Gun Rights – Page 314 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Calling the Attack

I’m going to make a prediction, because I think a picture might be shaping up here.Â Given who Obama has nominated for his AG, and the things he said, I think we can expect gun shows, and in particular private sales, to be a prime target of the new administration.Â Why?

Gun shows are a locus of organization for the gun community.Â We’d be far weaker without them.Â The other side has to know this too.Â If you’re a recruiter or an activist, you go where the fishing is good, and the fishing is very good at gun shows.
They are easily demonized.Â Few people have attended them, and the media has done an excellent job of making sure people think gun shows are a bunch of Nazi white-power types looking for a few extra boxes of grenades to defend the bunker from the blue helmeted hoards.
They are easily confused with the separate issue of private sales.Â While shutting down private sales won’t, in and of itself, make gun shows disappear, they are an effective vehicle for pushing the issue and getting to gun shows.
John McCain supported regulating private sales, and the NRA endorsed him.Â This was a signal that NRA wasn’t all that afraid of private sale regulation, and the number of gun owners who voted for McCain suggests they weren’t either.Â This was always the risk of getting behind McCain.

My prediction is that when they move on gun owners, they will move on this issue.Â They will reach farther than McCain ever would have ever done, and we will have to fight them.Â I expect private sales regulation will be the main push, but expect gun shows themselves to be in the crosshairs, with the aim of destroying them.

And Another One Gone

Winnetka, IL has repealed its gun ban.Â The decision was unanimous.

Quote of the Day

“Somebody else wakes up.“

.50 Caliber Nonsense

Kurt Hoffman finds some ridiculous assertions about the New Jersey ban on .50 caliber firearms.Â The vote that was scheduled for last night has been postponed to December, according to ANJRPC:

In response to your calls, faxes, and emails, the New Jersey Assembly on November 17 delayed passage of A2116 (banning most firearms of .50 caliber or larger) and instead amended the legislation in an attempt to respond to gun owner concerns. The amended bill could be considered by the full Assembly as soon as December.

The amendments are currently under review and further alerts will be forthcoming. However, no amount of tinkering can “fix” a gun ban, and A2116 remains fundamentally flawed legislation because it bans handguns and long guns based on the size of the hole in the barrel instead of punishing criminal behavior.

Please continue to contact your Assembly members and oppose A2116. Their contact information is available here.

Hopefully they’ll find better things to do, like fixing the gaping holes in the state’s budget.

When To Worry

There are literally hundreds of bills that get introduced in Congress, or thousands if you count the legislatures of the several states, each legislative session.Â Most of them aren’t going anywhere.Â Every Congress since the Assault Weapons Ban expired have had a bill to renew, and an even worse bill.Â They are typically introduced by the usual suspects, and will languish in committee, never to see the light of day.Â The mere introduction of a bill means nothing.

When to start worrying is if you see a sudden surge in legislators co-sponsoring a bill.Â When you start approaching a majority, or large majority of the house co-sponsoring a bill, that increasing the likelihood that the bill will get a hearing in committee.Â The time to start worrying about a new assault weapons ban is if one of the introduced bills gets a committee hearing.Â If there was going to be a time I’d suggest buying, that would be the time.

Even if a bill gets a hearing, it doesn’t mean it will be passed out of the committee on to the floor.Â The committee chairs decide what gets a hearing, and what does not.Â The Chairman of the Committee that handles things like assault weapons bans is John Conyers, and probably will be in the 111th Congress as well.Â The composition of the committee makes it challenging for us, but we have yet to see a bill get a hearing in this Congress.

We do keep track of this stuff, and if it looks like things are going against us, you’ll hear it on the blogosphere first.

Wayne Goes to Ohio

Yesterday, Wayne LaPierre spoke at Ashland University about the very real dangers that await gun owners even after our SCOTUS victory.

Historic victories for gun rights occurred in 2008, but the fight for firearm freedoms must continue to preserve the Second Amendment, National Rifle Association Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre told a crowd on Monday at Ashland University. …

“Seventy-five years ago in his first inauguration as president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt said ‘The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,’ ” he said. “Today, I would argue almost the exact reverse is true. The greatest thing we have to fear in many ways is not enough Americans are afraid, because not enough realize what grave dangers are out there to our freedoms.”

There is a lot of truth in that statement. To back up his words, he highlighted interviews with Katrina victims who were then victimized by government officials who took their guns and comments from Rebecca Peters encouraging a limit to the kinds of guns hunters are allowed to own. There are still many gun owners out there who don’t know these things happened and who would find it hard to imagine even if you told them about it.

On The Fuddies

Rustmeister and Peter comment on the term “fudd.”Â It’s hard to slur just one subset of a group with a term that’s really insulting to the whole group.Â There will always be hunters who don’t get it.Â Anyone who’s been around shooters enough knows there are some that also don’t get it.Â But there are plenty that do, and for those that do, I think we ought to have the courtesy of not smearing the whole group.

Category: Gun Rights