than this than Martin Luther King, who’s strategy involved appealing to the very American “all men are created equal” and then shaming his country for not living up to the very values we pretended to care about.

If we are to win this struggle, it will have to be through common American values, and there I think we have a lot more to work with than the other side.  But I don’t think there’s any context in which most people can understand taking a loaded rifle to a political rally.  I think we’re lucky if most people are taking this for the publicity stunt that it is.  In that context, most people can probably understand it and dismiss it.  But political violence is a touchy thing for most of the public, and there’s no appeal to it that’s going to find acceptance.  Gun rights has to be a mainstream issue if it’s going to win out in the end.  If it’s seen as a fringe issue, exercised by “dangerous” people, we’re going to suffer for it over the long run.