Guns – Page 442 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Who To Vote For

I’m glad our opponents are busy helping make lists of politicians to vote for based on today’s mark-up session for HR822. That will save me some time:

GOP House Judiciary members were virtually unanimous in voting today to allow the following individuals to carry guns in public in states outside their home state: 1) Misdemeanant sexual offenders 2) Individuals on the Terrorist Watch List 3) Individuals with misdemeanor convictions for stalking. We really must have this bill. If the NRA says we need it, they will vote for anything without thinking through the real life consequences. Or maybe they have thought through the real life consequences which is even scarier and stupider!

I have a friend who’s a misdemeanor sex offender. Her offense? She did some modeling when she was younger, and did a topless photo shoot on what she thought was a secluded beach. Apparently not so secluded that someone didn’t notice, and called the police. She plead down to a charge that didn’t require registration, but it’s still a “sex offense.” Do you know what also is a misdemeanor sex offense? Getting a little too drunk in college and mooning someone. Being convicted of touching children is a prohibiting offense in every state that I know of, and touching children is exactly what our dishonest opponents want you think about when they mislead the public by proposing nonsense like this.

Individuals on the terror watch list we’ve long covered, but suffice it to say we don’t deny constitutional rights in this country without due process, which is precisely what our opponents advocate when they suggest this asinine idea.

I’m not even sure what a misdemeanor conviction for stalking is, as a matter of a “one-size-fits-all” rule. This is a new one. It’s always good to know the thinking of the gun control crowd when they are thinking of new ways to get more and more people prohibited from gun ownership.

I checked Pennsylvania’s statutes, and “Stalking” in Pennsylvania is a 1st Degree Misdemeanor, with a possible sentence of up to 5 years. This is a disabling offense federally. One thing to remember is that you’re a prohibited person under federal law if you’re convicted of any misdemeanor that has a possible sentence two years or more, even if you don’t end up serving any time in jail at all.

Given that HR822 only applies to individuals who are not prohibited under federal law, what classes of persons do our opponents mean to cover here? Once again they are being misleading and dishonest. Once again, they are hoping the American public doesn’t know better. And once again, I would like to point out, they are losing.

More Poor PR from the Brady Campaign

Thirdpower notices some other amateurish rhetoric from the Brady Campaign, greatly exaggerating our losses in Court. We really did not have a substantive loss until Heller II. They are correct to tout that as a serious loss. The only other Circuit Court decision to date was Ezell, which won big time. I would also point out to the Brady folks that the final word has not yet been written on even Heller II. It’s just likely we’re going to have to attack the bogus “assault weapons” issue through another federal circuit.

The Subpoena

Dave Hardy has a link to the details of what was demanded of the Justice Department. I had not realized until listening to Cam & Company last night (or maybe the night before) that this is actually a rare thing, for Congress to issue to a subpoena to an Attorney General. Apparently this hasn’t happened since Watergate.

Holder is a slippery bastard, so I haven’t been skeptical he’s going to get punished for any of this, but in that vein, things seem to be decidedly looking up.

HR822 Committee Hearing and Vote

Supposedly HR822 is scheduled to be voted on in the judiciary committee today. I think it’s likely a fore-drawn conclusion that it will be voted out of committee. Our opponents are nervous. “Blood in the streets!” and yada yada. They probably could have gone with reading a bit more Aesop than Alinsky.

UPDATE: I’m to understand that this is a markup session, to consider various amendments to the bill. Our friends at CSGV have been following this very closely. You’d think they were worried or something.

More on that 3D Printed AR-15 Magazine

Steve of the Firearm Blog asked someone to try it, and on their home unit, that’s presumably a Makerbot Thing-O-Matic, the results weren’t quite as good. We found ABS is a pretty poor material for magazines too, but it’s certainly doable.

Lots of “Florida Loophole” Editorials Lately

A few weeks ago, the Philly papers started running “Florida Loophole” stories again. Once here in the Inquirer, then again in a different article. The Pittsburgh Post Gazette has recently covered the topic. Â I’m guessing this is part of Bloomberg’s push to defeat HR822, even though that act doesn’t have anything to do with “Florida Loophole,” since it does not force individual states to recognize other state permits for its own residents. Now yesterday, I notice an article in the St. Petersburg TimesÂ speaking about the issue.

Does anyone really expect us to believe this is a coincidence? That multiple papers just happened to start blasting on the “Florida Loophole” issue again, after months of saying nothing? I don’t believe it’s a coincidence.Â The Allentown Morning call also covered this issue, but I’m fairly certain this editorial didn’t happen at the prompting of gun control outfits.

Protecting Veteran Gun Rights

A bill to do this has cleared the House. Previously, the Department of Veterans Affairs has added people to the NICS database for reasons that did not rise to the level of a full adjudication. If this bill makes it, unless a veterans is adjudicated a danger to himself or others, Veterans Affairs won’t be able to report him to NICS.

CSGV Going to Add This Guy?

I’m wondering when CSGV will add these individuals to their Insurrectionist Timeline. They won’t. I can promise you. That should tell you everything you need to know about their intellectual honesty and integrity.

UPDATE: I am duly informing CSGV on Twitter of this outrageous act of insurrectionist thinking. If they do not condemn it, and add it to their list, I’m prepared to argue that CSGV is an insurrectionist organization, dedicated to the promotion of political violence.

After all, if CSGV gets to paint us all with the brush of lunatics, turnabout is fair play. Make them live up to their own standards.

Prepping For 2012

Looks like NRA is really trying to drive the point home on Supreme Court nominees, with Chris Cox writing in the Daily Caller:

Currently, the Second Amendment clings to a 5-4 pro-freedom majority on the Supreme Court. JustÂ one voteÂ is all that stands between the America our Founding Fathers established and a radically different America that Barack Obama and his supporters envision.

This is probably the biggest issue for us in the 2012 elections. If we lose one of the Heller Five, and Obama gets to pick his replacement, all the Alan Guras in the world won’t be able to save the Second Amendment. Even if Heller and McDonald never get formally overturned, we’ve seen from the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that intermediate scrutiny can easily be used to conclude that banning commonly used entire categories of firearms is just fine. The same logic could be used to erase the “bear” part of “keep and bear” just as easily.

Loophole == Anything We Don’t Like

From a Brady press release praising Jerry Brown for signing various gun control bill:

The Governor signed AB 144 by Assembly Member Anthony Portantino (D-La CaÃ±ada-Flintridge) to ban the open carry of handguns in California and he also signed AB 809 by Assembly Member Mike Feuer (D-Los Angeles) to close a loophole in state law that required the destruction of long gun sales and transfer records.

How is a state law requiring the destruction of records a “loophole” in any sense of the word? Now if you excuse me, I need to go close the tall grass loophole in my yard, so it’s not so difficult when it’s time to close the leaf loophole.