Category: Gun Rights

Apparently there’s nothing about guns or the shooting sports that the DC City Government won’t hate on with a burning white passion.  Here you will find a letter rejecting the tag “TRIGGER” because they deem it offensive, followed by a letter from one of NRA’s attorneys warning them that it’s a First Amendment violation.  Looks like DC decided it wasn’t worth fighting a court case over, and issued the tags.

Another issue you’ll want to contact your Congress Critters about is this.  I’m skeptical that anyone knows for sure at this point which direction they will attack us from, but one thing I’m fairly certain of is that an attack on our gun rights is coming.  We need to be ready for anything, and writing your reps about opposing any gun control in the 111th Congress is as important as ever.

The last time we were in this situation I was eighteen years old, and there were no blogs, no forums, most people didn’t have e-mail, and the media wasn’t on the verge of going the way of the dodo.  If we’re going to come out on top here, we have to use our natural strengths as a movement.

UPDATE: Robb has more.  The ironic thing in all this is, if the Democrats were really interested in destroying the NRA, the smartest strategic thing to do would be nothing.  It only helps NRA to become the monster that they said you were.

UPDATE: Thirdpower wonders why we’re all surprised.  I wouldn’t say we’re surprised, but there has to be some hope we can mobilize against something, even if we expected it.  I also had hoped Obama’s move to the center post-election indicated he wasn’t willing to tackle divisive cultural issues, and would govern as a pragmatic centrist.  That’s still a key question: how much Obama will push gun control.  We know he’ll sign anything Pelosi and Reid send him, so we can’t count on anything.  Writing the Critter is important.

The blogosphere seems to be pretty effective at creating noise, and making people pay attention.  Today is the first day of the 111th Congress, which is the new Democratic Congress that we elected along with Obama.  Pretty shortly Congress will take up the issue of Obama’s nominations.  Among those people is Eric Holder for Attorney General, who is no friend to gun owners.  We’ve made a lot of noise over guys like Jim Zumbo, Dan Cooper, HS Precision, and the like.  Let’s make some noise to stop the nomination of Eric Holder.  You can contact your elected officials here.

Jacob links to some nasty predictions for New York Gun owners, including serious restrictions on the use of lead ammunition.  It would be one thing if there were reasonable alternatives, but there isn’t.   At least not yet.

I’ve decided I should make at least one purchase during this panic gun buying season, so I decided to throw down some benjamins and buy TD’s FAL.  Blue Book of Gun Values says the gun is worth $700, but today everything has an Obama Panic Premium (we’ll call it OPP for short) attached to it, so that must be taken into consideration.  But there is one issue.

TD lives in Michigan, and I live in Pennsylvania, which means it’s time to play the “Reasonable Gun Laws” game.  Since TD and I live in different states, we can’t just handle this through a private sale, even though we can both legally posses the rifle in our respective states.  Asked a local FFL about doing the transfer, and got this answer:

We fax or mail our FFL directly to the seller’s dealer and he/she ships the firearm/s with a copy of his/her FFL. That is the only way we do out of state transfers. It costs $50.00 plus tax plus $10.00 for the instant check, totaling $63.00.

So that’s $63 bucks on my side, and another batch of money on TD’s side to pay for the FFL transfer at his end.  Legally speaking, TD can ship direct to my FFL, since non-licensees are permitted to ship through common carrier (though not U.S. Mail if it’s a handgun) to an FFL in any state.  But it’s hard to find an FFL that’s willing to deal with a non-licensee who’s out of state.  Obviously, I’m not paying anyone $63 bucks to receive a package and do 10 minutes of paperwork.  I know another FFL who does them for 32 bucks, so I might try him.

Imagine how hard it’s going to be to find a reasonable deal on transfers when selling a gun to a friend requires it?  Prices in Pennsylvania are already high for transfers, because in this state, there are no private sales of handguns.  If they ban all private sales for all guns, you can expect dealers to jack prices on handling transfers, since it eats into their business.  This is the world the Brady Campaign wants to bring us all, folks.

Looks like the National Association of Park Rangers is also going to file suit to keep the new rule from going into effect.  I have to admit, I’m little miffed at the Bush Administration for not getting this rule change done sooner.  I think the strategy of our opponents is to run the clock out, until they can deal with an administration who won’t fight that hard for the change.  If it can get thrown out on a legal technicality, then that’s it.  There will be no time or desire to rework a different rule.  If the rule change gets reversed, Bush will still have taken media heat for the rule, but we won’t have gotten it.  No one will be happy, except perhaps the Brady Campaign.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0297_ha8zXE[/youtube]

Time has posted fond farewells for 2008, and number 17 is Charlton Heston.  However, the writer seems confused:

Offscreen, Heston was a figure of epic contradictions. In the ’60s he marched with Martin Luther King; in the ’90s he headed the National Rifle Association.

There’s nothing contradictory about civil rights work.

Dave Kopel thinks there’s a correlation.