Guns – Page 636 – Shall Not Be Questioned

“The Question is Strategy”

There seems to be a meme floating around right now that NRA is sitting out of fights. The big one appearing today in the Wall Street Journal, quoting from some of our leaders in the movement, and from Josh Horwitz, all along similar lines that NRA is, “no longer absolutely the 800-pound gorilla.” I worry when our people and their people start singing the same tune. But I think this pretty much says it all:

The NRA’s political action committee has taken in $10.25 million for the 2010 elections, and ranks sixth in terms of receipts among all federally registered PACs, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks Federal Election Commission disclosures. The NRA’s total revenue, including member dues, investment income and contributions, rose to $307 million in 2009, from $268 million a year earlier.

If the fragmentation is hurting NRA, they are laughing all the way to the bank. You want to know why no one is touching the gun issue on the Democratic side? That part I bolded. In D.C. money talks and bullshit walks (though in DC the you call the walking bullshit Congressman or Senator), and NRA is sitting on a boatload of money for the 2010 elections. That’s going to do more for the movement, in terms of achieving goals than a lot of the other activity you see going on.

That said, I’m not opposed to other groups joining in the fray. If Dudley Brown wants to form a PAC, more power to him. Forming a PAC is an example of engaging seriously in the issue. But it takes more than forming a PAC to fund one. GOA, for example, has a Political Action Committee, but currently has a balance of less than 30,000 dollars, and spent less than 140,000 dollars in the 2008 election cycle.

What I’d really like to understand from Marbut, Brown, and many of NRA’s detractors, is in what world is it a successful strategy to downplay the role of the one organization who spent more than 11 million dollars on the 2008 election. If MSSA and NAGR’s messaging were really that compelling or effective, they’d be able to raise serious money. But why can’t they? Back to the article:

But Ben Cannon, 29, of Healdsburg, Calif., a founding member of the board of Calguns Inc., an Internet-based organization founded in 2002, said some younger gun owners felt that because the NRA must cater to all gun owners, it didn’t embrace their own interests enough.

I think that one statement sums up why NRA shouldn’t be the only game in town, but also explains why it’s the biggest and most important. If you want gun rights to win, it has to be a big enough tent to attract the kind of PAC funding, membership numbers, and support that NRA can attract. Any effective side organization is going to understand and work within that reality. My problem with guys like Dudley Brown, Larry Pratt, and Gary Marbut is that they want to replace the big tent strategy of the NRA with a smaller tent that’s more emotionally satisfying because in the small tent you don’t have to compromise or coalition build as much. You can revel in your purity, and not have to dirty your hands with the unsatisfying work of trying to bring 70 and 80% allies along with you.

I look at younger, more professional groups like Calguns, which have formed a viable organization and strategy as a stark contrast to the ridiculous “no compromise”Â gun rights groups of the past. Calguns has not sought to displace the big tent, but to find a role within it. It’s never seemed to me to be smart strategy to purposefully make the movement smaller by not only trying to displace the big tent strategy, but by trying to burn down the big tent and everyone in it.

Glock Trigger

How to make it not suck. An article in Shooting Illustrated by some guy I know down South somewhere ;)

Coverage of Second Amendment March

From the Brady Campaign on Twitter. Oh no! People with guns! Big guns! Let me ask this though, why is the Brady Campaign covering this march instead of the main one? Should we be thankful there’s probably as many reporters there as there are protesters? Think of all the public education that’s going on with all those slung rifles!

I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest none of the major news coverage of the sideshow march in Virginia is going to be positive, but it will distract greatly from the main rally in Washington. Why? Because it helps advance a narrative. I’ve never understood why people on our side are so willing to play into the hands of the people who want to destroy us.

Excellent Law Review on Mexican Gun Laws

Dave Kopel linked to a new law review article on Mexican Gun Laws, and also on the currentÂ controversyÂ in regards toÂ traffickingÂ from the US into Mexico. You can find a PDF copy here. Let me quote from it:

In the middle of the twentieth century, Mexico was a popular hunting destination for Americans, and Mexican hunters invented a new shooting sport. â€•Silhouette shootingâ€”shooting at metal silhouette targets in the shape of game animalsâ€”originated in Mexico in the early 1950s. Mexican hunters were looking for ways to sharpen their eyes between hunting seasons, and so began shooting at live animals which had been placed on a high ridgeline, visible in silhouette from hundreds of yards away. Whoever shot the animal would win a prize. American hunters near the Mexican borderâ€”most notably the Tucson Rifle Clubâ€”adopted the sport, but used life-sized metal targets insteadâ€”hence the sportâ€™s name of Siluetas Metalicas.

In Mexico as in the United States, civil unrest in 1968 led to important new restrictions on firearms. Before then, many types of rifles, shotguns and handguns were freely available. Anti-government student movements, however, scared the government into closing firearms stores, and registering all weapons. Compliance with the registration has been very low.

I had to include that one because I shoot that sports pretty regularly, and it’s a good bit of fun. I’m glad Dave included that bit of history. It’s also interesting that Mexico got restrictive at the same time we did. There’s also more meat:

An oft-repeated claim is that 90% of Mexican crime guns come from the United States. The more accurate statement would be that the Mexican police choose to give a selected minority of seized firearms to the United States BATFE offices in Mexico, and of those guns that are turned over the BATFE, a high percentage are traced to the United States, in the sense that the guns were at one point manufactured or sold in the United States.22 This does not mean that the guns were necessarily sold in the civilian United States market; for example, a gun might have been lawfully sold to a Mexican police agency and then stolen. Or the gun might have been manufactured for U.S. Army use during the Vietnam War, later captured by the communist government which currently rules Vietnam, and then exported on the international black market.

I read it last night and it’s worth your while if you want a deep understanding of the issues we’ve been having in regards to Mexico. One thing that strikes me immediately is how imprecise Mexican law is compared to American law. Very little seems to be defined under Mexican law, which I would have difficulty believing doesn’t lead to abuse, as agencies and police interpret the law from situation to situation so that it always goes against the accused. I have no idea whether Mexico has any equivalent to Administrative Law, like we have in the United States.

Making Crap Up

Days of our Trailer links to more VPC Google Research that creates assumptions out of thin air. Unfortunately, it’s not just the other side that engages in this. Over the past few days I’ve noticed some folks in our movement struggling with the fact that NRA seems to have gotten behind and passed a Constitutional Carry bill in Arizona. Why is it so difficult to believe that NRA would actually support such a bill where it’s possible to pass it?

I don’t have any problem with informed criticism of NRA, or its actions, and I’ve often enjoyed conversations about the problems with NRA with people who actually know and understand the organization. But so much of the criticism out there is half-assed an uninformed, almost to the point that I think some accusations and opinions are made from whole cloth.

The fact is that NRA supported Constitutional Carry in Arizona. NRA has a lobbyist in Arizona, and he was supporting this bill from the beginning. Todd Rathner is also an NRA Board member, and will be up for re-election next year. I think we can all agree this is the kind of presence we like to have on the Board.

Watching Records Fall

Shot an air pistol Silhouette Match this morning. Actually won the thing, surprisingly, with a 62 out of 80 in open sight pistol. I think I finally found sight settings I like for the IZH-46M I got earlier this year. After the match we had Long Runs, for National Records. I shot well but got 10 of no animal, but I was happy to be on a Jury to see two records fall. Both records were in Senior category.

The first to topple was Chickens, open-sights, previously set almost exactly a year ago on 4/19/2009 by Herbert G. Meyers of Pennsylvania, and was at 18 Chickens, and will now be held by Rowland Smith, also of Pennsylvania with 25 Chickens. The other record, for scoped Pigs, held since 1995 by E. Jones of Â California standing at 40 pigs, will now be held by Fred Fischer of Pennsylvania with 51 pigs.

At first I thought Fred had beat Rowland’s own record, but Rowland is the current record holder for open-sight pigs, senior category. In fact, I marked his winning that record last year when it happened.

Overall a pretty damned good day considering it was cold, windy, and not quite an ideal day.

Convenience at the Pennsylvania RKBA Rally

It looks like the state police have figured out that hundreds of gun owners turning up to the Capitol will, in fact, remain an annual tradition. Â They have provided PAFOA with the Capitol Firearm Check Form they use as receipts for gun owners who bring guns to the lobby day. Â This will greatly speed up the process since you can fill both sections out in advance of your visit.

Constitutional Carry Signed in Arizona

NRA reports Governor Brewer has signed the bill:

â€œThis is a major victory for gun owners in Arizona, and I would like to thank Governor Jan Brewer, as well as the primary bill sponsor, Senator Russell Pearce (R-Mesa), for their leadership in working to improve the self-defense rights of law-abiding citizens in Arizona,” said Chris W. Cox, executive director of NRA-ILA. â€œBoth Governor Brewer and state Senator Pearce have been strong supporters of the NRA. The NRA is also grateful to the legislators who voted for this measure making Arizona the third state in the nation behind Vermont and Alaska to offer its residents a constitutional carry option.

Clearly they’ve replaced Chris Cox with anÂ impostor, because it’s a well known fact that NRA does not support Constitutional Carry. Dustin is pretty happy, and Arizona Riflemen has been checking out the hysteria, and notes an oddity with the current law.

DC Voting Rights Moving With Pro-Gun Amendment

Looks like, much to VPC’s chagrin, Elanor Holmes Norton is conceding to moving the DC Voting Rights bill forward with the language that removes DC’s gun laws and preempts them from making more. The New York Times calls this “extortion.” I call it making them follow the constitution if they want representation. What will be the likely effects of this?

For one, the voting rights language is pretty straightforwardly unconstitutional. It’s hard to see how it’s going to stand up to scrutiny in the Courts. Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution only specifies representatives are to be apportioned to states, and the extra Utah representation is clearly a violation of apportionment. In addition, it is a violation of several Warren Court decisions that found the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause prevents some people from having disproportionate representation over other people. It’s hard to see how the actual voting rights bill stands up to constitutional scrutiny.

The gun rights language should be completely severable from the voting rights language. In other words, when the voting rights language is likely invalidated by the Courts, the gun rights language is going to stand. If this passes, and is signed by the President, the “Heller II” case, which just lost at the District Court level, but is appealing, lawsuit will become moot. I don’t consider this a bad thing. We should prefer legislative solutions to unconstitutional laws where we can accomplish that. The Courts are far more risky.

The net effect on this will be that the District of Columbia’s gun laws default to the federal law. To buy a gun you fill out a 4473, and go through the background check. It guts all the assault weapons nonsense out of their law, as well as the licensing, registration, training and ballistic testing requirement. The Districts laws on carrying in public will remain untouched, so the Palmer case, which is being advanced by Alan Gura and SAF will be undisturbed.

I am not too keen on passing an unconstitutional law in order to repeal another unconstitutional law, but in the end I am pragmatic about these things, and believe that this will work out fine for us in the end.

Even More on NRA Terrorist Meme

Noted in Politics Daily, that all these scary guns nuts are coming down for a big rally on April 19th, which happens to be entirely associated with terrorism, and nothing else, of course. It’s just filled with scary Oath Keepers, a group who promises to throw down their government-issued arms and not follow unconstitutional orders. The horror! Because we all know that leads to bombing federal buildings:

Put this all together — saber rattlng, militia fomenting, demonizing government — and you have a brew of far-right paranoia mixed with guns. When have we seen this before? Oh yeah, Timothy McVeigh and the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. And here’s the kicker: this pro-gun march will happen on the 15th anniversary of the Oklahoma tragedy. This is not insensitivity; it’s a message.

I’m pretty sure that was paranoia mixed with diesel fuel and fertilizer, but that’s splitting hairs to the nuts on the other side of this issue. I don’t want to detract from theirÂ condescension:

That’s right. When people are blasting the federal government as tyrannical, suggesting that government-imposed concentration camps are around the corner, encouraging people to threaten the government with force, orÂ comparing the president to the Nazis and accusing him of being a secret Kenyan-born Muslim imposing socialism on the United States, they are setting the stage for violence. The Tea Partiers are extreme in their hatred of the Obama administration, but these gun-rights radicals are downright dangerous. They talk of insurrection — and they do have guns.

Except many of us here on this loony right fringe have been debunking and denouncing much of this fear mongering and rumor mongering. And I seem to specifically recall stipulating that we don’t start shooting people because we lose an election. I also haven’t made any secret my low opinion of Larry Pratt, who this article paints as a leader in this issue, and someone associated with neo-Nazis.

The problem I have with so many of these so-called pundits and journalists is they assume the people who believe these things are being manipulated and egged on by leadership on the right, who are clearly the masterminds behind the quackery. I suspect behind that belief is a prejudice that the people who believe these things are probably too stupid to think for themselves. These ideas clearly could not have sprung from an organic social movement of thinking people. The great irony is this kind ofÂ condescensionÂ is what’s partly responsible for a lot of this movement to begin with. If you believe these people are wrong, say why they are wrong. But give them the dignity of being able to come up with their own ideas. I agree that many of them are bad ideas, but there’s a way in our society we fight bad ideas, and it’s not what we see from the VPC or Politics Daily.