Category: Gun Rights

Joe over at Joe’s Crabby Shack is pondering whether it’s worth accepting the commission in order to get rid of the permit to purchase requirement.

I don’t know all the ins and outs of politics in Nebraska, but it’s a deal I’d be willing to accept in Pennsylvania.  It’s ideal to be able to outright crush everything, but that’s now always how things will go.  Politics is not a rational or neat process.  This is pure speculation on my part that this is how it went down in Nebraska, but a general outline of how it goes:

1. Gun control legislator sponsors and introduces gun control bill
2. Various interest groups position on the bill, and mobilize their respective constituencies.
3. Politicians respond to that pressure, as said sponsor runs around trying to get support for their bill.  Sponsor realizes he can’t get support thanks to pressure from a certain gun rights group.
4. Sponsor begins amending bill in hopes of finding support.   (Sponsor won’t give up because he has to please his constituents, and avoid losing prestige.)
5. More support will invariably come on board as bill is altered to placate certain interests.  When support levels of said gun control bill begin to get close to having a chance at passage, the end of gun rights groups political power is nearing.
6. At this point lobbyists of gun rights groups have a choice.  Remain opposed and run the risk that a bad, albeit watered down bill will pass over their objections.  Or offer sponsor to add something constituents of gun rights groups want in exchange for dropping opposition to the bill.

Obviously NRA took the latter option here. Was it the best option to take?  That depends on what’s important to you.  Obviously NRA can’t conduct a membership poll in the middle of a big political battle, so they have to do their best based on what they know from interacting with members.  But if you boil down what happened here, a very very bad gun banning bill got turned into something that was largely neutral, and got rid of at least one prior restraint on the right to bear arms.

When they tired a semi-automatic ban in Pennsylvania, a similar thing happened.  It’s very rare in the political process to have to make absolutely no concessions, which is why the founding fathers chose to place the right to bear arms outside of it (only in theory thanks to the courts).  The trick is giving up symbolism and gaining substance.  If Cornhusker State gun owners keep turning out performances like they did with this bill, I don’t think they have much to fear from this commission.

Media article on what happened is here:

“No bill to ban any weapons will pass this Legislature,” Ashford said, explaining his about-face.

Instead, Legislative Bill 958 proposes that the Nebraska Crime Commission study gun violence and illegal firearms trafficking in Nebraska.

The bill also calls for repeal of a 1991 law requiring people to obtain a permit before they can purchase a handgun.

Lawmakers gave the amended measure first-round approval in a 25-13 vote.

Well, I’m glad Ashford his a brick wall in this case.  I think getting rid of a permit to purchase system is a good move.  It’s hard to get rid of bad legiselation even when everyone agrees its bad.  Even harder to turn a gun control bill into something that gets rid of a gun control law.

“I’ve received hundreds of phone calls from NRA members, and I have committed and promised to hundreds of constituents that I would not support this,” said Sen. Arnie Stuthman of Platte Center. “I have no assurances that the NRA has informed its members that it has agreed to the bill.”

Stuthman was one of 13 lawmakers who voted against the bill.

Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha said it was almost funny that lawmakers hesitated to support the bill after the considerable concessions Ashford made to the NRA.

NRA’s alert is out here.

After considerable opposition from Nebraska’s law-abiding gun owners, Senator Ashford significantly revised his original bill by removing the sections of the bill dealing with the reporting of lost or stolen firearms, mandatory gun locks and posting requirements. The new version of his bill would, however, have required the creation of an “Assault Weapons Commission” that would have been charged with making a list of firearms that it believed should be illegal in Nebraska. Despite being gutted from its original form, LB958 was still unacceptable to Nebraska’s gun owners and sportsmen. However, thanks to the hard work of NRA and gun owners in Nebraska, Senator Ashford again agreed to narrow the scope of his bill resulting in Amendment 2235.

Read the whole thing to find out what Amendment 2235 is.

I still maintain my opposition to this course of action, and I say that as someone who is prohibited from having firearms on company property myself, but my opposition is mostly due to property rights concerns. Looks like they are trying to same tact that worked in Georgia, where the bill will be limited to concealed weapons licensees.

Employers are nonetheless hysterical on the issue of guns, and I think there’s things we can do to encourage the change.  There was an approach, I think it was in Arizona, to create a civil action against employers who forbade firearms, essentially making them liable for the safety of their employees.  To me this is a far better way to deal with the problem, but I suspect, politics being politics, it’s a more difficult political course for many legislatures.

According to Thirdpower, who also wonders where all the gun control protesters were if there so much public passion for it.  He also notes that the media, who cover every small gun control rally you can imagine, totally ignored iGold ’07.

The police end up coming to your house to make sure you’re a good little boy responsible gun owner.

VICTORIAN police are planning a crackdown on gun owners. They are set to check whether 18,000 of the state’s registered gun owners have stored their firearms properly.

This is in the face of dropping violent crime using guns along with a drop in gun theft cases as well.  I’d hate to see what they’d institute if gun violence and thefts were on the upswing.

Superintendent Ashley said police would move to stronger enforcement of gun laws. He said it was not a “Big Brother” approach but rather police working with the community to ensure community safety.

The innocent have nothing to fear.  You know, even if you could prove to me that these types of methods actually did lower the violent crime rate, I wouldn’t care.  A society where the police can check up on me at will to ensure my compliance with “community safety” isn’t a society that’s free, and isn’t one I want to live in.

Philadelphia is continuing its campaign to act as if it is not part of the Commonwealth by exempting itself from our state’s laws.

Today’s hearing will focus on challenges to the lawsuit filed by the state House and Senate.

The hearing will be followed by an 11 a.m. gun-control rally in the City Hall courtyard.

The National Rifle Association has joined the case, opposing the city. C. Scott Shields, the NRA’s attorney, said the city is “doing an end-run” around Harrisburg.

“The argument is pretty ridiculous,” said Shields, adding that the city’s crime problem is not caused by guns. “It’s just that they don’t deal with it effectively.”

Philadelphia’s gun-control legislation, which Clarke resubmitted to Council in January for a new vote, would limit purchases of handguns to one a month, require gun owners to report lost or stolen guns to police, require a police-issued annual license to bring a gun into the city, allow police to confiscate guns from people considered a risk to themselves or others, ban semiautomatic weapons with clips that hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition and establish a registry of ammunition sales.

It’ll be interesting to see if they actually try to enforce any of this crap.  If they do, I would like to see Attorney General Corbett threaten city officials with Official Oppression charges if they do.  The state has to start getting tough with the City about protecting the fundamental rights of Pennsylvanians guaranteed by our constitution.

It looked like Nebraska’s draconian gun ban was going to get a hearing today, but apparently not.  It could go to a vote any day, so if you live in Nebraska, contact your legislators.