Guns – Page 281 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Gun Control Details in the Senate

The good news is we’ve seemingly beaten an assault weapons ban, the bad news is they are pushing on magazine limits.

Senate Democratic leaders expect a gun bill to move to the Senate floor that includes most of the proposals backed by President Obama, with the notable exception of a ban on military-style, semiautomatic weapons, reports the Wall Street Journal. A top aide to Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada said the bill would likely seek to limit the capacity of ammunition magazines; expand background checks to include sales at gun shows and other private transactions; and require better record keeping to keep guns out of the hands of those with mental illnesses. It would also try to curb gun sales in states with more relaxed gun laws to buyers in states with stricter laws.

Absolutely not. Magazine bans are just as out of the realm of discussion as the assault weapons ban. If you have not yet called or written your Senator, please do so. Don’t use the form letters by Ruger and Smith & Wesson. These kinds of forms aren’t as impactful as a personalized message, and aren’t given as much weight. In short, this takes real work. I’ve gotten so many people asking me to blog about these form letters, but there’s a reason I don’t. It’s better than nothing, but if it’s easy, it won’t have as much of an impact. There’s no getting around it. Feel free to take letters you see floating around out there and modify them. I’ve made some here. But take the time to personalize them and send them yourself. E-mail is generally best, but a mailed letter to a district office (not DC) is also impactful. We are not out of the woods by far.

Ammo Sales Still Going Like Gangbusters

From the CMP this morning:

Aguila .22LR Ammunition.Â The CMP is sold out of caliber .22 rimfire ammunition. The manufacturer, Aguila, has advised that the earliest we can expect resupply is late April, 2013, at slightly higher pricing.

But they are still taking orders.Â Also:

Lake City Carbine Ammo. The caliber .30 Lake City Carbine ammo that we offered for sale beginning 2 Jan, 2013 will be sold out by 8 Feb, 2013.Â We still have over 1,000 orders for this ammoÂ that have not yet shipped, but will be filled over the next few weeks.

Again, still taking orders:

Purchase Limit onÂ HXP .30-06 ammunition. As a result of the purchasing frenzy of the HXP .30-06 ammunition, effective immediately CMP is imposing a 10 can per year per customer limit for CMP Item number …

One of my big concern is the hoarders are making it very difficult for new shooters who are just getting their feet wet with this stuff. If those rifles, pistols and shotguns end up going into closets for lack of ammo, they may never come back out again.

Monday Morning News Dump

Took a bit to get moving this morning with sore muscles, mostly my back, from bending over, and my arms and fingers, from spending so much time with a death grip on a utility knife. My drywall cut mostly worked. Unfortunately, because the stairs were not perfectly square, I transmitted error with every measurement up the whole length of the stairs, and the gap between the stairs and drywall kept getting larger going up. Wish I had checked that with a level beforehand. Nothing that can’t be fixed with some hot mud though. So what’s going on in the gun world?

Tam comments on a post over at PDB’s on accessorizing your rifle. I have one AR upper that’s all rail, and to be honest, it’s not comfortable. I prefer the standard A2 hand guards, and I’ve never liked vertical fore grips. One accessory I’ve always wanted is a mount for a flashlight that fits on the bayonet lug, so it could be easily removed when I take it shooting.

Tam on child labor “We never should have let the little savages out of the coal mines in the first place.” We’ll make sure they wear their helmets and kneepads, and sprinkle the bottom of the mines with rubber mulch so if they fall they won’t get boo boos.

Our public schools introduce thought crime. I never used to think too highly of homeschooling. Not that I have any problem with it being legal, or people doing it, but I never thought it’d be for my kids. I can’t imagine sending my kids to the public schools of today. “Home schooling: not just for religious nuts anymore,” I think I saw that on Instapundit a few weeks ago.

The income tax celebrates 100 years, and along with it, some of the most elaborate and entertaining conspiracy theories ever devised by man. Oh fringed flag, long may ye wave.

A veteran stands charged with possession of a 30 round magazine. Instapundit notes that he must not qualify for the David Gregory exemption.

The Democrats in Minnesota are planning themselves some gun control. Standard fare we’ve seen everywhere else. Draconian gun bans, seven round limits.

Everything is an assault rifle. Maybe they read the Journalist Guide to Firearms.

“Guarded optimism,” is the watchword for the suit by NYSRPA/SAF against New York City over excessive gun license fees after oral arguments seemingly went well. I think our victories in Court are partly responsible for the current backlash. We have the wild animal backed into a corner.

Of course rapists want women disarmed. #WarOnWomen

Loaded language poisons the gun debate.

Two posts by Professor Nick Johnson, one on the miseducation of Danny Glover, and one on the President’s gun control proposals.

Miguel notes that lawmakers don’t seem eager to sign on with Feinstein’s gun ban. Don’t get complacent. If they win on any issue, it’s going to make a follow up victory much more likely. Don’t forget after Brady passed, they finally got their “assault weapons” ban. Next time that bridge too far won’t have a self-destruct mechanism built into it. They won’t fall for that again.

I’ve been trying to ignore the prattling fools at CSGV, but every once in a while, the stupid burns. Joe has a quote of the day. CSGV are the kings of erecting straw men to tear them down. Nearly all the features on the AR-15 that are “evil,” (save maybe the bayonet lug, which are no longer evil, apparently) are ergonomic features. We don’t deny they serve an ergonomic purpose. But when we say the ban is cosmetic, that is also accurate, because they are looking for common cosmetic features that apply to all rifles the other side think looks scary. The AR is just damned comfortable to shoot, which is why it’s popular. Because it’s popular is, of course, the reason they want it banned. It’s like if the obesity advocates decided to help people exercise more by mandating that comfortable chairs and sofas be outlawed.

Well, that’s all for this round. One of these days I’m going to do one of these dumps and then not have anything to write about for the rest of the day.

More Hearings on Gun Control

It looks like the anti-gun lawmakers are not through with the dog and pony show of gun control hearings. We already knew that Dianne Feinstein wasn’t happy with pro-gun speakers allowed on the main Judiciary Committee hearing witness list, and she demanded to have her own hearing.

Well, it looks like Dick Durbin is joining that club and having what will be the second of (at least) three hearings on gun control. There isn’t a posted witness list yet, but Ted Cruz is ranking member of the subcommittee, so he has the opportunity to have a little more fun with his large gun pictures and “evil” gun accessories.

On Getting Rid of Gun Control

Lyle notes:

You cannot claim to defend the second amendment while supporting or openly accepting the NFA of â€™34 and GCA â€™68. Or background checks. It makes absolutely no sense.

I think it depends on what you mean by “accepting.” When every expert in the field tells me that fighting the National Firearms Act, or most provisions of the Gun Control Act in court are fruitless endeavors, I can’t really find much ground to disagree with them considering we can’t even get the courts to agree we have a right to bear arms. Legislatively,Â I’ve never talked to a gun lobbyist who thinks that NFA or the many regulatory aspects of GCA are repealable in the current political climate, or in a foreseeable political climate. The current situation bears this out; if we’re worried about a ban on semi-automatics, because too many people think they are machine guns, how do you expect to find the votes to ease restrictions on machine guns themselves? I think it’s a waste of the community’s energy and political influence to fret over battles we lost years ago and can’t win now. It’s talk of storming the castle, when we aren’t even half way up the hill the castle is on yet.

Joe has a good post on the fallacy of the effectiveness of background checks, and I agree with him that’s true. An old study by the Bureau of Justice Statics bears the facts out for all to see. It shows in a simple table where criminals obtained their guns. It’s pretty clear that the decline in guns obtained at retail after the enactment of the Brady Act was nearly perfectly replaced by straw purchasers, most of whom are friends and family of the criminals who have clean records. The reason we got background checks is not because the NRA or gun rights advocates caved on the issue. NRA caved on the issue because the vast majority of Americans agree with background checks, and it was going to be a choice between instant background checks and background checks with a lengthy waiting period. As I said in the last post, sometimes it’s a matter of having to pick your poison. Most people have no inclination to dive into the data and find the truth, and if background checks feel emotionally satisfying to them, they’ll dispute your claim of ineffectiveness even without bothering to look at the evidence themselves and make up their own minds. They have no dog in the fight, so why should they?

If you want to eradicate the current gun control regime, you have to first deal with this: a majority of Americans do not own guns, know nothing about the gun culture, shooting, hunting, or anything involving firearms.Â About 100 million Americans live under state or local governments who have enacted enough strict gun control as to effectively destroy their shooting culture. That’s 1/3rd of the population of the United States we can write off, just starting out. Unless we get strong enough protection from the courts to make it possible to rehabilitate the shooting cultures in these places, that population will effectively remain among the people we can’t ever reach. The only way you’re going to make strong advocates for the Second Amendment is to give people a personal stake in the fight. One reason I often advocate people getting over the NFA is because, to be honest, it’s going to be necessary to concede those issues, for now, in order to get stronger protections for everything else. You have to reach into the areas where that 1/3rd lives, and start changing minds before a conversation about NFA or GCA, or the Brady Act, is even going to be possible. That is the fight right now, and the current backlash your seeing is because the elites in those places know we’re being successful, and it frightens them. We may one day get to storm the castle, but that will likely belong to the kids being born now. It’s incumbent on us — those in the fight now — to get them to the top of the hill.

Targeting the Gun Industry

About 60 mayors are planning to exercise their authority over city spending on gun and ammunition purchases by demanding that any gun makers who want to bid for their contracts start supporting gun control efforts. Their argument is that they control tax dollars, so tax dollars should only go to companies that embrace their political agenda. Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak said, “We all ought to have a conversation as taxpayers about whether our dollars should be used for people who are not working to reduce gun violence.”

Meanwhile, Smith & Wesson today posted on Facebook to promote their tool to contact lawmakers to stand up for Second Amendment rights.

We’re More United

I find it funny just how far anti-gun advocates will go to pretend that gun ownership is still just a concern of those rural hicks and that no “legitimate” gun owner actually supports the right to own guns they seek to ban. I came across this tab I still had open from last week when the Eastern Sports & Outdoor Show was cancelled after their largest vendor that sold fishing & hunting gear pulled out, their largest or second largest (it was tough to tell in layout plans) boat display pulled out, and dozens of hunting guides and lodges pulled out. The order, timing, & type of non-gun vendors who withdrew is flat out ignored by local officials when condemning NRA members:

It is also unfortunate that legal gun owners and the many families who have enjoyed a long tradition of hunting in the beautiful rural environment around the region will be deprived of this major event because of a controversy caused by firearms manufacturers who profit from the sale of weapons designed for the mass killing of human beings. …

This kind of conflict within the firearms community is the result of years of polarization between the majority American sportsmen and hunters who exercise their constitutional right to bear arms and at the same time favor reasonable illegal gun controls, and a minority of NRA members who refuse to recognize the very real problem of illegal military style weaponry and the mass havoc such weapons facilitate.

The anti-gun leaders know that dividing our community is the most likely path to success. However, that hasn’t happened at this point with many more people who typically just hunt realize that the guns they use are also being targeted. When presented with this pesky fact (based on the timeline and types of vendors who dropped the ESOS because of the gun ban), these anti-gunners don’t know how to fight it. They know we vote. We’re more likely to vote in off year elections, too. Now their strategy is just to lie about it and pretend that we’re heavily divided – even in contexts where the evidence clearly contradicts them.

Band-Aids & Guns

Jim Braaten talks about how dealing with his pre-school daughter is awfully similar to dealing with anti-gun advocates and politicians.

The Non-Public Public Meetings on Gun Control

Just like Joe Biden did in Virginia, Obama plans to start off next week with a not-really-public meeting with supporters to call for more gun control in Minnesota.

This isn’t about hearing from real voters, but they do know that when the President or Vice President come to town and are “seen” as talking to voters about gun control, then it increases local coverage for their cause. I find it interesting that Obama is currently targeting states he won, but where he doesn’t have consistent support for the gun ban agenda from members of Congress. This is very much about testing out the waters of firing up his personal base to see if they will act on gun control. It’s also timed to coincide with the state push for gun control, so he’ll probably tie at least some of his remarks to drive attention to that. I have no doubt that the White House has seen how visible pro-Second Amendment folks have been in key states that should be able to ram through gun control without a second thought, and they want to attention away from our efforts.

As I said previously on the post about Biden’s visit to Virginia, if there happen to be a handful of dedicated pro-gun activists in the immediate area to Obama’s visit, just having a few people out with signs to protest can be very useful for fighting in the media. It doesn’t have to be a mass, full-scale effort. Just a few people who already live or work in the area and have the flexibility to step away from their jobs for an hour or two and hold up some polite protest signs. Those kinds of small efforts make their way into the media reports, and it shows those local lawmakers that Obama is trying to pressure that we’re not giving up.

Having a Gun in the Home and Drinking

Constitutionally protected, at least in Michigan. The Appeals Court ruled:

While preventing intoxicated individuals from committing crimes involving handguns is an important government objective, the infringement on defendantâ€™s right in the instant case was not substantially related to that objective. We initially note that, at the time of the officersâ€™ entry into the home, and at the time they were actually able to establish the level of defendantâ€™s intoxication, defendantâ€™s possession was constructive rather than actual. Thus, to allow application of this statute to defendant under these circumstances, we would in essence be forcing a person to choose between possessing a firearm in his home and consuming alcohol. But to force such a choice is unreasonable. As the facts illustrate, there was no sign of unlawful behavior or any perceived threat that a crime involving a handgun would be committed….

I’m OK with laws that punish the use of firearms while actually intoxicated, but not for a firearm stored in the home. Such a restriction is probably “common sense” to our opponents, but not to anyone who actually owns a firearm. It’s exactly how the court characterized it.