Gun Rights – Page 92 – Shall Not Be Questioned

A Lot of Pennsylvanians are Paying Attention to Sheriffs

I’ve gotten a lot of inquires into Sheriff elections, and a faction of the local gun rights group in Bucks County is very focused on sheriff issues, putting pressure on the local Sheriff Joe “Duke” Donnelly to sign pledges, etc. The focus on Sheriffs, as best I can research, is a legacy from the militia movement in the 90s, and was mostly hatched in states where Sheriffs play a greater role than they do here. I think it’s a huge distraction from the real issues in Pennsylvania.

First, the sheriff is not not imparted with any special constitutional status in our federal system, short of what state constitutions and state law have to say about the office, and that’s going to vary wildly from state-to-state. The only thing special about the office of Sheriff is that it is, in most states, an elected office, whereas the people don’t really have direct say, in most cases, about who ends up Chief of Police, except by proxy through City Counsels and Mayors for local police, or State Legislators and Governors for State Police. I think direct election of law enforcement is actually a good thing in a free society, and think we should do more of it, but that’s a separate issue from Sheriffs.Â In Pennsylvania, there are two issues with Sheriffs when it comes to guns in Pennsylvania.

One is that they issue permits. Historically (though it’s getting better) some Sheriffs have loved to add their own requirements, overcharge for the permit, or in the case of Philadelphia (who by state law issue through the Philadelphia Police Department rather than Philadelphia Sheriff) engage in all kinds of extralegal jerking around of LTC applicants and holders. That’s an issue to be cognizant of when election time comes around.

The other is that for NFA paperwork, the Pennsylvania Sheriffs are usually considered the CLEO when it comes to sign-off on ATF Form 4s. While ATF will accept local Chiefs’ signatures, Chiefs will often defer to the Sheriff on that matter. If your Sheriff won’t sign off, your only other route is an NFA trust, and there are numerous counties that won’t sign Form 4. In my area, Bucks and Chester are the only two counties I’m aware of that will sign-off. So this is a legitimate consideration.

Beyond those two issues, Sheriffs in Pennsylvania, and Constables, are a legacy from the time when most states had no professional law enforcement. While they are considered sworn officers under Pennsylvania law, the law does not give the office of Sheriff or Constable generalized law enforcement powers, such as those exercised by the State Police or your local police department. The Sheriff only has the power to enforce edicts of the Commonwealth Courts. Traditionally, before the age of professional law enforcement, if a Sheriff needed assistance to serve a warrant or bring someone before the Courts for trial, he would deputize local militia. Sheriffs still have the power in Pennsylvania, but I’m not aware it’s ever been used in modern times.

In short, when it comes to enforcement of unconstitutional federal laws, you’re barking up the wrong tree if you’re harassing your Sheriff. That’s a matter to take up within your local communities and with your local police chief, and with the State Police through state representatives, Senators, and the Governor’s office. Local police cannot be commandeered to enforce federal law under the anti-commandeering doctrine, as a matter of already established case law. Any enforcement of federal law by local authorities is purely voluntary on their part, and they cannot legally be forced to cooperate in any federal gun control scheme. But regardless of whether that’s the case or not, it’s not something Sheriffs have anything to do with in Pennsylvania.

Competitions Being Cancelled in Colorado

The Rocky Mountain Western States Regional for IDPA, which was to be held this July in Montrose, CO has been canceled. How could they even have it there? The new law, because of the “readily convertible” language actually bans most magazines that competitors would use. They’d be enticing competitors to commit a serious crime by bringing them into Colorado. Miguel notes that Ruger has pulled their Rimfire Challenge World Championship out of Colorado as well, which would have attracted 300-plus shooters, plus spectators.Â HiVis Shooting Systems is pulling out of the state as well. Hey, this is the future for Colorado that Obama and Bloomberg demanded, and Colorado Democrats and Hickenlooper were only too happy to go alone. Remember in 2014.

The Negotiations on Private Transfers Continue

Lindsey Graham is quite often the attack dog for Senator McCain in the Senate, so it’s interesting that he’s taking a hard position on the private sale ban:

â€œThe current system is broken,â€ he said. â€œWhy in the world would you expand that system if youâ€™re not enforcing the law that exists today to include private transfers? So I think that legislation is going nowhere, but Iâ€™d like to have a robust debate about improving the system.â€

McCain would be a crucial vote for getting to 60, in order to pass something in the Senate. I would have previously thought he’d have hung us out to dry long ago if the issue was banning private transfers, so I’m surprised he is (so far) holding out. Perhaps even Senator McCain seesÂ the current proposal regulating even temporary transfersÂ is completely unacceptable, but McCain’s bills regulating private transfers and gun shows were pretty awful too.

This is where things start to get tricky. If the Republicans and Democrats go along party lines, the Democrats have 55 votes out of the gate, but reality is that there would likely be some aisle crossing on both sides.Â This is where things can come down to how badly you lose, rather than whether you can win.Â Sure, you can bet the Dems can’t come up with 60 votes, and oppose any and everything, and maybe you’ll win that bet. But what if you don’t? Do you trust House leadership to kill anything that passes the Senate with a 60 vote margin, even if it’s something as bad as Schumer’s background check bill? Do you float an alternative bill that has the worst of what you oppose removed, and offer a sacrifice to the “something must be done” gods?

We’ve been here many times before, and short of total victory, there will be a lot of second guessing and blame going around. But what choice would you make? If the choice is between bad and disastrous, do you risk disastrous? I think there are times when the answer to that is yes, but I don’t think it’s always a black or white issue. It may be that we’re confident they can’t get to 60 on anything, or the House is a stronger bulwark against gun control than I would imagine, and opposing anything and everything is the smart tactic for this particular situation. But I don’t think we ought to be blind to reality, and reality is that when you’re dealing with slim margins the situation can go south in a hurry.

If all 80 million, or hell, even 20 million, gun owners called or wrote their Senators, we would not even be having this conversation, but the reality is most will not. Meanwhile, Bloomberg will continue to run ads telling everyone how reasonable “universal background checks” are, and who could be opposed to that? The White House will continue to twist arms. Lobbyists on their side tell lawmakers to look at their polling, and try to convince them any opposition to gun control is already baked into the election figured. Our lobbyists will show their polling, and threaten to upset apple carts in 2014. Can we keep 41 Senators? How confident would you be?

New Yorker Article Based on Faulty Study

From a New Yorker article our opponents seem to be quite enamored over:

If American had gun laws like those in Canada, England, or Australia, it would have a level of gun violence more like that of Canada, England, or Australia. Thatâ€™s as certain a prediction as any that the social sciences can provide. To believe that gun control canâ€™t work here is to believe that the psyches of Americans are different from those of everyone else on earth. Thatâ€™s a form of American exceptionalismâ€”the belief that Americans are uniquely evil and incorrigibly violent, and that nothing to be done about itâ€”that doesnâ€™t seem to be the one that is usually endorsed.

This is essentially a restatement of, “The Arabs yearn for liberal democracy, all we have to do is bring it to them.” Culture matters, a lot. There are parts of this country that do have gun violence levels that low, despite being awash in guns, and there are places, like Chicago, who have restrictions even more severe than Canada and Australia who have many times the crime rates.

Even minus culture, this is already a country with 300 million guns and they aren’t going to disappear just because the laws change. The New Yorker article points to this JAMA study, which includes suicides, and is therefore deceiving. I did a similar run with just crime figures and found there’s no strong correlation.

Our opponents firmly disagree with this, and the meddling nanny doctors groups certainly will, but suicide prevention cannot be a reason for depriving everyone of dangerous objects in a free society. We are not infants, and a free people’s government shouldn’t treat its people like infants.

Media Coverage of the Doylestown Rally

There were quite a number of media roaming around the rally, so this naturally made me wonder how fair the media coverage would be. Only two news outlets have covered it, or at least put their stories online. The first is the Intelligencer:

The pro-gun protesters tried to shout down speakers throughout the 45-minute rally, even as Moore sought a moment of silence for victims of gun violence and as Kessleman spoke of his dead son.

â€œI thought that was disrespectful,â€ Avino said. â€œItâ€™s a poor reflection on them.â€

There weren’t any groups backing the protest, which was largely self-organized through informal communication networks, forums, Facebook, etc. Going in, it was hard to say what a smart tactic would be, because you don’t know what our opponents are going to focus on. If it’s a more vigil type rally, with speakers recounting lost loves ones, aggressive tactics would be boorish. But for an explicitly political rally, with calls to political action, chanting, etc, I don’t see why quiet opposition is necessarily the smart tactic.

This rally was not a vigil type rally, but it was explicitly political, with calls for action, including confiscation. More aggressive tactics were justified. When the line “for too many years Congress has done the bidding of the NRA,â€ our side cheered. When they called for bans on guns and magazine, our side booed. The speaker from New Jersey was heckled with calls to “Go back to Jersey!” When they tried to rally their crowd with “What do we want? Action!” and the pro-2A crowd drowned them out with “Freedom!” Cries of “leave us alone” were also often heard from the crowd when speakers called for action.

Where I think our side did cross the line was the few early hecklers during the moment of silence. Fortunately that quickly stopped, and our side did observe it, but those few early people own that quote above. Channel 10 News also covered the rally, I think a bit more fairly than the Intelligencer:

View more videos at: http://nbcphiladelphia.com.

UPDATE: Here’s video from the rally organizers. Decide for yourself whether they are being shouted down or just opposed.

Delaware Private Transfer Ban Passes House

NRA is alerting on HB 35, which passed the Delaware House by a 24-17 vote. Again, this bill isn’t just about firearm sale, it stipulates sales or transfers, defined as:

(3) â€œTransferâ€ means assigning, pledging, leasing, loaning, giving away, or otherwise disposing of, but does not include:

(A) the loan of a firearm for any lawful purpose, for a period of 14 days or less, by the owner of said firearm to a person known personally to him or her;

(B) a temporary transfer for any lawful purpose that occurs while in the continuous presence of the owner of the firearm, provided that such temporary transfer shall not exceed 24 hours in duration;

(C) the transfer of a firearm for repair, service or modification to a licensed gunsmith or other person lawfully engaged in such activities as a regular course of trade or business; or

(D) a transfer that occurs by operation of law or because of the death of a person for whom the prospective transferor is an executor or administrator of an estate or a trustee of a trust created in a will.

Again, if you’re cohabiting with someone, say, in a gay relationship because you can’t get married, if you leave town for three weeks and leave your firearms in the care of your significant other, you’re making an unlawful transfer. Why the need to restrict the duration in section (B) to 24 hours? If I invite someone on my land to shoot, and loan him a gun for the weekend trip, should I be charged with a misdemeanor?

The bill also exempts people who hold Delaware Concealed Deadly Weapons Licenses, but it should be noted that Delaware is technically may-issue (though unlike a lot of other states, it’s not impossible to get a CDWL in Delaware if you jump through the hoops).

Also, this amendment brings up an interesting point on banning private transfers: if you transfer your gun into the dealer’s inventory, and the prospective buyer flunks the check, what then? Are you out the transfer fee to get your own gun back? Delaware’s bill says no, but that’s another nail in the coffin of the proposed federal bill I hadn’t thought of. Currently, the answer would likely be yes, you’d have to pay and go through the 4473 and whole deal to get your own gun back. I think you still would in Delaware too, except the dealer couldn’t charge you for it. This also will make it less likely dealers will want to process third party transfers.

This is what “universal background checks” mean folks. It’s one of those things that sounds dandy until you start thinking about how it would need to be implemented. This bill still has to pass the Delaware Senate, and NRA is asking Delawareans to contact their State Senators.

Enough Links For a News Dump?

I guess we’ll see:

NRA President: Gun control advocates were ready for Newtown. Once Obama had won re-election, a gun control push was a fore drawn conclusion. Newtown was merely the pretext.

Another illegal mayor?

Mike Bloomberg, best thing to happen to the GOP since Citizen’s United? That all depends on the GOP. Before they can take advantage of the opportunity Bloomberg presents, they have to first stand up for Second Amendment rights. So far, they’ve been doing well, but that needs to hold.

A man breaks into someone’s home, gets shot dead, and his family claims he was a victim. Thirdpower found the guy’s rap sheet.

That .323 caliber Enfield. What’s scary is that it would seem the Connecticut State Police know next to nothing about guns. That check for the C183 I mentioned yesterday came straight from the police report. It was the cops that assumed that was a firearm.

Sean crashed one of Bloomberg’s pressers, talking about what Bloomberg’s “background check” bill would actually do.

Mr. C and Keewee are OK after a big land slide on Whidbey Island. Didn’t happen near them. We’re glad to hear that. Mr. C organizesÂ postal matches for gun bloggersÂ and readers. If you have any ammo to spare, they are fun.

Big Democratic donors are demanding some action on gun control, or screw those Dems who hold office in cousin humping redneck states. Have it your way. I’ll be happy to contain the Democratic Party to the Northeast and West Coast.

The biggest gun banning states have the lowest rates for actually prosecuting crimes involving guns. Pennsylvania bans private transfers, and it’s a well established fact that Philly prosecutors rarely use these laws to go after criminals. So why have them?

Do Background Checks Work?

Clayton takes a look at some of the claims made about background checks working, and is skeptical of the evidence presented. I’ve always thought this BJS survey of criminal gun use, including where criminals were getting their guns, shows pretty clearly that all background checks have accomplished is shifting the source from retail, or lie and buy, to street sources which are more difficult if not impossible to regulate.

We Have the Language of Reid’s Bill, S.649

The latest language of S.649 can be found here. This is the bill that will be bought up for a vote. The “background check” language is identical to the language I analyzed in S.374. The rest of the bill is the same as S.179, Gillibrand’s trafficking bill. It’s essentially those two bills combined together into one bill. Needless to say, this bill is unacceptable and needs to be opposed, unless you want to have it be a felony in many conditions to hand a gun to a friend, such as plinking on your farm.

Misplaced Words or True Intent?

It’s not hard to see why tin foil hats are becoming quite the fashion statement in today’s political climate. Whether they started out with a purpose of making as many gun owners as possible into felons, that’s what the current so-called “background check” proposals do.

Today, we have another example of a peculiar choice of words from Obama that makes it appear as though his intent is to effectively shut down gun shows instead of simply pushing a supposed “background check” for gun sales bill. As Great Satan, Inc. highlights, Obama’s speech today called for background checks before a person even enters a gun show. A policy like that would effectively close down some of our biggest gathering places.

It’s not unreasonable to think that this is the goal since Bloomberg has made gun shows a target of such extreme regulation proposals as recently as 2010.

Anti-gun advocates like to say that we’re paranoid to think that they are really trying to go after our entire gun culture, yet it seems to me that we’re just remarkably well-informed and that we pay very close attention to the publicly announce plans of our opponents.