Guns – Page 569 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Motion to Dismiss in Illinois FOID Case

It looks like Illinois is taking the position that the plaintiff falls under one of their exceptions, given that she can lawfully possess firearms in her home state. I’m not an expert on legal matters, by any stretch, but it seems like this motion is going to be tough to overcome. The plaintiff is saying she can’t possess a firearm in the State of Illinois. The State of Illinois is saying she can, and is arguing she’s failed to make a case.

I’m not sure it matters if they later arrest someone for possessing a loaded firearm in, say, a hotel while staying in Illinois. The person they arrest will have a case. But it’s hard to see how to defeat the state saying “Yes you can,” when you say,” No, I can’t.” Â It doesn’t seem to me that the state’s interpretation of the statute is wildly implausible either.

Why Hunting is Doomed

Hunters have never gotten the same jolt of reality that gun owners got in 1994, when it became apparent that the game really was about banning guns. It shows in the [UPDATE: link fixed] Â fact that they are basically willing to screw each other over depending on what they think “hunting” really is. What’s even worse is groups like the Mule Deer Foundation and the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation are willing participants in this charade. Both those groups should now be pariahs within the hunting community. Hunters should have nothing to do with them.

But they aren’t becoming pariahs, and plenty of hunters are still members. Why? Because ultimately a lot of hunters agree that hunting on a ranch of thousands of acres isn’t really hunting, and we probably ought to ban it. These people are willing participants in their own destruction, and it boggles my mind.

It took the Assault Weapons Ban to wake up gun owners. The Bradys foolishly overreached. HSUS is a much smarter organization, and when it comes to ethics, they make the Bradys look like paragons of virtue. In short, they are smart, and they are willing to get very dirty.

Mr. Regal says he’s gone on many hunts, including a week-long one in the 1960s in the Wyoming wilderness on horseback. Today, he says, “hunting public lands is a waste.” At Cedar Ridge, “you’re assured of getting game.” He says he feels the hunt was fair. “There’s enough territory there that [the elk] can outsmart you,” he says.

Mr. Swanke says that if Ballot Measure 2 passes, he’ll have to shut his business and go back to raising cattle.

“My operation isn’t for everybody,” he says. “But what I’m doing is healthy and legal. I’m not ashamed of it.”

Mr. Kaseman, the force behind the ballot initiative, thinks otherwise.

Roger Kaseman is a man entirely willing to promote the destruction of his own sport at the hands of the likes of HSUS. What I haven’t figure out yet is whether he’s a front for the animal rights groups, or merely the world’s largest fool.

You’d think the dove hunting ban in Michigan would have woken up hunters, or HSUS’s attempts to ban bear hunting in some states. But it hasn’t. My fear is that by the time hunters have their “Asssault Weapons Ban” it’s going to be too late, and they will have been outmaneuvered. They will, at that point, only be able to watch in anguish as animal rights whackjobs kills their sport in state after state. This will be the legacy guys like Roger Kaseman leave to hunting.

Definition: Activist Judge

Any judge who does something I don’t agree with. Irrelevance sucks, doesn’t it?

Should Consequences Be Considered?

One thing I’ve wrestled with, in thinking about whether our opponents on the gun control side of the debate are evil, misguided or just plain wrong (or some combination of the three), is the consequences of what they advocate. After all, “an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man,” so you’re putting an individual at some risk by taking away his ability to defend himself and his community against the criminal element, whether that criminal element comes under color of law or whether it is just commonly criminal.

It’s seriously business, restricting the tools of self-defense. To justify it to themselves, our opponents have tried to convince us that we’re misguided and paranoid, and that really, they only want to disarm us for our own good. They try to convince us they don’t want to do this, while trying to prevent us from exercising the right anywhere but our homes (and even there prior to Heller).

It is infantalizing, but America, since the first settlers hit Plymouth Rock, has always had an element that wanted to infantalize and control the population for their own good. It is a common streak through our history. Blacks were told slavery was for their own good. The Irish were told they were going to have to give up beer and whiskey for their own good. We were all told that people would go mad if we didn’t let the federal government ban reefer, among other things.

All these policies have grave and negative social consequences and have cost lives. All the people who advocated for them believed they were doing it for everyone’s own good. What was the mixture at work for these policies, between misguidedness and evil? I don’t think anyone can say for sure. Certainly slavery was evil. But were alcohol prohibitionists? People who advocate keeping drugs illegal? I think it’s much harder to say there. Since a great many Americans approve of these policies, there’s an awful lot of evil people out there if that’s the case. My grandmother, who had to live for many years with my alcoholic grandfather, was still to her dying day a believer in the value of prohibition, and I don’t think she was evil. Misguided, yes, but not evil.

I tend to think our opponents are more wrong and misguided than evil, though I do think their ideas are dangerous for a society that’s based on, and claims to value individual freedom.

On the “B” Word

Over at Common Gunsense, our host has taken unkindly to being called a “Bigot.” My American Heritage dictionary defines the word thusly, “AÂ personÂ whoÂ isÂ utterlyÂ intolerantÂ ofÂ anyÂ differingÂ creed,Â belief,Â or opinion.” In the modern American vernacular, we’ve largely forgotten about the latter two objects and concentrate almost exclusively on the first. In terms of the literal definition, we have all certainly met gun control advocates who fit it, by displaying a wildly condescending and contemptuous view of those who exercise their rights. I will leave it to readers to decide whether the proprietor of Common Gunsense fits that definition, but it’s not my purpose in this post to weigh into that particular debate. My purpose is to point out that I think Ms. Peterson has a point about the “pot calling the kettle black” in terms of some of our folks having bigoted attitudes towards people who merely disagree with us about the role of arms in American society.

Most of the tossing around I’ve seen of the word “bigot” seems to germinate from a belief that because these individuals are advocating against an enumerated civil right, that they aren’t any different than those that advocated against civil rights for blacks and other racial or ethnic minorities. I’ve said before that I think there has to be a distinction, morally, between hatred of someone because of immutable characteristics, and hatred of someone because you abhor a behavior of theirs, even if that behavior is constitutionally protected.

You can draw First Amendment analogies here, since speech is characteristically a behavior rather than an immutable quality, and speech, like firearms ownership, is constitutionally protected. I don’t necessarily consider someone advocating for a law preventing Fred Phelps and others like him from picketing a funeral to be an intolerant bigot. Misguided, yes, but not necessarily a bigot. Reasonable people can disagree about the nature and scope of the First Amendment, especially weighted against protecting the privacy and dignity of the families of service members who have been killed in action.

Advocacy of a position only really descends into bigotry when it’s based on an intolerant contempt for the individual or individuals who are engaging in a behavior, or holding a contrary opinion. It wouldn’t, for instance, be bigotry for someone to suggest “I really believe that jury verdicts shouldn’t need to be unanimous, because it costs taxpayers a lot of money for new trials, and often lets the guilty go free.” You could express the exact same opinion in a Â bigoted way, however, by saying, “I really believe that jury verdicts shouldn’t need to be unanimous, because your average working class rube, too stupid to get out of jury duty, is too ignorant in judgement to be trusted with the outcome of a verdict.” The latter expression of the same idea displays a bigoted attitude towards average, working class individuals. Both attitudes are treading into the territory of weakening a traditional civil right, but only one displays any evidence of the opinion having a bigoted origin for the opinion.

In our issue, someone saying “I believe in banning handguns, machine guns and assault weapons, because they are dangerous to society, and no one except the police and military should be allowed to have them,” is not displaying any hint of bigotry. The same person saying “I believe in banning handguns, machine guns and assault weapons because anyone who could possibly want to use one is certainly a homicidal manic out to mow down kindergartners,” is a bigoted viewpoint. It might be a surprise to many who support gun control, but when you call people of good will and character dangerous, mentally deficient, sexually dysfunctional, or insane, only because they engage in a behavior or have an interest you disapprove of or don’t understand, they tend to take that quite personally, and will lash back with insults of their own.

If there’s to be any dialog, even if that dialog only results in having to agree to disagree, both sides need to come to terms with exactly who the other side is. Gun owners who believe in a very strong, broad, and robust Second Amendment are not evil, dangerous, sexually challenged, or mentally deranged people just because the hold that opinion. They aren’t scary, wild eyed beasts out to cause mayhem. And by the same token, those that advocate for a narrow or inconsequential Second Amendment are not necessarily that either, nor are they the modern day equivalent of the KKK.

I think both sides owe the other more than that. We may end up doing nasty and underhanded things to each other as we struggle against each other in the court of public opinion, but we should be cognizant of keeping the political struggle separated from personal ones. It is fine to be dogged, unrelenting and aggressive in the political space. The personal space is something else, and from what I’ve seen I don’t think either side has a monopoly on nastiness in that arena.

A Strange New World

So I reported a few days ago on the Joe Manchin ad, where he’s shown shooting the cap and trade bill. Well, the GOP has apparently become worried that the Democrats, the wild, crazy gunslingers we all know them to be, areÂ promoting a bad message when it comes to children being able to safely handle guns:

At the same time, Mike Stuart, chairman of the West Virginia Republican Party, chastised Manchin for not wearing safety gear when he fired the rifle.

“My children were watching,” Stuart said in a news release. “Where was his blaze orange clothing, his ear protection, his eye protection? … It is too bad the governor sent some very bad messages to the youth of West Virginia.”

Stuart believes Manchin should’ve been wearing orange clothing when taking aim at the cap-and-trade bill.

I’m not sure about the blaze orange. Who wears that shooting paper? Plus, as far as I know, there’s no season or bag limit for rent seeking, federal power grabbing bills. At least there shouldn’t be, since I’m pretty sure we can all agree that congressional bills have been responsible for significant depredation of the country.

This is a strange world we’re living in, folks. When the Democrats have become the wild gunslingers, and the GOP are the stodgy, “You better do that safely, lest my little Johnny start handling my guns with reckless abandon,” it’s hard to argue we haven’t completely won the culture war on the gun issue, at least in some parts of the country. I can only imagine the abject horror the Bradys must be feeling as they are watching all this go down.

Brady Campaign: Please Don’t Believe the NRA Democrats, Pretty Please!

It looks like Paulie is begging Democrats to ignore history, the advice of their past (successful) leaders, and scholarly research. In his post yesterday, he skirts around the truth in a plea begging Democrats not to go running into the arms of the NRA.

This myth that promoting and passing strict gun laws can be political suicide has its roots in the 1994 elections, when Democrats lost control of both houses of Congress. Bill Clinton was president and earlier in his term he supported and signed the laws restricting the sale of assault weapons and the Brady bill requiring that federally licensed dealers conduct background checks. In his 2004 autobiography he wrote, â€œThe NRA â€¦could rightly claim to have made Gingrich the House speaker.â€

But as Clinton also pointed out, there were a lot of other reasons for the game-changing defeats. The party in control almost always loses seats in off-year elections. It was to be no different in 1994.

Let’s look at the mid-term elections prior to 1994 to see if we can see just how true that is:

1982	1986	1990	1994
26 seats	5 seats	8 seats	54 seats

At no point in my lifetime was there anything close to the election of 1994. You can’t compare losing 5 or 8 seats to losing 54 seats. You can’t even begin to compare 26 seats – the previous record of my lifetime. So, yes, Paul is telling the truth. But, he’s hiding the fact that you’re talking about a handful of people losing their seats to more than 10% of the House changing hands. To paraphrase Joe Biden, that’s a big freakin’ deal. Paul can try to downplay it all he wants, but he can’t escape those pesky contextual facts.

Even beyond the numbers game, there is a little bit of truth in what Paul argues – NRA’s support can’t make or break every race in every election. If leaders piss off grassroots members of 20 other interest groups, it’s going to be tough for the members of one single group to outnumber the members of so many others. Not to mention, now that Democrats have done all they can to piss off not only Republicans, but a majority of independents, well, there’s only so much we can do as one single group.

However, the power of the NRA is at the individual district level. An Independence Institute study found that for every 10,000 NRA members, an endorsement will add about 3% to a candidate’s total. I think our own congressional race is a great example.

When the two current candidates ran against each other in 2006, the difference was a mere 1,518 votes across the entire district. Most of the district is made up of Bucks County, so I’m looking at their license to carry information to give estimates on just how many votes gun owners can provide. In 2006, nearly 4,500 people of voting age got a carry license in Bucks County. Add in the “current” licenses of people at the time, and you’re talking about 17,194 potential votes in the district. There’s no way to figure it up for the portion of Philadelphia included in the congressional district, but that portion of the city has a large number of firefighters and police officers who are frequently pro-gun. (Believe me, we’ve had lots of cops calling to find out who is endorsed by NRA this year.) Let’s safely say 20,000 potential voters.

Every single one of those votes matters, and NRA has had an active voter registration drive going the last few years. If we can pull a couple of thousand more votes out of those numbers, then the endorsement & promotion will make a difference.

As mighty as the NRA is perceived to be by overly cautious politicians and their advisors, thanks to the courage of leaders, scores of victims, and supporters of sensible gun laws, the gun lobby doesnâ€™t make much of a difference on who wins and loses elections.

The Brady Campaign can’t point to a study of the impact of their endorsements in elections. They don’t have voters walking up to candidates with a voter guide in hand saying that the group’s support guided their votes. They can’t actually point to any races where their support did make a difference. In a year like this, NRA’s endorsement is likely to help boost the numbers by just enough to put some challengers over the top and possibly protect some incumbents.

Again, Paul is correct in that NRA doesn’t exactly get to handpick all of Congress. But, what they can measurably do is impact enough races that politicians clamor to us in order to pick up our votes in hopes that their race is one to benefit. So, once again, context matters.

The Need for LTC Reform

Getting highlighted in the debate over the passage of Castle Doctrine. Senator Daylin Leach, a far lefty, offered the “Florida Loophole” amendment:

Sen. Robert Robbins (R., Butler) said Philadelphia residents were being forced to go to other states because authorities have “reinterpreted” the state law. He said he had heard of cases where people were denied gun permits for minor infractions like parking tickets.

Leach argued that if Philadelphia was violating state law, then people could sue the city, and he told lawmakers that if the state law was too weak, then change the law.

So does that mean we can count on Seantor Leach’s support in removing the character clause then and making the standard for issuance, denial or revocation of a License to Carry strictly objective? As for suing the city, you have to hire a lawyer for that, and only the rich can afford lawyers. They are certainly orders of magnitude more expensive than paying the 120 or so dollars to Florida for one of their licenses.

Over at PAFOA, we can see for the last year such data was reported, Philadelphia revoked at a rate of approximately 17% of the permits issued in that year. From 2000 to 2006, they have represented anywhere from 32 to 40% of the total number of revocations in the entire Commonwealth, despite only issuing about 5% of the total LTCs statewide. Allegheny County’s revocation rate per year, by contrast, is anywhere from 0.46% to 1.28%. They peaked at 6.64% of the statewide total, issuing more than twice the number of LTCs as Philadelphia. This is all compiled with State Police data that mysteriously disappeared when the new anti-gun commissioner took over, though I still have the original sources.

Something is wrong with that picture, and it has to be fixed. Making people hire lawyers to sue the city is not the answer. The law has to be changed. I’m glad to see Leach realizing that, and look forward to his support on a reform bill.

New Lawsuit Challenging Misdemeanor Prohibitions

I have to hand it to Alan Gura, this looks like a brilliant way to attack the issue of people who have been prohibited from exercising their Second Amendment rights due to a misdemeanor conviction. The courts will be looking at, and issuing opinions and dicta on the issue without the baggage of a domestic violence conviction hanging like a black cloud over the case. Gura is very good at picking clients, and this guy couldn’t honestly look any better and still make a case.

He got a misdemeanor simple assault as a serviceman in the US Navy while stationed in Annapolis as a young man. He went on to serve in Vietnam and was honorably discharged. He has not been in trouble with the law since. But since Maryland did not set a maximum sentence for the crime, it is disabling under federal law. I had no idea, to be honest, this circumstance even existed.

Laying the Ground Work

The Brady Campaign is pretty clearly laying the ground work for their push to get the Democrats to abandon the NRA post-election, by saying the 1994 elections were never really about guns, and that the Democrats who do not take NRA money (and who are also, conveniently, in safe, heavily lefty Democratic urban districts) are going to fare better than those who do.

The real lesson for the Democrats is that you can’t expect to win your majority back with pro-gun Blue Dog Democrats, then twist their arms to vote for Pelosi and Obama’s radical agenda, and then expect the gun vote to save you. The gun vote is powerful, but not that powerful. Being pro-gun is still going to win those candidates more than it will cost them, and in some of those districts it’s necessary to get elected at all.