Guns – Page 724 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Apples and Oranges

Paul Helmke, President of the Brady Campaign, notices the Calguns Foundation wants access to information on the type of gun used in a crime that resulted in the death of four police officers in Oakland, and wonders why we can’t all just get along and agree that ATF should be allowed to share trace data. Â Only problem is, ATF doesn’t want to share trace data. Â I would also argue there’s a big difference between wanting to know what kind of gun is used in a specific crime, and wanting access to an entire database of law enforcement sensitive information so that you can read the tea leaves, and postulate.

Calguns is fighting for this information because the shooting is being used as the impetus for even more restrictions on the Second Amendment in California, and the types of weapons used is a key component to the political fight. I wouldn’t blame the Brady’s, if the situation were reversed, from trying to get a hold of relevant information. I might still oppose it just because they are the opposition, but they would at least have a point if they called foul on us trying to stop it after we did the same thing. But I don’t think it’s a good analogy to trace data. That’s an animal of a different stripe.

Gun Rights Advancing in Delaware

New Castle County is considering a Katrina bill, and it goes to show how it doesn’t take much to make a change to government at the local level:

Tansey is not a gun owner himself, but says he was approached by Brandt Farley, a constituent active in the National Rifle Association who pointed out what he believes are shortcomings in the county code.

Farley, who also owns First State Firearms, said language that gives the county executive the right to place “limitations upon the carrying or stockpiling of firearms, weapons or ammunition” is out of step with state and federal statutes.

“Delaware state law prevents other municipalities from passing patchwork gun laws,”Â Farley said.

“The concern is that what happened during [Hurricane] Katrina in New Orleans, where Louisiana passed a law that prohibited the accumulation of guns, doesn’t happen here,” Tansey said.

One guy, and they are looking to change the law. I hope we see more of this, particularly with the Bloomberg mayors.

Scranton Looks to Challenge State Preemption Laws

It looks like the Scranton City Council wants to hop on board with the effort to end Pennsylvania’s preemption on local gun laws with a lost and stolen requirement. What’s different about this case is that it would be the first city with a mayor who is not in Bloomberg’s anti-gun coalition to pass this illegal law. Of the nine cities that have passed it and the one that passed a resolution in support of it, all have mayors who are supporters of Mike Bloomberg’s initiatives.

With the mayor of Scranton running for Governor, this may not be the kind of attention he wants for the town. It would be wise for gun owners in the city to get him on their side, as well as call all of the Council members listed in the ILA alert.

Paranoid Gun Owners

We’re always told we’re paranoid when we suggest that the end game of the gun control movement is door to door Â confiscation. I mean, drag that kind of theory out, you might as well just fit yourself for a tin foil hat now and put on your wookie suit. Right? Maybe not:

Complicated amnesty laws around gun legislation have many owners confused. Now the city’s Guns and Gangs unit is going door to door setting people straight.

“If you have to ask the question if you are licensed… I can pretty much guarantee you are not in compliance,” said Superintendent Greg Getty, who works with the Organized Crime Enforcement unit.

So Getty and his team are going through tens of thousands of old gun registry documents to try and locate weapons where registration may have expired.

Well, you see, the registration didn’t expire. They still have it, obviously, they are just using the registry to locate the gun owners that have turned into criminals by letting a date on a piece of paper pass without jumping through the hoops to get another piece of paper with a different date. This article has even more details.

“We cannot leave those firearms in that person’s possession,” he said.

Those who “are less vigilant in maintaining proper licensing … may be equally lax in maintaining the safety and security of their weapons,” Blair said.

“Now that there are 400 fewer guns that can be stolen and put into the hands of criminals, I think we’ve created a safer situation,” he said. “This is very much an anti-violence measure.”

Canadian gun owners apparently weren’t paranoid enough. I’ll offer credit to Canadian authorities for not prosecuting these individuals, and giving them the opportunity to comply with the law, rather than just destroying their guns, but I have to wonder how much more effective it would be if police resources were dedicated to catching actual criminals rather than chasing around people who’s papers are not in order. But I suppose the latter is a much safer way to make it look like the authorities are doing something about the crime problem. Real criminals shoot back.

Nordyke Up for Hearing Tomorrow

The en banc hearing is up tomorrow for Nordyke vs. King. Â Go read the article. They talk about how former California Governor and now Attorney General Jerry Brown hasn’t been much of a crusader against the Second Amendment, and has not filed a brief in Nordyke. I don’t know if we’ll ever classify Jerry Brown as a friend, but it’s hard to say he’s been an enemy. Even if Jerry Brown is just keeping the heat off, I appreciate that. I’ve heard from someone close to the case that:

[T]he first time the 9th heard the case, California gun owners packed the courtroom (actually we packed 3 courtrooms). We think that our presence reminded the Judges that gun rights are not just about guns, but they’re about people. We intend to do it again on Thursday.

You can find more information on that here. I’d stop by if I were close, but I’m on the other side of the country. Let’s hope this all turns out well for us. We really need to get incorporation.

You Know How Those Gun Bloggers Are

Reno dealers are reporting that the ammunition shortage appears to be easing. I guess we did more shooting at GBR than I thought :)

Heeding God’s Call Feeling Vindicated

One of the members of the group that protested outside of Colosimo’s is feeling vindicated with the arrival of federal charges:

Little did we know that while we were meeting the U.S. Attorney’s office was charging Mr. Colism with falsifying statements and failing to keep accurate records. On a practical level, it appears that our activities may have called attention to this particularly notorious gun dealer, and moved the process along in bringing him to justice. On another level, today feels like a vindication of our efforts, and an affirmation that God is indeed working in and through our efforts.

Is he being brought to justice though? I’ll one up you, Professor. I’m going to suggest the US Attorney is going easy on this guy rather than throwing the book at him. I would like to understand why. The accusation is that he knowingly sold a firearm to a person he knew not to be the actual buyer of the firearm, and that those firearms were later recovered from criminals. In the reports, he’s accused of doing this not once, but ten times over the course of five years. Yet the US Attorney’s office isn’t pressing charges against Mr. Colosimo himself, but rather against Colosimo, Inc, the corporate entity. This basically puts the maximum penalty at a fine and probation for the corporation, which means a judge gets to oversee the operation of the corporate entity. Â There’s no jail time involved. I would argue that if Mr. Colosimo knowingly sold firearms to straw purchasers, he ought to be facing charges himself.

The US Attorneys office seems to be proceeding with a Prosecution by Information, which means that Colosimo’s has waived its right to have the evidence in the case presented to a Grand Jury. Usually a defendant will not do this unless they intend to plead guilty to the charge. This leads me to believe the US Attorney likely cut a deal with Colosimo, either because they didn’t see any use in prosecuting an old man, or because they weren’t confident in taking a case forward against Colosimo himself, and cut a deal where the corporate entity agreed to plead guilty.

But I don’t just meant to question the US Attorney’s office over why they are going after the company and not the man, I also think the ATF needs to explain, if the US Attorney has had evidence that Colosimos was knowingly selling to straw buyers, why it allowed Colosimos to continue operating? I would assume ATF has inspected this dealer in the past? What did they find? If it warranted charges, why was his FFL not revoked?

Lots of questions still in this case. Hopefully we’ll get answers as more information comes to light.

New NSSF Video

Over at SayUncle, he’s highlighting a new video from the National Shooting Sports Foundation on AR-15s.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqj23j7smVU[/youtube]

Caleb has also highlighted it as good work. I think how good it is depends on the intended audience. Is this something aimed at general media, or outdoor media who mostly write about hunting? Â Because which audience this is targeted to depends on whether or not I think it’s a good video.

If this is a video aimed at educating general media, I’m not a big fan. It’s certainly not a bad video, but I think it underestimates how unfamiliar many journalists are when it comes to hunting and shooting issues. We all know that no one would hunt with a machine gun, but how many journalists know that? I think the video’s big problem is failing to address the fact that an AR-15 is not a machine gun. Any time you present this issue to laymen, this needs to be stressed. You don’t even really need to say it in this context — just showing an animal being taken by a single shot from an AR-15 would be sufficient to get the point across.Â I would also question why the hunting context would be used? I fully recognize that the public views hunting as a legitimate use of firearms, but NSSF’s own research has shown public perception of the shooting sports is better than hunting, and AR-15s are ubiquitous in several types of popular competitive shooting sports. But that’s assuming the target audience is general media, which it might not be.

If the target audience is outdoor media, basically the Jim Zumbos of the world, in an effort to help them understand the issue, I think it’s a pretty good video. Those folks will know the difference between a semi-auto and a machine gun, and will know no one hunts with the latter. In that instance they really just need to understand how technology and the culture is changing, and I think this video accomplishes that goal.

I guess another question is, what kind of outreach we need to be doing more of? Reaching the outdoor community or reaching the general public? I’m generally of the opinion that the latter is more important, and I hope to see more good work from NSSF targeted at that audience, particularly in relation to the shooting sports.

Making a Difference

It’s amazing what you can do for the Second Amendment in just a few minutes. As you all know by now, Sebastian and I are NRA Election Volunteer Coordinators that assist pro-gun candidates in finding NRA members who want to be politically involved to help keep Pennsylvania pro-gun. It’s not a terribly time consuming task, and it pays off when we hear that candidates specifically recognize gun owners as making a difference to their campaign.

I had a phone conversation today with a State Senate candidate and his Campaign Volunteer Coordinator who are gearing up for a special election next week. Rep. Bob Mensch is running for the open Senate seat in district 24, and yesterday we announced NRA-PVF’s endorsement in the race. Rep. Mensch’s opponent has been dodging debates and interviews, and she doesn’t exactly seem to be up on relevant state issues – something important for those who want state office. I haven’t seen her say a word about gun rights, only a friend of hers claiming in one interview that she used to hunt. So this could be potentially bad news for gun owners if this seat goes from an A rated candidate to an unknown who, at best, has her friend pay a simple platitude to hunting.

But back to that phone call. Knowing that they have the endorsement of NRA-PVF is huge news to Rep. Mensch’s campaign. Even though they are polling ahead of the Democratic candidate, it’s a seat that her party wants to win. In a special election where people may forget to vote, it’s vitally important that we make sure gun owners and other friendly-to-the-cause voters show up. So that is where Rep. Mensch needs our help. I’m about to put out an email to all of our contacts up here with the call to action, and information on how they can at least get a sign up in their yard even if they can’t help on Election Day.

I can’t tell you how excited the campaign staffer was over that offer to get the word out to those willing to volunteer. Just knowing that they have the NRA endorsement and then to have us call the very next day offering to try and scrounge up volunteers, they were so appreciative. The volunteer coordinator couldn’t express enough how much it meant to have a gun owner call and ask how to make the biggest difference for the campaign. Ultimately, these are the actions that make things go smoothly for us at the State House. These are the things that you can do to make a difference in your state – a tangible difference.

As easy as it is to just pound away on the keyboard, and as much as I do think new media is useful, these types of activities – picking up the phone and offering to help, and getting involved at the local level – are what make the most difference when it matters on an important vote. So with that in mind, I’m going to head up to the district on Tuesday and help with the GOTV operation. I may even poke Sebastian and see if he wants to go up this weekend and contribute a few hours. I think even he was rather amazed in November when at the end of a two hour calling shift, you could look down and realized you just reached 200+ voters, or in doing on precinct walk, you hit 50 households of voters. That kind of local reach is hard to do with a new media, so these kinds of traditional local political activities ought not be discounted by those who spend time in the internet world.

Category: Guns