Twelve GOP Senators are joining the threat to filibuster any motion to proceed on gun control legislation. Meanwhile, it would seem John McCain doesn’t understand why they would do such a thing. Where McCain will ultimately stand on any legislation is up in the air, but previously he’s supported bills that would impose onerous regulations on gun shows. If you live in Arizona, be sure to call McCain’s office.
Category: Gun Rights
Why Shouldn’t Columnists Be Required to Carry Insurance?
David Frum, the media’s token conservative who’s not really a conservative, thinks that it’s just fine to require gun owners be insured. As someone in the media, I’m sure Frum is aware that there’s a possibility that columnists could be sued for libel or slander. Why not require that columnists carry insurance policies? After all, if someone wins a successful suit, it would be a shame for that person to not be able to recover the money because the columnists is uninsured. I support the First Amendment, but there are reasonable, common sense measures we can take to ensure that it is not abuse, and those engaging in speech are responsible.
Probably the Ideal State for Gun Manufacturers
With big names like Beretta leaving Maryland, and the Outdoor Channel leaving Colorado, Glenn Reynolds thinks Tennessee is a great destination. I agree. I can’t think of a better state, honestly. We’ve had some Pennsylvania politicians making gestures to gun manufacturers to come to the Keystone State, but it’s worth noting that our state’s economy is still built on the “blue model” Â and remains a business unfriendly state.
More importantly, gun rights in Pennsylvania has been sustained on the backs of many pro-gun, rural Democrats, which are becoming more and more an endangered species here. Short term, this has helped the GOP take control of our House, retain control of our Senate, and Governor’s mansion, even in a time of Democratic ascendency at the national level. But we are still a state in flux. The GOPs hold is tenuous, and the Democrats are increasingly abandoning gun rights here. With more and more people relocating here from New Jersey and New York in the eastern part of the state, and with the rapid depopulation in the western part of the state, it’s not a great place for gunnies to move to if you don’t plan on fighting. In the next 20 years, Pennsylvania could go either way. It depends greatly on how much gun owners here plan on fighting.
Keep Pouring Guys
Schumer and Manchin are watering down the background check bill, presumably in an attempt to pick up the needed Republican votes to overcome an expected filibuster.
At issue is whether to exempt private gun sales between friends and acquaintances from record-keeping requirements that now only cover licensed gun dealers.
Shortly before the Easter recess, Schumer and Manchin proposed that such transactions be subject to background checks but exempt from the record-keeping rules.
How do you define “friends and acquaintances” legally? I think Tam was hitting on this issue in an earlier comment with respect to the proposed bill in Delaware.
Boy, that “known personally” provision in Sec (A) is just bad law writing.
Why the difference between (A) and (B)? When I walk ups and tell you my name and we shake hands, am I not now “known personally” to you, thus making Sec (A) rather than Sec (B) the pertinent section?
Who writes this stuff?
Indeed. The fact that they are getting the water buckets out is good, because it means they are desperate for votes. But keep pouring guys. There’s no NICS expansion that’s going to be OK with us now. You blew it. Keep pouring. We’ll be done when we get to the point I can legally carry in Manhattan.
Why Obama is Losing Gun Control
Jennifer Rubin lists ten reasons Obama is losing the gun control debate. I agree with Uncle on the most serious factor he’s overlooking. Personally, I think this is an ego thing for the President. Having just wrapped up a close election win, and having spun off his campaign into a new non-profit to push his agenda, I think he wanted to show the political class that his new political machine could take on the NRA and win. Clinton had taken on the NRA, and still brags about it from time to time in speeches. If Obama was going to show OFA had what it took to control the Democratic Party moving forward, he would also have to take on the NRA, as Clinton did.
Of course, this is not over. You can bet there will be a combination of OFA organizing and Bloomberg’s money pushing the gun control issue in the 2014 elections. It would be a great thing not just for gun rights, but for the country as a whole, if the narrative becomes that the Obama machine, even backed up by Bloomberg’s money, couldn’t beat us on the gun issue. That will weaken Obama’s political reputation, and put a damper on his agenda. It will also help, with our newly energized base, to turn this issue around and begin to counter attack. Our goal should be nothing less than teaching them that by messing with us, all they do is make the situation worse for themselves.
ACLU Finally Coming Around on Guns?
They are wary of the record keeping requirements contained in their bill to expand the background check provisions. Actually, the ACLU is a rather diverse organization. Some state chapters have long recognized the Second Amendment as an individual civil liberty, even if the national ACLU long held to the now discredited state/collective right view.
Final Vote in Maryland on SB 281 Today
NRA is asking that people get calling Senate President Mike Miller to oppose concurrence:
Senate President Mike Miller
301-858-3700
thomas.v.mike.miller@senate.state.md.us
Please also call your legislators in the House and Senate and tell them to oppose Senate Bill 281.
Gotta Do a News Dump
My browser is crawling like a snail with all these open tabs, and that means work suffers, since I need to Google questions to which I’m looking for answers… so here goes:
Looks like anti-gunners in Nevada are trying to pass a serious tax on guns and ammunition to express their disapproval of your exercise of constitutionally enumerated rights. Two pro-gun bills are also up.
We’re getting closer to losing Maryland. Maryland has been teetering on the edge for a while, unfortunately, and looked like an easy pickup for Bloomberg and the White House. Don’t make it easy for them.
The feds don’t seem to like NASCAR since they haven’t shunned the NRA, maybe the feds need some schooling from a 15 year old.
NYSRPA is filing another suit against New York City challenging the limitation on transporting license firearms out of the city. (And hey, NYSRPA, and ANJRPC too for that matter, it would greatly help if I could actually link to the individual press releases, you know, like it’s the 2000s or something.)
Illinois is basically telling the federal courts to sod off.
By now you’ve already seen Jim Carrey’s Cold Dead Hands, heard of his meltdown on Twitter, but here’s a pretty good comeback by the folks at Reason.
States fire back on new federal gun laws. The bill in Pennsylvania is HR.357
The Second Amendment Foundation is suing Nebraska because they won’t issue carry licenses to resident aliens. There is helpful precedent already that non-citizen permanent residents are entitled to equal protection.
More coverage of Sean’s crashing of MAIG’s event. You’d think the media would be more interested over the fact that the background check bill actually covers temporary possession, and not just sales. I guess the media doesn’t care about the gun rights of gays who can’t marry.
Gun ownership in Illinois in decline.</sarcasm> Note that people who already have guns are required to have FOID, so new applications represent, unambiguously, new gun owners. And this in a deep blue state. Gun control a winning issue Dems? Really?
How do nanny staters figure popular sovereignty really works? Joe gives it some thought, and concludes they can’t simultaneously hold the electorate in contempt and believe they require any consent of the governed.
Louisiana Felon in possession law didn’t survive strict scrutiny required by its latest constitutional amendment, because it covered non-violent felons. This is a few weeks old, but I kept meaning to say something more about it, and failed. So here it is.
Cuomo is getting paranoid. Also, apparently Schumer is dodging the issue as to whether Bloomberg’s ad campaign is helping.
Are submachine guns obsolete? Great read over at the Firearm Blog. Maybe, but they are still great fun.
What if Colorado Democrats treated sex the same way they treated guns?
A Novel Theory That’s Wrong
Both Jim Geraghty and John Richardson are covering a new, but really not so new claim by gun control advocates:
“If there was a secret-ballot vote it would pass overwhelmingly, because from a substantive point of view most of these senators understand that this is the right thing to do,†said Matt Bennett, a gun-control advocate and senior vice president at Third Way, a centrist think tank. “What’s holding them back is pure politics.â€
This novel theory  was floated in Pennsylvania back in 2006.
Anti-gun forces in the Pennsylvania legislature became convinced that if the votes weren’t on the record, gun control would pass handily. They called for the House to meet in a Committee of the Whole, where recorded votes would not be posted, and thus lawmakers would be free to express themselves without fear of the NRA. So how did this particular experiment in one of our 50 laboratories of Democracy go? Utter fail for the gun control folks. The politicians still, even off the record, don’t want anything to do with gun control, because it’s a political loser. As Jim Geraghty noted, this is really a complaint that politicians are held accountable to the public.
Vote in Connecticut Tomorrow on Draconian Gun Control Package
It is time to pull out the stops, but it looks like Connecticut is another state, like New York, where gun owners have been sold out by the GOP minority. NRA is asking everyone to call, and to come out. Cabela’s in Hartford will be providing free shuttle service to the State Capitol. The vote is at 10:00AM at the Capitol, tomorrow, April 3rd.