Category: Guns

USA Today Reports, in what looks like the Mayor of Tampa trying to set up Governor Scott the bomb. I don’t even think Scott has the power to ban firearms unilaterally, does he? Either way, his response is appreciated:

“An absolute ban on possession in an entire neighborhoods and regions would surely violate the 2nd Amendment,” Scott wrote to Buckhorn.

“It is unclear how disarming law-abiding citizens would better protect them from the dangers and threats posed by those who would flout the law. It is at just such times that the constitutional right to self-defense is most precious and must be protected from government overreach,” Scott said in his letter.

Clearly people’s rights are not of concern for the Mayor of Tampa, so much as scoring cheap political points in an attempt to make something that is not a contentious issue a contentious issue.

I saw this statement from the New Mexico DPS in regards to reciprocity, via NRA, and wondered what this was all about. Apparently it has to do with lawsuits filed against them for refusing to issue permits to permanent residents. I don’t see how changing around reciprocity is going to moot that issue.

As is well documented in the gun blogosphere a loophole is anything legal that our opponents don’t like. The latest is the bullet button. For those outside of the People’s Republic of California, California’s assault weapons ban defines a magazine as detachable if it cannot be removed, except through use of a tool. The California AG ruled that a punch or screwdriver counts as a tool. Solution? Put a recessed button on the AR magazine release that can’t be depressed except by action of punching it with a tool, or the tip of a loaded cartridge. If a magazine is not legally “detachable,” then it can’t be an assault weapon, no matter how many evil and ugly features you put on it.

“If the bullet button assault weapon is allowed to come into the state then the California assault weapons ban basically doesn’t exist any more,” said Josh Sugarmann with the Violence Policy Center.

Yes, Josh, that’s the whole idea. Your ban is a sham and always has been. We just exposed it as a sham, and engineered around it.

Governor Scott’s task force is meeting today. We shall soon see how much trouble this task force intends to cause us. NRA has an alert here.

UPDATE: Looks like one of the legislative opponents of SYG has already released recommendations from his task force. You can view the full report here. What’s interesting is that even staunch opponents of SYG are too fearful of public opinion to put a duty to retreat back in the bill. They mostly recommend chipping away at the bill around the periphery, suggesting legal changes the general public is unlikely to understand.

This is not good news for gun owners, or Second Amendment advocates, given that Bork is a well known advocate of collective right theory. Of course, this also isn’t the end of the world, given that Bork won’t be choosing himself. There won’t be too many candidates on Romney’s short list that will be embracers of collective rights. There are a few, however, and we have to watch out for them. The big fear is that Romney doesn’t really understand the subtleties of “conservatism:, since he is not one himself, and attempts to pander in a ridiculous and stupid way, using logic like “Reagan appointed Bork, conservatives love Reagan and therefore conservatives must also love Bork.”

Bush bungled a nomination too, with Harriet Meyers, but we had the benefit of other parts of the right-of-center coalition being unhappy. The real risk, and this risk was present with Bush, is that Romney would pick someone acceptable to other parts of the movement, except for gun owners, and we standing alone don’t have the power to scuttle the nominee. But whether we can do that or not is up to us; we certainly have the people power enough to accomplish it.

Looks like the Assembly didn’t hear that these kinds of “safe storage” laws were tossed with Heller. From Tom King, head of NYSRPA:

YOUR RIGHT TO HOME PROTECTION IS IN JEOPARDY!

Assembly Bill 3292-A is flawed legislation that will make it a crime to leave an unlocked gun in your home. We have a constitutional right to defend our homes and our loved ones. In March, well over a thousand sportsmen rallied in Albany in a demonstration of solidarity for our Second Amendment freedom. If A.3292-A becomes law then an elderly homeowner, a single woman, or a husband defending his family will now have to be worried about where the state mandated key is to unlock the gun cabinet when confronted by an intruder. The intent of the law is to make homes safer for children but far more children are harmed by accidentally ingesting household chemicals or medicines. What’s next – state mandated locks for our kitchen and medicine cabinets?
You can’t [legislate] common sense. Call your local Assemblymember and tell them to vote NO on A.3292-A.

The debate could begin on Gun Storage Bill (A.3292-A) today. Watch the debate here. http://assembly.state.ny.us/av/

This ostensibly is “for the children,” but I would note that this applies to any household, such as mine, that does not have children. The purpose it will serve is important, which is more gun owners being in prison. We harp on helping create more law abiding gun owners, they try, as best they can, to make it difficult to own a gun and be law abiding.