Category: Guns

From the Washington Post:

“The president wants votes on these issues. We want votes. There will be votes,” Keene said.

King also asked him if the NRA would punish members of Congress who support universal background checks on gun purchases, which he said recent polls show most Americans support, and which the NRA at one time supported but now opposes.

Keene responded: “The answer is yes.”

They want to get Senators on the record for 2014, I think. This morning they put out a call to keep the phone calls coming to key Senators who are likely wavering:

So please, call each of the senators below and tell them to vote NO on any gun ban…NO on any magazine ban…NO on criminalizing private firearm transfers…and NO on any gun registration scheme.

	Sen. Max Baucus	202-224-2651
	Sen. Mark Begich	202-224-3004
	Sen. Susan Collins	202-224-2523
	Sen. Joe Donnelly	202-224-4814
	Sen. Kay Hagan	202-224-6342
	Sen. Martin Heinrich	202-224-5521
	Sen. Heidi Heitkamp	202-224-2043
	Sen. Tim Johnson	202-224-5842
	Sen. Tim Kaine	202-224-4024
	Sen. Angus King	202-224-5344
	Sen. Mary Landrieu	202-224-5824
	Sen. Joe Manchin	202-224-3954
	Sen. Claire McCaskill	202-224-6154
	Sen. Mark Pryor	202-224-2353
	Sen. Harry Reid	202-224-3542
	Sen. Jeanne Shaheen	202-224-2841
	Sen. Jon Tester	202-224-2644
	Sen. Mark Udall	202-224-5941
	Sen. Tom Udall	202-224-6621
	Sen. Mark Warner	202-224-2023

Spread your calls out over several days if you need to.

And remember: It doesn’t matter if you do not live in these senators’ states – YOU NEED TO CALL THEM. After all, the votes they cast will affect you no matter where you live!

A brief blurb on our efforts last night before the Lower Makefield Board of Supervisors. When we fight, we win. We only lose when we stay home. This is what Democracy looks like.

UPDATE: Looks like we’re not the only ones:

Boston News, Weather, Sports | FOX 25 | MyFoxBoston

Good show!

One of our local communities, Lower Makefield, is misbehaving on gun rights. I’m planning to show up and to be prepared to speak on behalf of my club, who have many members in that township. They are preempted, so the potential for damage is minimal, but it’s a Republican and former state rep who’s the Chairman of the Board of Supervisors, and I don’t want the County GOP to start thinking they can push us around. If you live in the area, consider stopping by tonight at 7:30PM.

UPDATE: A good number of my fellow club members showed up, and early on the Township Board of Supervisors rescinded their earlier resolution supporting gun control, much to the disgust of the two anti-gun speakers present. Sometimes victory is sweet indeed. But more importantly, the message was sent.

Counties are starting to pass resolutions opposing the New York SAFE Act. Niagara County has passed a unanimous resolution, along with Ulster County, and Schoharie County. Resolutions will be considered soon in Sullivan County, Delaware County, and Greene County.

BTW, Sullivan County is named after this guy, and not this criminal. Also notable is that not all of these counties are upstate. Sullivan and Ulster County are both considered part of the New York metro area, and a few are swing counties in terms of Democrat v. Republican.

UPDATE: Here’s a complete picture of the current county government resolutions. Looks pretty good.

Justice Scalia thinks we’ll be hearing more Supreme Court cases on guns soon. I think Scalia would vote to give us a strong and robust Second Amendment, but he needs four more votes to win cases. I’m glad to hear he’s softening up Kagan. Who would have thought in the 70s and early 80s we’d be primarily fighting long gun bans because handgun bans were off the table? I actually think it would benefit even a very urban and very gun weary Democratic Party to have the courts largely settle the issue in favor of gun rights. That opens the door to the Democrats using gun control the same way Republicans use abortion. Republicans love to talk a good talk on abortion, but the fact is the court protections preclude most of the policy options they advocate, and they are then left nibbling around the edges, and mostly failing at that, when it comes to policy. But it’s a good issue to drag out at election time and dangle in front of important constituencies. I’d be tickled pink of the gun issue ended up like abortion, and with similar levels of protection from the courts.

Amicus briefs have been filed in Kachalsky. I don’t think all this late gun control nonsense is going to change the fact that carry will be the next issue before the Court, and we can hope the Court will clear things up a bit when it comes to standards of review.

Rahm is looking for help from suburban lawmakers for gun control. People often make the mistake of thinking the core of the gun rights movement is rural. It is not. It’s largely a suburban phenomena, if you have ever taken a serious look at studies that have looked into who the gun culture is really comprised of. In my experience, people in rural areas are less aware of what a contentious issue guns are. A lot of people from my generation who became active in this issue came out of the tech industry.

TFB notes that  “Guns are the new golf,” linking to a story about a reviving of the shooting culture in Silicon Valley, and noting some famous gun wielding techies, like Eric Raymond. It’s worth nothing that ESR is from around here, rather than Silicon Valley, and the Philadelphia suburbs still has a fairly healthy gun culture, whereas California has taken extensive measures to destroy its own legal gun culture. This makes reviving a gun culture difficult, but the seed is there if we can fix California.

Among Gen Xers, tech people tended to be pretty libertarian in their thinking and political orientation. The Millennials who are coming up to replace us are culturally just as tolerant as we were, but identify more with the left on economic issues and on the role of government. I’ve often wondered how much of the current push was to try to pull Millenials, who think quite highly of President Obama, into being the next generation of gun control advocates by using Obama’s cool factor to help make gun control seem cool. As Glenn Reynolds notes, gun control is a movement of old white people, and old white people die off.

All the news that’s fit to dump:

More fun with headlines, and the media spin. BTW, that Vermont story came out right after Sandy Hook, so I took some time to watch this guy’s videos, and thought it was something Clayton Cramer might be interested in. I’m not sure that concerns this guy had mental issues are unfounded.

Are Governor Cuomo’s Presidential ambitions ruined? Well, jumping on the gun control bandwagon isn’t going to help win Democratic primaries in the South.

Chris takes a look at the dominoes. Once they start to fall it’s going to be hell to stop them. He notes: “‘Pack up and move’ seems to be a dwindling option at the rate the infection is spreading.” The anti-gun folks are raising the stakes. You do realize that works both ways, right? We need to work hard. We need to regain momentum and crush them.

Would new gun laws spark widespread civil disobedience? I’d hope so. If we ever get to the point where we stand idly by and allow our civil liberties to be taken from us, we’re not Americans anymore.

It’s another Markley’s Law Monday.

So you want to ban magazines, eh? Do you even know where all yours are? I always find them when I go digging through my bins.

Democrats have a full blown Aiken on theirs hands. I think all sides can probably agree that if you’re a politician, and the word “rape” comes into your wormy little brain, zip your trap. Resist the temptation. More here.

Maybe we need magazine limitations for cops.

The real danger lurking in David Frum’s ignorance.

Colorado Democrats think you should consider alternatives to defending yourself with a gun, like ball point pens.

Chicago has no space for more “gun criminals,” but yet we need more gun laws.

Trying to make progress in other states. We’ve actually been winning battles, if you pay close attention. Our enemies are focused on other things.

This is all part of the plan to destroy the Second Amendment. What’s scary is that he might succeed.

UK legal pistols by exploiting the “steel counterweight loophole.”

Lawmakers predict Congress will OK new gun laws. They want to make you think this is inevitable, so why bother lifting a finger? Don’t listen to them.

California-approved handgun safe.

Guns are really boaring. But I thought if you shot an animal with an AR-15, it exploded?

Guns are not a defensive weapon. Really? So Police Chief Ken James’ officers carry them for offensive purposes like murder? Remember that police chiefs are politicians. Actually, in some cases they are worse than politicians. They are usually appointed by politicians, which means chapping your lips on an awful lot of asses to get there.

NRA is noting that it’s starting in Pennsylvania. We have the advantage of a friendly House, a so-so senate, and a friendly Governor. Even though the GOP controls all three, their fortunes here over the long term don’t look good. Pennsylvania should absolutely not be taken for granted. Bloomberg is putting a big target on all of us.

Glenn Reynolds goes over the Taxonomy of gun control in response to the CSM article about Obama’s divide and conquer strategy. Remember, the real enemy is ignorance, not anti-gun folks. The anti-gun folks just garden in that manure. The problem our opponents have is, while there are certainly moderate gun owners out there, you’re not going to convince the vast majority of them to push gun control. Their best bet is finding lefty apparatchiks that have some plausible claim to be gun owners. You know, like this tool.