Category: Gun Rights

Bitter and I are hitting the paint brushes and rollers today to get my office prettied up. She picked a tan accent paint for the stairwell, that matches what we want to do with the rest of the house. She wasn’t sure about it, but I loved it. I picked a dark blue accent paint for a far wall in my office, and Bitter loves it and I’m not sure. I’m concerned it looks too black under the jaundiced Congressionally mandated CFL bulbs. But I think once it contrasts with the other lighter blue I picked for the other walls it’ll look decent. But I digress…  here’s the news dump:

Common sense confiscation in Illinois. Clearly our opponents view this as the less radical approach, since unlike Oregon and Washington, they have not proposed going door to door to inspects homes of gun owners for contraband.

ISRA has issued an urgent alert on the concealed weapons issue.

Anti-gun folks are attacking Colion Noir, who appeared in an NRA video here. Seems they are going particularly out of their way to attack this spokesperson for freedom than many others. I can’t imagine why. I can’t imagine their motivation. Certainly it has nothing to do with race. No, they are good people. They’d never stoop that low.

Anti-gun folks release a study done by cherry picked “experts” who all share a common hatred of gun owners.

Firearms laws do nothing to prevent homicide.

3D printed AK magazine. 3D printing made its way into Republican arguments against the magazine ban in Colorado.

February NICS figures were up nearly 30% over last years. I’m surprised there’s anything to buy.

Cuomo’s gun control position is hurting him with voters. Here’s hoping his ramming of SAFE down everyone’s throats puts him square on the same road as his father in terms of Presidential ambitions.

Geraghty points out that Obama is underwater on job approval. Gee, I wonder what would cause that?

The business of guns.

I’ve been following Dave Kopel’s Twitter feed to keep up to date. I do have to say the GOP is keeping the faith in Colorado, and pulling out all the stops. The Magazine ban has been laid over on a technicality, and we’re now moving on to the campus carry ban.

UPDATE: Campus Carry ban is effectively dead.

UPDATE: Mag ban passes 18-17 by a voice vote, but voting is not over, as Dave Kopel mentions, “Obama and Bloomberg rule the Colorado Legislature.” The Democrats must be punished in Colorado. Severely. I will be following the 2014 races there closely. Any loss of freedom anywhere diminishes us all.

Hickenlooper is also up, and won last time because the Republican Party was in shambles. He can’t count on that in 2014. It’s time for Coloradans to take their legislature back from the interlopers in DC and New York.

UPDATE: Assault weapons ban dead.

UPDATE: Kopel: “Republicans fighting like Alamo defenders. Just tried again to defeat #magban on Comm of the Whole Report.” also “Repubs now fighting again to remove govt loophole from #magban. Laws should apply equally” Hey, if they are only for mass murder, why to the police need them?

UPDATE: If it’s not about crime control, then what is it about? She knows the answer to that, and so do we.

UPDATE: I’m told that the final vote has not been taken yet on the gun control measures. A formal recorded vote will happen Monday, so there’s still time to get calling and harass lawmakers.

The Campus Carry Ban in Colorado will be withdrawn. Now we just have to stop that ridiculous magazine ban. Instapundit has more. Publicola notes that there will be a filibuster in the Colorado Senate by Republicans. Also, he’s covering live again. Also keep an eye on Michael Bane.

I’ll be trying to cover as best I can, but I’m pretty busy today with other things.

We’ll try to keep up to date on the voting as it happens.

First up is the trafficking bill, as reported by the LA Times. Vote was 11-7. Grassley was the only GOP defector, due to a promise that the bill contain a provision to stop gun walking. Hey, Senator Grassley, you know what makes gun walking illegal? Existing federal laws. Not everyone is fooled by what this bill is about:

“My concern is this bill is a solution in search of a problem,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas). “Straw-purchasing for purposes of directing guns to people who cannot legally obtain them is already a crime. And so we double down and say this time we really mean it, when in fact the real problem in many instances is the lack of prosecution of existing crimes by the Department of Justice.”

On to the other measures. Stay tuned.

UPDATE: Schumer introduces S.374, the “Protecting Responsible Gun Sellers Act of 2013,” which will of course have nothing to do with responsible gun sellers, and is likely designed to screw us.

UPDATE: John Richardson has the final word on today’s voting.

Another good article in Politico about the coming floor fight. They make the mistake of thinking the NRA is a singular behemoth, rather than an organization backed up by millions of concerned Americans. They note, “Gun control groups are also prepping for a longer fight.” I’m really quite tired of every election being the most important ever, but you can see from the recent escalation after the 2012 loss, the 2014 elections are shaping up to be exactly that. In losing many past “not to be lost” elections, we’ve squandered quite a bit. We can’t afford to squander anymore. If we go down in 2014 and suffer heavy losses in key races, it’s going to be the end of us. It’s going to be an all hands on deck situation, or we’re going to suffer losses that make the 90s look tame.

The Senate Judiciary Committee will likely vote on the gun control measures today. Given the makeup of the committee, I think we’re very unlikely to be able to stop any of the bills from hitting the floor. We have Easter recess coming up shortly. A vote can happen at any time, but it’s likely to happen after the Easter Recess. I hope everyone written their Senators by now, and will make phone calls. We’re going to have a floor fight over major gun control proposals folks, and this hasn’t happened in a long time.

John Richardson mentioned one particular threat, S. 443. I’ve read the bill (text here), and I still can’t figure out what it’s making illegal that isn’t already illegal. It also includes a huge expansion of civil asset forfeiture, which I’m sure ATF is drooling over. That’s probably the true purpose of this bill, and why ATF has been pushing for it. I’m not really amenable to giving ATF the power to seize property and ask questions later. This will be abused.

It would seem to clarify what constitutes a mental health adjudication, but does not concede any ground on private transfers. From the article, it would appear to create a prohibition for someone that uses the “not-guilty by reason of insanity defense” (I didn’t even realize that wasn’t considered an adjudication under current law) and if a person is found by a federal court to be a danger to themselves or others (another thing I thought would have already constituted an adjudication). This doesn’t look to me like it concedes much of anything, since all of these things still require due process, but I’ll hold my judgement until I see an actual bill.

In the mean time, keep calling those Senators, and just tell them no new gun control. I know the negotiations over expanding the background checks broke down earlier, and the Judiciary Committee is voting tomorrow on the other gun control bills. Given the makeup of the committee, I think it’s likely a lot of the bad stuff we’re very worried about is going to hit the floor, and this may end up being used to keep the floor fight going in a direction that doesn’t involve bans on guns, magazines, or private transfers.

From a Californian in the comments:

So in California all transfers (except for C&R long guns) have to go through and FFL, and CA FFLs are required to do them for a nominal fee set by the CA DOJ (correct me if I’m wrong but I think it’s $35). It sucks, and it’s occasionally bizarre, sometimes it’s cool – I’ve met one of my best friends and shooting buddies via a PPT (private party transfer). Here are some of the byproducts of this system: some FFLs will “run out” of Handgun Safety Cards (required for transfers) if you go to do a transfer and don’t have one (to avoid doing it). Some stores will flat out refuse if they are busy or make you wait so long you leave.

Sometimes it takes hours. You need 2 proofs of ID and if the store does not like your proofs, go home and get something else (I have waited a couple times for someone to go get a utility bill). Unless you are a veteran of PPTs, you are pretty much guaranteed to fail on your first attempt. Some stores will give you a gun lock, free, most stores make you buy one, and once the store only stocked locks that sold for $30. Then you get dealers that only do internet sales and PPTs, who are awesome, but… it’s crazy, it’s bizarre, and tons of people do illegal FTF transactions all the time – not because they are trying to break the law, but because the law is so complex as to be difficult to follow. This is what you can look forward to!

The ban on private transfers of handguns here in Pennsylvania is probably the most oft broken law by people who ordinarily aren’t lawbreakers, most of the time out of sheer ignorance of the law. Generally speaking, you can get a transfer done, but the price isn’t set by the state, and around here, about $35 bucks is about the floor. Some dealers charge as much as $50 to do a transfer between two parties, and many won’t do them at all. There’s also a problem in lending a handgun to someone, which is generally prohibited. The law makes an exception if the person is licensed to carry handguns.

For people cohabiting, but not married, this can be a problem if the two aren’t licensed. For instance, the law allows handguns to be given as gifts, but only between spouses, parents and children, and grandparents and grandchildren. For those who want to say you can duplicate the benefits of marriage with contracts, well, here’s a benefit you can’t duplicate with a contract. If you’re married, you can let your wife take your gun to the range, and he or she is legally entitled to receive your guns either temporarily or permanently. If you’re not married, you can’t let your significant other do the same, unless they have a license to carry, in which case you can temporarily lend your significant other a gun. It’s even questionable whether they could use your firearm in a self-defense situation.

This isn’t a place we want to go federally, and if I could, I would undo here in Pennsylvania too.