Category: Gun Rights

A disappointed DiFi will always mean happy us:

After a meeting with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Monday, a frustrated Feinstein said she learned that the bill she sponsored — which bans 157 different models of assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines — wouldn’t be part of a Democratic gun bill to be offered on the Senate floor. Instead, it can be offered as an amendment. But its exclusion from the package makes what was already an uphill battle an almost certain defeat.

Looks like Harry Reid, who likely doesn’t want to vote on it, told her no. Now the question becomes what the Democrats are going to try to pass in its stead. The gods of “Something Must be Done!” have to be appeased, you see. The Dems also likely can’t deal the President a complete embarrassment, so something will be done.

There are two likely paths: Reid could advance a gun trafficking bill with a school safety provision; some form of background checks and the assault weapons ban would then be offered as amendments. In the other scenario, Reid might offer a background checks bill that includes the gun trafficking and school safety provisions, with assault weapons again offered as an amendment.

Apparently the gun control groups are willing to go with a background check bill that is “slightly less stringent” than Schumer’s S.374 “background check” bill. Slightly less is not going to be remotely acceptable. We’re not going to have every gun owner in this country living at the whim of a federal prosecutor because he handed a gun to someone outside of some ridiculous list of exemptions. End of story.

A panel of people, containing no firearms experts or Second Amendment advocates, and generally composed of people Certified Better Than You, comes to the shocking conclusion that the State of Connecticut needs a whole lot more gun control, including universal registration, a ban on background checks, licensing, ban on magazines these Certified Better People deem too large, draconian storage requirements that render firearms useless for self defense, restrictions on how much ammo one can purchase, and my personal favorite:

Requiring gun clubs to report any negligent or reckless behavior with a firearm, or illegal possession of any firearm or magazine, to the Connecticut Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection, Commissioner of Public Safety, and local law enforcement.

All good citizens report zheir neighbors to ze Gestapo, Ja? They have their pretext, and now they can do whatever they want to those of us who actually take the Bill of Rights seriously.

Pennsylvania has long prohibited private transfers of “firearms,” which are defined legally in our Uniform Firearms Act as:

Any pistol or revolver with a barrel length less than 15 inches, any shotgun with a barrel length less than 18 inches or any rifle with a barrel length less than 16 inches, or any pistol, revolver, rifle or shotgun with an overall length of less than 26 inches.

Our transfer prohibition is not quite as draconian as what the folks in Colorado will have to endure, and nor is it nearly as bad as what Chuck Schumer has proposed federally. But nonetheless, when it comes to living under such a prohibition, lax enforcement and prosecutorial discretion is what makes it possible to live with, because the truth is that Pennsylvanians are violating the state’s transfer prohibition on a regular basis without even knowing it. That prohibition can be found here:

(c)  Duty of other persons.–Any person who is not a licensed importer, manufacturer or dealer and who desires to sell or transfer a firearm to another unlicensed person shall do so only upon the place of business of a licensed importer, manufacturer, dealer or county sheriff’s office, the latter of whom shall follow the procedure set forth in this section as if he were the seller of the firearm. The provisions of this section shall not apply to transfers between spouses or to transfers between a parent and child or to transfers between grandparent and grandchild.

Additionally, Pennsylvania prohibits “lending or giving” a “firearm,” with the following exceptions:

• The person who receives the firearm is Licensed to Carry Firearms
• The person who receives the firearm is exempt from licensing (e.g. cops)
• People engaged in hunter safety, a firearm training program or competition sanctioned by the NRA.
• Persons under 18, directly supervised by someone over 21 who is not prohibited.
• To a person lawfully hunting.
• Any transfer occurring only in the home or place of business.
• Any bequest or inheritance

This was a blanket prohibition until 1995, when this admittedly weak set of exceptions was added. It’s unclear whether any firearm training program is exempted or only training programs sanctioned by NRA are exempted. What constitutes loaning is pretty well defined, but the law also prohibits giving, which is less well defined. Presumably handing a pistol to a fellow IHMSA (not an NRA competition) competitor who’s pistol went down might constitute illegal giving if he doesn’t have an LTC. Our law is still not very clear, despite far broader exceptions than federal and other state proposals currently. The exception for LTCs, which most Pennsylvanians who shoot have, at least removes quite a bit of ordinary legal hazard.

The big problem with “Universal Background Checks,” or more accurately, banning private transfers, is that you have to define transfers. Our opponents clearly want to define this as broadly as possible, to include even handing a gun to someone to shoot. Even with our exceptions, Pennsylvania law is only tolerable because of lax enforcement. For instance, I bought Bitter a little .22 revolver for Christmas one year. The “gift” is really just sort of an agreement. Legally, it’s my gun. She can take it shooting because she has an LTC. She can also carry my guns, again, because she has an LTC. If she did not, she can handle it in the house, but not take it outside the house. If she and I split, I’d have to formally transfer the gun into her name before she could remove it from my possession on a permanent basis. Many Pennsylvanians are unaware this is the law, and routinely commit serious crimes without realizing it.

If the anti-gunners have it their way in other states, and at the federal level, routine criminal acts will be in your future too, only worse, because the anti-gun folks have shown they aren’t willing to accept exceptions even as narrow as ours.

A House committee is scheduled to debate a gun bill tomorrow on background checks. The Senate in Minnesota is, meanwhile, reporting gun control out of committee. Now, as we well know by now, they might claim the issue is background checks, but that’s not the case at all. It’s really about changing the definition of transfer in an attempt to make gun ownership legally risky. Colorado’s bill is very similar to the federal bill. You can find the Senate bill here. I note this bill also redefines transfer to include temporary possession as well, and what’s even more pathetic is they failed to exempt spouses, and this time, you can’t leave home for even a day without affecting a transfer. It removes the exclusion for antique firearms. Also, it would seem you can’t even leave home for more than a day under this law without effectively affecting a transfer.

I currently live under a regime similar to the one Minnesota is proposing, and I don’t recommend it. First, it won’t work. They’ll be back for more gun control.

I hate to do this two days in a row, but with a quarterly meeting today, and a busy day yesterday, my mind is elsewhere right now:

Great moments in police gun handling. Newsflash for the anti-gunners: police are drawn from the gun culture, generally, and to the extent that they aren’t, they benefit from it. Notice all these stories come out of New York? What doesn’t New York have? Oh yeah, a legal gun culture.

Dave Hardy, who is an attorney and gun law expert, has taken a look at the background check bill, S.374, and largely verified my conclusions from earlier. Second Amendment attorney beats snarky hill staffer who showed up in the comments tell me I was crazy and paranoid.

The Wicked Witch of the West’s assault weapons ban destined for legislative limbo? Let’s hope so, but keep communicating with lawmakers.

Anti-gun protesters apparently got a bit disruptive at NRA headquarters. “Today, the NRA has demonstrated that they don’t want to listen, that they don’t want to hear from families, and that they don’t want to have a productive conversation to make America’s families safer.” I think the problem is that we have vastly different ideas about how to accomplish that. You don’t make me or anyone else safer by disarming me.

We’ve beaten them back in Washington State. This is very welcome news. Great show for those in the Evergreen State. This blue state would have been a welcome prize for Obama and Bloomberg.

Newtown parents pushing Silicon Valley to make guns safer. I hate to tell these folks, but there’s no safe gun. Guns are inherently dangerous. The way to make guns safer is to make people safer. You know who’s been doing that for years? NRA. The reason we don’t have smart guns is because no one wants them. And why would you? Guns are a lot more reliable than any electronic gadget I’ve ever used, and they need to be.

Obama is continuing to have trouble in the polls. This is great news for the Second Amendment. The more unpopular he becomes, the less pull he’s going to have convincing wavering Democrats to take the plunge and vote for gun control.

Diane Feinstein’s gun policy a product of PTSD? Certainly seems that way.

A right deserves a single, uniform standard. I agree this is a core value. To Bloomberg and his ilk: It’s worth noting that Congress has Section 5 powers under the 14th Amendment to protect fundamental constitutional rights. It’s also worth noting that gun owners are mobilized for action like I’ve never seen them.  I’d lastly note that paybacks are hell. You started this fight. We will finish it. That’s a promise. A single uniform standard, and one I can promise you will not like.

The fight in Illinois is really heating up, and it’s very important that everyone in Illinois, that does business or is in any way associated with the state help call lawmakers and spread the word. What’s the situation on the ground? Well, the Chicago machine wants a consolation prize if they are going to be forced to accept concealed carry. Right now that’s in the form of a magazine ban. As I mentioned yesterday, the margin for votes is really thin, so this is where the anti-gunners are going to try to hit us next, and they are twisting arms, so it is incumbent upon us to twist back. If this picks up momentum, if they get another state, it’s going to get very difficult to stop.

Behind the scenes, while everyone is focusing on what’s reporting out of the Judiciary Committee in the federal Senate, things in Illinois have been heating up very quickly, and now they need to hear from gun owners there, once again.

The fight is over a magazine ban. A ten round magazine ban limit was defeated on a house floor vote by 57-59, which is a real squeaker. This bill had no grandfathering. Now the leadership are trying to come up with the votes to get it done, and it’s a very fluid situation. We need people to light em up and flood their phone banks and e-mail servers.

Do I have enough for a news dump? I guess we’ll see. Yesterday was a club meeting, and I expected it to be a particularly contentious one. We also introduced ourselves to the leaders of a local pro-gun movement upstart here in the County on Monday, so time has been scarce. But I’ll give a news dump a good college try:

Gun Culture 2.0 is breaking out all over.

Ignorance can be deadly.

Fear of just about everything. In the taxonomy of gun control supports, you have the fearful, and the condescending. Sure, there are the concerned Americans, but they are a rarer member of the genus.

3D Printer Maker speaks at SXSW. Gun control is an obsolete concept. Clayton Cramer notes a rapidly expanding supply of STL files.

All your base… We are everywhere.

The AR-15 and CT gun companies.

More attacks on SAFE, and about 40 folks in Clinton County turn out to support a resolution denouncing SAFE.

The ammo shortage is not, repeat not, a conspiracy.

Obama is bringing up the armor piercing bullets canard again.

Mark Kelly tries to turn in his AR to the cops, well, how it might go if he really tried. Apparently he also does not know it’s unlawful to sell a gun to someone in another state.

We’ve here in America have eaten all the birds, and constantly drink coffee made from snow. I’m going to guess both of these are common practice in North Korea.

Utah scores dead last in Brady rankings, but how does its crime compared to California?

Apparently the IL governor and Attorney General are at odds as to whether to appeal the 7th circuit ruling to the Supreme Court.

And don’t forget, today the Senate Judiciary Committee will be taking up the Wicked Witch of the West’s gun ban. UPDATE: The danger of posting ahead. Already reported out of Committee, though it wasn’t when I wrote this.

The New York Times reports the semi-auto ban has passed out of committee on a party line vote:

“The road is uphill. I fully understand that,” said Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, the sponsor of the bill, after its passage in the committee. “My passion comes from what I’ve seen on the streets,” she said, adding, “I cannot get out of my mind trying to find the pulse in someone and putting my fingers in a bullet hole.”

Hey, you know what millions of law abiding American gun owners did not do? Shoot Harvey Milk. Well, folks, now we have a floor fight on our hands. These are dangerous times we live in. Apparently Ted Cruz really went after Feinstein.

UPDATE: More from John Richardson, who has details on the Amendment game being played by the GOP.