Category: Gun Rights

Ian has some interesting thoughts on the DOJ brief.

In particular, the standard arm of the US military is considered a machinegun by law (M-16, as it can fire more than one bullet per trigger press). But because it is a machinegun, it can be banned for public safety reasons under the federal government’s ability to regulate, for the purposes of ensure a well-regulated militia, what arms the People can Keep and Bear… One more time: The government may ban the civilian possession of the standard arm of the military under its ability to sure that the militia is effective. IE – to ensure the militia is effective (well-regulated) the government may ban arms demonstrably suitable for the individual soldier.

Yeah, pretty much. I guess they figure we’d be a little too well-regulated with M16s. I found an interesting and provocative bit of commentary over on The High Road too:

This kind of DOJ brief was one of those risks. It’s not surprising to me that the brief introduces governmental concerns about machine guns. How could it be a surprise to anyone else either? This forum and other gun forums are filled with irresponsible declarations that once this case is won there will be attempts to strike down restrictions on machine guns. You want to be heard. You have been heard. When gun owners insist upon raising red flags and press hot button issues, they need to recognize that they will set off explosions. They always make those explosions someone else’s fault. This one isn’t anyone else’s fault. It’s an obvious response to the red flag that gun owners have insisted upon raising most unwisely.

I can see the author’s point, but I doubt the Solicitor General or Supreme Court justices are much reading The High Road, or any of our blogs. Heller most definitely won’t be on the issue of machine guns, and whether it will lay the groundwork for a getting rid of the ban is unknowable at this point. What disappointed me was that the brief raised that issue, but I suspect the reason is because the federal bureaucracy gets a lot of mileage out of enforcing those laws, rather than The Administration noticing that gun owners have been raising the issue.

Nonetheless, we must tread lightly on the machine gun issue while this case is before The Court.  We really would rather the court not consider that right now, and the less they say in the ruling, even if it’s dicta, the better we’re all going to be.

… to do something about nail gun violence?

UPDATE: Who will stop the carnage?

Ladies and Gentlemen; gun laws do not keep felons from committing crimes with guns, jail keeps felons from committing crimes with guns.

Tom King laments Albany DA David Soares who joined other district attorneys in filing a brief favoring Washington D.C.

Fred Thompson has accused the Bush Administration of “overlawyering” in the Department of Justice Brief.  I like this man so much, I fear there is no way he can possibly win.  There’s no surer way to  jinx a candidate than for me to like him.

Armed Canadian outlines the utter absurdity of some of our firearms laws, complete with pictures.  Can people seriously look us in the face and say this crap is reasonable?

Via Dave Hardy, the bill in Georgia for Parking lot carry has been largely gutted.  Concealed Weapons Permit holders will be pleased though, as it removes the ban in State Parks.  I still question whether the Parking Lot issue is worth spending all these political resources.  It may have passed in a few states, but I think it could be a real coalition splitter in many states.  Georgia would appear to be one of them.

Gun owners in New York appear to be in for some of the same types of crap that California gun owners recently got stuck with.   The lead ammo issue is one the anti-gun people, with the exception of the VPC, have been reluctant to go after for some time.  It’s hard to argue that you support people owning firearms for hunting and “sporting purposes” when you’re simultaneously calling for a ban on lead ammunition.

The culture in California and a few other states have gotten to the point where a confluence of anti-gun, anti-hunting, and environmentalist concerns have merged to make pursuing the lead issue politically feasible.  Of little concern to most of these groups is the fact that the shooting community has been aware of the lead issue for years, and have been actively taking steps to deal with the problem.  It was the shooting community that worked with the EPA very closely on a paper regarding best practices for managing lead at shooting ranges.

This should be a major wakeup call to hunters.  Unlike sport shooters, who use ranges where lead management practices can be put into place, hunters are easily painted as environmental menaces, who are poisoning fragile ecosystems by their wanton discharging of highly toxic lead into the environment.  The lead ammunition hunters use was an easy target when California Condors started showing up with lead poisoning.

We have to keep on top of the lead issue, because it’s very difficult to make high performance ammunition out of other metals, and federal law on armor piercing ammunition actually interferes with that in many cases.

NRA has apparently gotten the Parking Lot bill fast tracked in the Georgia Legislature, but Governor Perdue is apparently chickening out and siding with the Chamber of Commerce on this one.

UPDATE: Yeah, yeah, I had to make the chicken joke.