Guns – Page 566 – Shall Not Be Questioned

It’s the Gift that Keeps on Giving

As I have said over and over and over again- yes sir, it is legal to sell guns to felons in most states that have not passed a law to require background checks on all gun sales at gun shows. Private sellers are more than just people selling occasionally. Some of these private sellers sell hundreds of guns a year at gun shows. That is a fact that cannot be avoided…

Under current law, it is never lawful, in any state, to knowingly sell a gun to a felon, whether there’s a background check conducted or not. It is never legal for a felon to purchase a firearm, whether from an FFL or from a private seller. It is never legal to sell a firearm to someone who does not reside in the same state that you do. It is again, not legal for someone to be engaged in the business of selling firearms and to not hold a federal firearms license. This is all current law. I could quote the relevant parts of federal statutes, but I think most people here are familiar with them.

So essentially, the leaders of the gun control movement are advocating we make changes to federal law, when they don’t even really understand what federal law currently is.Â Not only that, but if there’s a coherent argument for ending private transfers coming out of Common Gunsense, I’ve yet to hear it. This is in spite of some people being willing to have a dialog on the issue.

We can certainly talk about enforcement of these current laws at gun shows, and how we can do better. ATF has undermined enforcement of illegal trafficking at gun shows by not being able to help itself from using strong-armed police state tactics when it’s tried. A better run agency would find a lot of willing help from the firearms community when it comes to preventing people dealing and buying unlawfully, but they don’t, and part of the reason is ATF’s long history of treating their mission as if it were to destroy the lawful commerce in firearms rather than to ensure that the firearms commerce proceeds according to the law.

DCCC Running Anti-Gun Ads for Lentz

If I were a Pennsylvania blue dog, I’d be livid that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee was running this ad. This was run during the Phillies game on Saturday. This goes to show that we absolutely have to make sure that Lentz doesn’t win a congressional seat:

Interesting they show a submachine gun as an assault rifle, isn’t it? And interesting how the supposed loophole has nothing to do with either assault rifles or submachine guns. But when has the truth ever been an obstacle for gun haters like Lentz?

If you want to help the Meehan campaign, and please do, you can donate here, or volunteer here. He needs help. We have to win this one.

UPDATE: You know, this isn’t even a federal issue. This is a state issue. But how many people realize that?

New Shooter

Elena Kagan, apparently taken to the range by Justice Scalia.

Gender Gap

Paul Helmke says because women don’t like open carry, that means Democrats have a lot to gain by supporting gun control. How did that work out for Al Gore? Or John Kerry? How’d it work out in 1994? I think we know the answer. Interesting that Brady touts the open carry numbers as evidence women support gun control, when the real numbers show that support for gun control among women has been dropping precipitously.

The Hidden Life of Guns

Here I thought that they just basically sat in my safe when I wasn’t using them. The Washington Post tells a different story. It’s actually more balanced than you probably would have seen out of the Post in the past.

Why Liberty Loses, Part II

Got a chance to speak briefly to Mike Fitzpatrick, who’s running against Pelosi’s poodle here in the 8th District.Â today. His first questions were geared at what kind of resources I could send his way. I wish I could tell him I had six people phone banking for him last night who banged out 600 calls to constituents, but I can’t. I have one dedicated volunteer and myself, and a handful of other people who help out here and there. The message I have to get across is that I’ll do everything I can to help him out. It’ll be more than most issues can muster, but not as much as we really need if he’s ever facing a tough vote on guns.

This is especially true if we compare it to what Fitzpatrick is up against. Murphy is the rising star of the Democratic Party. They are not going to surrender this seat easily. We represent the burning edge of the Democratic Party’s Firewall. Our opponents are dumping a ton of money into this district, and Fitzpatrick is worried about busloads of union people being shipped in from New York City and New Jersey for Murphy. This is in addition to other left wing activists being shipped up from Washington D.C. on Murphy’s behalf. Murphy has been quite adept at rallying ground troops and money, mostly from outside of the 8th district. He’s vulnerable this year, but he’s not going down without a fight. Keep in mind this guy supported Carolyn McCarthy’s assault weapons ban which would have banned the M1 Garand and M1 Carbine. Basically any semi-automatic rifle of military pattern, and all semi-automatic shotguns. His talk is about how pro-gun he is, but much it’s about as true as when he says he’s a blue dog. The guy sells himself as a moderate, but his voting record is as left-wing as they come.

People who support liberty can’t draw on this level of support. The left is motivated enough to send their shock troops to the front lines to fight the ragtag local militia we’re mustering here. They are sending people across the country, while liberty has a hard time getting people across the county. This is another reason we lose. The other side just wants it more than we do.

Now Begins the Silly Season

Really, it started a few months ago, but these last few weeks are where it gets intense. Headed to a volunteer fair today for Mike Fitzpatrick. This is essentially where they gather people who want to help, and match them up with things they need done. After that it’s off for a few hours of phone banking for Rob Ciervo. Phone banking isn’t really as bad as one would think. It’s mostly leaving messages on machines. The idea is just to get your candidates name out there so people know who to vote for, and so you can help sway the undecided. On election day, you follow up with the “Did you vote yet?” call, trying to get them to the polls.

I always encourage NRA members to wear an NRA hat, an NRA pin, or something to identify yourself as part of the “gun vote,” mostly so that the local endorsees understand where their bread is getting buttered. I get a lot of people we try to recruit saying “Well, I already volunteer with the GOP.” Around here, if you’re pro-gun, you’re probably a Republican, but that’s not universal. We also have more than a few Republicans who need to improve. It’s great to volunteer directly to parties and campaigns, but that doesn’t help me gain leverage over them for the gun issue. Once the political establishment starts seeing a “gun vote” around, they know there’s energy out there for it. They also know there’s something to lose by voting the wrong way, and something to gain by voting the right way.

Politicians are very self-interested, for the most part. They may tell you it’s all about serving the public, but it’s really all about staying in office. There are true believers out there, but they are rare birds, and that usually only happens when they are gunnies themselves. The key to winning is knowing what motivates this particular species, and baiting them properly.

A Good Problem to Have

When I started this whole Election Volunteer Coordination thing with the NRA, one of my chief concerns was how few endorsed races we had in Bucks County. We were literally down to two state reps in the whole county who carried endorsements, Paul Clymer and Gene DiGirolamo. This election I’m happy to note that we have five endorsed races for state representative, Paul Clymer, Gene DiGirolamo, Frank Farry, Rob Ciervo, and Marguerite Quinn. I should note that four of these are incumbents. I think that’s a pretty good improvement.

There are probably a number of factors that have lead to this, but I’d like to think our efforts to raise the profile of this issue among the County’s political establishment has been a contributing factor. To do that we’ve really just made our presence known, both in the new media space but also by showing up to traditional political events, donating, and volunteering to help out. The big problem with more endorsed candidates is I have to stretch my volunteer resources thinner. Because I don’t want to short change any of our endorsed candidate, this translates into me having to work harder to make up the short fall. I’ll be phone banking both Saturday and Sunday on behalf of some of these endorsed candidates. We’re recruiting volunteers for the final push as we speak.

If you want to help out this election, give your local NRA EVC a call or e-mail. You can find out who they are on NRA’s web site. If your EVC is active, he or she should be thrilled to hear from you. If not, let me know and I can try to find out their status. Most EVCs are chronically short of volunteers to help out with things. Being able to send a few volunteers to an endorsed campaign, even for a few hours in an election cycle, makes a huge impression on the campaign and the candidate. Good volunteers are hard to come by, and given the other things NRA brings to the table, it’s a very powerful incentive to get them and keep them voting the right way. Once word gets out in the political circles that the gun issue brings money and volunteers, you’ll have other campaigns wondering what they can do to get that too. Answer? Vote the right way. At least one of these endorsed candidates above got that message loud and clear, and we’re going to try to help out their campaign this year as much as we can. The more people I have to send, the more incentive they have to improve. This program has the potential to work very well, but is entirely dependent on NRA members being willing to help out. This is the part where I beg you to help out.

Pretty Sure It’s Unconstitutional

Phoenix, Arizona has ads for gun training pulled. TrainMeAZ.com should hire a lawyer and sue. I’m fairly certain this runs afoul of the First Amendment.

I Guess It’s a Victory to Them

Dennis Henigan seems pleased that Sestak got Pat Toomey to dance around the gun issue a bit. Joe Sestak is all in favor of denying people fundamental constitutional rights based on people’s name being on a secret government list. Doesn’t sound too great when you frame it that way does it? Of course, in Joe Sestak’s mind, you don’t even have a right to own a gun, so why not?

The problem is that people don’t understand the issue. The Bradys are experts at exploiting ignorance to their advantage, and framing the debate in terms that people think they agree. I mean, who wants terrorists getting guns? Who wants people to have weapons that are used for assaulting people? Who wants wife beaters armed?

Toomey had to dance because he’s not going to come out and say he favors guns for terrorists. The moderators were only too happy to frame the issue the Brady way. But that’s not really the issue. The issue is how I framed it. They can only win through deception.

UPDATE: Think about it. What does it say that Henigan is proud that the Brady misrepresentation of the issue is working the way they want it to? What other constitutional rights does Dennis think is OK to deny Americans without any due process whatsoever? Inquiring minds want to know.