Category: Guns

Interesting article from Real Clear Politics, about how passing Obamacare won’t save Democrats, but it does have this tidbit:

There were two controversial pieces of legislation that defined the Clinton Administration for Republican-leaning voters: the assault weapons ban and the first Clinton budget (a.k.a. the tax hike). If we look at the fifteen Democrats who voted against both pieces of legislation, only one lost (she represented a district that gave Bush a 15-point win in 1992). In fact, about half of them saw their share of the vote increase or stay roughly the same from 1992!

Let’s move on to Democratic incumbents who represented Republican-leaning districts who voted for only one of these two pieces of legislation. There were thirty-seven such Democrats. The casualty rate here is a little higher; thirteen of them, or thirty-five percent of them, lost. And of the twenty-two Democrats from Republican-leaning districts who voted for both pieces of controversial legislation, ten of them (45%) lost.

In other words, the problem for Democrats in 1994 was not that they didn’t support Clinton’s agenda enough. It was that they got too far out in front of their conservative-leaning districts and supported the President too much.

We can use a more quantitative approach. I constructed a simple regression model to try to measure what factors played a role in Democrats’ downfall in 1994. If you want the nitty gritty of the model, you can click this footnote ^[2]. But the bottom line is that, holding all other things equal, a Democrat in a Republican district who voted for the assault weapons ban lost 4.2 percentage points off of his 1992 numbers. If the same Democrat voted for the Clinton budget, she lost 3.7 points. In other words, these two votes alone could take a Democrat who won a comfortable election with 56 percent of the vote in 1992, and turn her into a loser in 1994.

No doubt our opponents will argue this is just another flak perpetuating the myth that the NRA has any political power, and there’s nothing to lose by voting for gun control. We’re hearing that swan song once again, with the Luntz poll pushed by Mayors Against Illegal Guns. It would behoove politicians to remember that public polling in the mid 90s showed the same numbers that their agenda shows today. People had no idea what an assault weapon was. When they found out, they were pissed.

They tried in Washington State, and met stiff opposition. Now it looks like they aim to try again in Maryland. This is nothing new: they’ve tried to pass an AWB in Old Line State for years, and we’ve managed to bottle it up every time. But we have to fight nonetheless. The other side is desperate for a victory.

You can find more discussion here, but this would actually be the most draconian bans out of any of the states, as it would ban just about all semi-automatic rifles currently on the market, and many competition semi-auto pistols that had their magazine attached somewhere outside the grip. It would ban the Ruger Charger through an over-broad and vague definition of “barrel shroud” (that shoulder thing that goes up, apparently the MD Senate doesn’t know what it is either). It bans any semi-automatic, centerfire rifle with a thumbhole stock.

The bill grandfathers existing firearms, but requires you to register them. In addition, transportation into the state will be unlawful, for those of you who need to travel through or to Maryland to take part in shooting competitions.

From the Caesar Rodney Institute:

A section in the handbook requiring that tenants must “not possess explosives, firearms or flammable material on NHA’s property,” will be removed, Detwiler told the Caesar Rodney Institute Wednesday morning.

Detwiler, who is nearing the end of his six-year term as commissioner, said NHA executive director Marene Jordan is “looking to change the pamphlet a soon as possible.”

Meanwhile, Detwiler said, NHA residents may possess firearms, “as long as they’re legal.”

“It should be an absolute moot issue in the near future,” Detwiler said. “The handbook was misleading. I think the previous executive director made up that policy. I do believe it is my constitutional right [to own firearms]. I support my Constitution.”

Jordan did not immediately return calls seeking comment

Gun bans at the Newark Housing Authority, along with the Delaware State Housing Authority and those in Wilmington and Dover are the subject of an ongoing series by the Caesar Rodney Institute.

After the series was published, the National Rifle Association informed the housing authorities they would take legal action if the unconstitutional gun bans were not immediately withdrawn.

I will continue to laugh at those who say Heller was a loss or didn’t mean anything. Now all it takes to get an unconstitutional gun ban out the door is a sharply worded letter. That wouldn’t have been possible without the Supreme Court ruling.

Reason asks Alan Gura about positive developments that have happened since Heller, and he names three. There are still people in our movement who think Heller was an abject failure, and I continue to be amazed that reasonable people can continue believing this. We saw suburb after suburb near Chicago give up their local bans under threat of lawsuit, and we saw a the San Francisco housing authority cave in on their gun ban in public housing under threat of lawsuit.

First off we have Massachusetts talking about easing their discretionary licensing scheme, a major paper editorializing in favor of it, and a very good chance this will actually pass. In Massachusetts, you need police permission to even own a handgun, and that permission can be impossible to obtain if you have an anti-gun police chief in your town. Police chiefs have full discretion in regards to handgun ownership. Even New Jersey is at least technically shall-issue when it comes to pistol purchase permits. This measure is being pushed, and has a good chance for passage specifically because lawmakers in Massachusetts know that their licensing scheme won’t pass constitutional muster even under the relatively ill-defined standard of review in Heller.

That brings us again to Delaware, which apparently has a public housing ban. This topic is being covered well by the Caesar Rodney Institute blog, which is reporting that NRA is threatening Delaware state authorities with a lawsuit if they don’t relent on the “no guns” policy. You can see the demand letter written by Robert Dowlut, NRA General Counsel here. Note the following:

Article I, § 20 of the Delaware Constitution guarantees that “A person has the right to keep and bear arms for the defense of self, family, home and State, and for hunting and recreational use.” Furthermore, the United States Supreme Court in District of Columbia v. Heller, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 171 L.Ed.2d 637 (2008), held that the right to keep an operable firearm in the home for self-defense is a core right guaranteed by the Second Amendment. Consequently, the court struck down a ban on the possession of handguns and a ban on the possession of operable firearms in the home.

Would we even be able to raise this if it wasn’t for Heller? Doubtful. I’d like to think we’re at a dawn of a pretty robust right to keep and bear arms, that will put the kibosh on the worst the states are able to do. I believe this will put our opponents in a pretty tough pickle, and while I’m not convinced gun control will ever really go away, we at least have an opportunity before us to deal its current incarnation a serious blow.

The Defensive Handgun blog points out there’s still a Senate companion to the bill that was voted down in committee, in addition to one other house bill that would regulate gun shows. Dave Adams, President of the Virginia Shooting Sports Association, is rallying the troops to try to defeat SB595, the Senate companion, as well.