Category: Guns

Eleanor Holmes Norton, the non-voting (thank God) delegate to the House for Washington D.C. wants people to just say no to “the gun culture”.

As registration of guns began today, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) called on residents to refuse to buy into the gun culture by just saying no. The Supreme Court has spoken, the District has acted and now it is up to citizens to do their part, she said. “If the great majority of residents, who supported our gun ban, meant it, now is the time to show it. I challenge every resident not to buy a gun. Don’t buy into the gun culture in our streets by bringing it into our homes with the gun you buy. It’s up to us now.”

I don’t think Norton has the first clue about the “gun culture”.  You see, I am from this culture, and so are many of the people I know.  Yet we are all good citizens.  What Norton is basically saying is that if you buy a gun you’ll either end up shot or end up a criminal.  She’s basically saying that DC residents are too irresponsible and criminal to own guns.

Someone pointed out that The Brady Campaign managed to corner the market on Carry Permit Holders as a search term. Well, not we in the gun blogosphere are getting our google-fu on.  Watch as we drive them down the list!  Robb is also getting his carry permit holder google-fu going.

Over at Joe Huffman’s.   To be somewhat fair, though it doesn’t diminish the point, a lot of these folks are just anti-American, and express that through anti-gun attitudes.  Hell, I’m almost convinced one of the only reasons Canada’s gun laws are worse than ours is because having less restrictive gun laws would be too American and we can’t have that in Canada.

Damon Root of Reason takes Dennis Henigan to task for suggesting Heller won’t ultimately mean much.  If we get incorporation of the second amendment as applicable to the states, that is where it will likely have its greatest impact.  There are precious few gun laws at the federal level I think are likely to be impacted in the short term.

If the thought of new pro-gun constituencies being created in cities like Chicago and New York City doesn’t scare the hell out of Dennis and his boss Paul Helmke, it ought to.  What will happen to gun control when the latte elite of Chicago and New York *gasp* know people who own guns?  Know people who shoot guns?  Maybe even know people who carry guns?  Dear god!

There are two major centers of political support for gun control: New York and Chicago.  Oh, there are minor ones, like San Francisco, Boston, and DC, but what do all these areas have in common?  They’ve all severely restricted access to handguns.  No one in these cities likely knows anyone who owns or shoots a gun for recreation, and don’t think much about them for self-defense, because it’s not an option for non-criminals.   That is about to change, and that should keep Paul Helmke and Dennis Hennigan up at night.

UPDATE: Glenn Reynolds and Brian P. Denning chime in with an article in the Northwestern University Law Review.