Guns – Page 1029 – Shall Not Be Questioned

How Not to Win

By sticking up for the second amendment rights of violent criminals. There are good poster children for why our current “prohibited person” statutes are overly broad. There are good poster children for the fact that the government has criminalized virtually everything, including making things like importing lobsters in plastic bags instead of cardboard boxes, a felony.

Sean Taylor is not in either of those two categories. Thanks Larry, with friends like this, who needs enemies?

UPDATE: I think it’s a reasonable argument to make that someone so dangerous they can’t be trusted with a firearm ought to be in jail. But the fact is, we let dangerous people out of jail. That they should be in jail rather than roaming the streets is a reasonable thing to argue, but is a separate issue from the second amendment. There are definitely prohibited people out there who don’t deserve to be prohibited, and I think our current laws cast way too broad a net, but someone charged with threatening with a firearm and aggravated assault, that plead down to misdemeanor battery, is not someone I’d go before the public with as an example. To me, for a pro-gun leader to do that doesn’t help the cause, and would do more to turn people off to the second amendment than bring people over to our side.

UPDATE: Here’s the WaPo article from the time:

According to a police report, Taylor and a co-defendant, Charles Elwood Caughman, 19, of Baltimore, drove up to a residence in a blue 2005 GMC Yukon Denali sport-utility vehicle and Taylor pointed a gun at two individuals he believed had stolen two all-terrain vehicles from him and demanded they be returned. No shots were fired and Taylor and Caughman left the scene before returning 10 minutes later.

At this point, police say Taylor, whom the team lists as 6 feet 2, 231 pounds, exited the vehicle and began assaulting one victim, swinging and missing with a closed fist before a fight ensued. Caughman, who was arrested and charged with aggravated assault on the night of the incident, chased the other victim with a baseball bat before he and Taylor fled the scene, according to the police report. The incident took place less than two miles from Taylor’s residence in Miami.

Under these circumstances, the two victims would have been justified legally in shooting Sean Taylor andÂ Charles Elwood Caughman dead where they stood.Â Do you want these two being used to help promote the second amendment?

The Guns

The deranged psycho responsible for the Church Shootings in Colorado, who’s life was mercifully dispatched with great prejudice by Ms. Assam, apparently had the following firearms:

Bushmaster XM15 assault rifle, purchased January 9 in Aurora.

AK-47 assault rifle, purchased November 17, 2006 in Aurora.

Beretta .40 cal. semi-automatic handgun , purchased January 4 in Colorado Springs.

Springfield Armory 9mm semi-automatic handgun, purchased September 11 in Denver.

The AK-47 was the assault rifle found in his car.

Purchased over the period of a year. Sometimes tells me he didn’t just come up with this idea.

UPDATE: Uncle asks “Then, how’d he die from a self-inflicted shotgun wound?”Â Good question.

Janet Huckabee on Concealed Carry

From MS-NBC:

Huckabee: I do. I would hardly say I’m a marksman. I definitely would not go that far. But again, I’ve had my concealed-weapon license for quite a while — I’ve actually had mine longer than my husband. It’s something that, I think, if you’re going to have a weapon, you should go learn how to shoot it.

Douglass: I guess the question was, why a concealed weapon?

Huckabee: Well, because if you have one in your vehicle or something and it’s under your seat, if you don’t have a license you could be in serious trouble. I’ve traveled across the country with two females. I think it’s a dangerous situation that perhaps you could be stranded. There’s, to me, nothing wrong with being able to protect yourself.

Can’t argue with that, but I’m still sticking with Fred.

Quote of the Day

If I was Brady Campaign, and had any hair, I’d be pulling it out just now.

Dave Hardy updates on Obama’s retreat from earlier positions on gun control, in response to Hillary trying to out gun nut him.

Target: C&R FFLs

Ryan thinks ATF could target C&R FFLs once they drive the number of type 01 and type 02 FFLs down to low enough levels. This is not out of the realm of possibility. If there’s one thing a government bureaucracy hates, it’s losing power, funding, and people. If it’s current mission can’t justify an agency that large, they will find new areas to focus on that’s within the scope of their powers.

The whole Curio and Relics licensing system has flown under the radar so far, but there is a very serious risk that could change.

UPDATE: Uncle thinks they will go after home builders first.Â I don’t disagree with this, but that doesn’t mean C&R FFL holders won’t get some attention too. Â There are a lot of C&R FFL holders though, so to some degree we have the sea turtle defense.Â It’s worth noting that ATF didn’t harass “kitchen table” dealers out of business, they started requiring that the licensed premises be zoned properly for the operation of that type of business, which is a standard that most hobby dealers couldn’t meet.Â If you weren’t zoned, you weren’t getting your license renewed.Â Home builders can be gone after easily because they operate in a tricky legal area that prohibits “manufacture for sale”Â So if my buddy buys an 80% lower and asks me to drill a few holes using my jig and equipment, am I in the business of manufacturing and require a type 07 FFL?Â The C&R stuff is a lot more straight forward, but ATF can definitely make C&R not worth the hassle.Â C&R holders, what are the various ways you think ATF could make our lives miserable?Â It’s a good exercise.Â Leave your thoughts in the comments.

Coverage in the Washington Post

Looks like Sullivan’s confirmation woes are getting some main stream press coverage:

Crapo’s spokesman, Lindsay Nothern, said the senator has heard from a number of gun dealers, gun owners and others in Idaho who “have concerns about ATF policies regarding gun sales and even ownership. Maybe the federal government is getting a little too aggressive with people who haven’t done anything wrong.”

The message is getting out there folks. Ryan has done a great job of raising awareness on this issue.

Sullivan Confirmation on Hold

Looks like the Senators from Idaho are putting Sullivan’s confirmation on hold. Now, if this is enough to make Bush withdraw the nomination, I’ll post an embarrassing picture of myself on here to offer penance for being horribly wrong about the inevitability of his confirmation. My guess though, is that they are doing it to convince him to address a lot of the abuse issues, or at least promise to address them.

This is a really promising development, without a doubt, and a good indication that things could go our way in the end. Fingers crossed.

You’ve Got to be Kidding?

Hillary attacking Obama because he’s unelectable on guns would be like if Joe Stalin argued that Hitler was unelectable because he’s “Just not a people person like me.”

Dave Hardy says: “Two candidates with an “F” rating on an issue, fighting out which of them is more un-electable on it.”

Wait a minute, I could swear last week she was criticizing Obama for dodging votes on important gun control bills.

Mrs Clinton sneered at Mr Obama for dodging difficult votes on abortion and gun control when he was a state senator and mocked him for a lack of experience and over-reaching ambition.

Obama has an over-reaching ambition?Â I’d say Obama’s ambition can be measured in kilometers in terms of how far it overreaches.Â We’d have to get to parsecs before we could measure Hillary’s overreaching ambition.

Enforcing the Current Laws

In a different legal environment, I might be able to get behind Ahab here, but I can’t. Ahab states:

Iâ€™ll probably take some heat for supporting this, but the fact is that Iâ€™ve never supported violent felons, domestic abusers, or the mentally incompetent owning firearms. I am pleased that California made the decision to actually remove guns from the hands of people who were forbidden from owning them, instead of going after law abiding citizens to take their guns.

I don’t think it’s unconstitutional for certain classes of criminals, who have exhibited a tendency toward violence to have their civil rights taken away from them as part of their conviction. The problem is, The Lautenberg Act didn’t do that. It covered people convicted of a whole host of misdemeanors, that would not have necessarily included any actual domestic abuse, from having firearms retroactively, and without any subsequent due process. A man who pushed his wife aside, because she was blocking his exiting the home in a domestic quarrel twenty years ago (misdemeanor assault), loses his rights just as much as someone who put beat and bruised his wife (felony assault). Does that seem like a just law? Is it fair to prosecute someone for gun possession when many of these people have no idea they are even prohibited, because they were told the crimes were ‘minor’? Also consider someone I ran across on PA Firearms Owners Association forum who had become a prohibited person because he plead guilty to obliterating a VIN number, which is a felony, because he swapped the dash board out on a pair of cars. Dose it seem fair to prosecute him for gun possession?

I understand the public relations value in “Enforce the Laws We Already Have”, because it resonates with a public who doesn’t really understand the complexity of the issue, and gets them out of the mood for more gun control. We can’t deny the value of that. We also can’t deny that the message the Brady’s, and their friends in the media, will put out there if we try to change any of this is “The gun lobby wants to make sure wife beaters are well armed.”

I’ll recognize the value in the rhetoric, but I think it’s a mistake to get too enthusiastic about specific programs like the one California is currently undertaking, that’s sweeping up all manner of people, without any consideration to whether they are truly violent people who perhaps ought not be roaming our streets, or victims of an unjust and overly broad criminal code, that criminalizes nearly everything.

UPDATE: According to War on Guns, The CRPA originally supported this program, not believing it would be used to round up non-violent persons. These programs are a double edged sword, and gun rights organizations support them at their peril, or, more accurately, our peril. Regardless of its public relations value, it’s kind of hard to make a case for how bad some of these laws are if it’s the program you’re supporting that’s causing these people to get reached by the long arm of the law.

Cook County Gun Ban

Cook County has introduced a bill that would effectively ban all firearms. Thirdpower has the digs. Also Armed and Safe.

Here’s the Illinois State Rifle Assocation web site, which also has details.

UPDATE: More from War on Guns