Looks like United Bowhunters of Pennsylvania are taking a stab at getting the ban on hunting on Sundays in Pennsylvania repealed, at least for them. Even though I think Sunday hunting should be allowed, in general, I would support this more limited measure, if it can be passed. Might be a good thing for NRA to hop on board with, to smooth over frayed relations with the bowhunting community over the crossbow issue.
Category: Guns
Party’s Over?
Analysts are apparently predicting the surge in guns sales is coming to an end. The Great Obama Gun Rush might be over. I can’t say I’m disappointed. Maybe I’ll be able to start buying again at other than wildly inflated prices.
New Book Out on Gun Rights
While I don’t always agree with the Knox clan on everything, their impact and contributions to the gun rights movement are undeniable. Chris Knox has put out a book “Neal Knox – The Gun Rights War,” which cronicles Neal Knox’s history with the gun rights movement:
The Knox brothers expect controversy over the book, as it includes one section devoted to Neal Knox’s often-contentious relations with the NRA. “We’re not looking to stir controversy for its own sake,” said Chris. “The history is controversial, but it’s important, and a fair amount of it has been forgotten, glossed over, ignored, or even covered up.
As someone who has gobbled up nearly every bit of writing I’ve been able to find on the history of the gun rights movement, I will definitely be getting a copy of this. I have no doubt there will be much I will disagree with, but having read and enjoyed Richard Feldman’s book, which comes from the opposide end of the pro-gun spectrum, I have no doubt I will enjoy this account as well.
If Guns Were Like Drugs
I’ve seen an assertion by gun folks that guns are the most regulated product out there. While Sugarmann’s assertion that guns are unregulated is ridiculous and untrue, and guns are really no less regulated than most other consumer products, I can assure you that drugs are a far more regulated product than firearms. Let me give you an idea of what the world would be like if guns were regulated like drugs. Josh would like this world.
- Before you ever handed a hunting gun over to a person outside the research environment, you’d have to do extensive testing on animals to verify that the gun is effective for the purposes you market it for, and is safe enough for even the most ignorant person to use safely.
- Once you get permission to allow humans to test the gun, that’s just the beginning. The studies would be outrageously expensive, and require extensive field testing with thousands of hunters and shooters before final approval for public sale would be granted. The process would take years. Any evidence that the gun did things other than its stated purpose would be grounds for denying final approval.
- Once approved for human use, the FDA ATF will still exercise considerable control over the marketing of the gun. If your testing shows that it does effectively kill deer, you will be able to market it for that purpose. You won’t be able to claim it kills elk unless you’ve tested it’s effective at killing elk. A hunter may take an elk with it, but as a manufacturer, you’d be limited in marketing it only for approved purposes. Useful for self-defense? Not sure how you’d even test that. I guess the police would be out of luck.
- Making your own guns and ammunition would be a very serious offense. Doubly so if you give some to your friends while shooting at the range one day.
- Once approved, you’d need special permission from a professional hunter and or professional shooter in order to make any purchase. Said professional would only be able to prescribe approve just enough gun for your stated purpose, and federal law would prohibit you from ever transferring it to someone else, or using it for a purpose other than the stated purpose, unless under the advice of a professional. Said professional will evaluate your need carefully, and will be reluctant to approve firearms they deem you don’t need.
- These professionals would be closely monitored by other regulators, who will ask questions if they approve too many guns, or approve too many of certain types of guns deemed dangerous. These professionals and regulators will consider wanting too many guns too often to be a sign of illness, requiring medical evaluation and possible institutionalization.
- Firearms manufacturers would have to extensive records documenting every aspect of the manufacturing process, distribution, and would need to keep detailed records of adverse reactions accidents, shoots, suicides, etc. The FDA ATF might demand follow up studies to help them understand why these things are happening.
- Because the cost of complying with the regulatory requirements are so high, your average firearm will cost $20,000. Dealers won’t want to stock certain types of popular firearms, because selling them attracts too much attention from regulators. A lot of firearms will look and do the same things as many of the other manufacturers because making something original will be deemed too risky.
- Regulators would have broad authority to remove any guns, ammunition, or accessories from the market that they deem to be no longer safe or effective. If a gun that claims 1MOA accuracy ever shot with 1.5MOA accuracy, it might be grounds to shut down the manufacturer and stop production entirely.
- The good news is that you’d be able to carry your gun around with you, even on a plane! But don’t get too excited, because the authorities will have broad authority in search and seizure in order to try to rid society of the scourge of drugs guns. Better carry around that prescription approval certificate around with you. But none of that would matter anyway, because any gun that would be useful for self-defense would be illegal, since there’s no way to safely test on humans!
So you can see, this would be Josh Sugarmann’s dream world. It wouldn’t be total prohibition, which I know he thinks would be better, but it’d be awfully close. People go through all this because drugs help them be able to continue living their lives, but how many would to get a gun? Would it even be worth it? Guns are very regulated, but drugs take the gold medal when it comes to regulation, hands down.
It’s Time to Give Up the Lie
Josh Sugarmann is touting the canard that the firearms industry is unregulated. We know for a fact just how much bunk that is. The fact is that firearms are regulated much the same way as other consumer products, like automobiles. In that there are regulatory parameters that manufacturers have to comply with, but within those parameters there’s the ability to make products that consumers want.
If you read carefully what Sugarmann is really saying, he’s lamenting that guns are largely legal, within the framework established by federal and sometimes state regulation. Presumably he’d want a framework more akin to how the FDA regulates drugs, with agency approval being required before sale to consumers, and with the regulating agency having a very large degree of control over how products are marketed.
Very few consumer products are regulated in this manner. In fact, I can think of only drugs, which aren’t really a consumer product since they require a prescription from a doctor, as the only products regulated according to Sugarmann’s proposed regime. Even the famous teddy bear example, that anti-gun groups always throw at us, are regulated in the same manner as firearms, in that manufacturers act within an established regulatory framework that only defines what you may not do, rather than requiring prior permission from the regulating agency to do anything.
But why lie and say guns are unregulated? That’s far from the truth. If you want an FDA like regulatory framework for guns, why not start with that discussion? Make the case for it. Again, the anti-gun folks aren’t talking to real people here. They are talking to a media that’s too busy trying to escape its own death spiral to pay much attention. The days of success through lying to the public is over. The real problem for the anti-gun folks, and why they have adopted these tactics to begin with, is that there’s no political support what Sugarmann proposes.
800 Gun Buyers on Terror List
Looks like the AP is playing along with Lautenberg’s game, trying to get some fervor whipped up over his terror watch list bill that was recently introduced in the Senate:
WASHINGTON – More than 800 gun purchases were approved after background checks in the last five years even though the buyers’ names were on the government’s terrorist watch list, investigators said Monday.
The first thing that goes through my mind is, if NICS records are indeed being destroyed, how do they know this? Or are they already cross referencing NICS with the terrorist watch list, and making a new list. Which law authorizes the FBI to do this? Inquiring minds want to know, because I could swear there’s a law that says NICS records must be destroyed.
They Still Don’t Get It
The Brady Campaign still wants to paint an image of the NRA being the big bad puppet master of the vast right wing conspiracy, based on this passage from a New York Times article they found to be particularly compelling:
As if the wackos weren’t dangerous enough to begin with, the fuel to further inflame them is available in the over-the-top rhetoric of the National Rifle Association, which has relentlessly pounded the bogus theme that Barack Obama is planning to take away people’s guns.
What kills me is that I know the Brady Campaign reads our blogs. If they pay any attention at all they should understand the dynamic enough to know that the whackos won’t have much of anything to do with the NRA, becasue NRA isn’t extreme enough for them. But I suppose we have to have a monster, don’t we. A good scary bedtime story to get people to donate more money. It’s OK. Everyone in this issue is guilty of it. But like I said before, they’ve shown a real inability to talk to real people, and that is what’s dooming their cause, and will continue to do so in the long term.
Having a bogeyman is important, but having a real argument is more important. I know I’m not the only gun blogger who’s thought he could make the Brady case better than they do.
Lead Ban Expansion
The Hog Blog takes a pretty detailed look at California’s proposed extension on the lead ammunition ban.  It doesn’t look good.
And that’s the second hot topic… proposed regulation changes that will bring small game and upland birds under the lead ammo ban. Why? Are condors eating tree-squirrel gut piles, or feasting on the remains of hunters’ quail? Not bloody likely. Then what is the purpose of the expansion to a bill that is specifically intended to protect the California condor?
It was never about the California Condor. That was just the rhetoric. They are expanding it because, quite honestly, they can. As long as Condors get sick, and hunters can be blamed for it, it will be the excuse necessary to every increasing restrictions. That’s what these people do.
More Holster Controversy
Mostly Genius thinks that junk holsters are worthless. The Defense Handgun Blog highlights hybrid models that are available. I can see the point a few people have made that cheaper holster offer an inexpensive way to try out a carry method. I have, somewhere, a Galco shoulder rig which I paid good money for, only to find out that shoulder rigs don’t work for me. Strong side carry at 4:00 is the only thing that I feel comfortable with.
But I think if you’re going to bet your life on something, spend a little extra money and get something that works.
Bangor Daily News on National Park Carry
They believe they’ve discovered a loophole:
The carefully worded gun amendment forbids any Interior Department regulation that “prohibits an individual from possessing a firearm including an assembled or functional firearm in any unit of the National Park System.†But it includes a loophole, presumably out of deference to the Tenth Amendment, which reserves undelegated powers to the states.
The loophole says that the new permissive rules must be “in compliance†with any state law where a park is located. An Interior Department spokesman agrees that a state law would take precedence over the new federal law.
It’s not a loophole, it was the exact intent of the bill. If states wants to prohibit firearms in National Parks, they are free to do so. I’m rather amused by a bunch of reporters at the Bangor Daily News sitting around thinking they’ve figured out a way to pull a fast one on us knuckle dragging gun owners.