NRA released this ad in Colorado, so feel free to spread it around if you know some voters who need to get out and vote.
Category: Politics
Local Elections Matter
In Pennsylvania, we elect our judges. This can be a good thing, or it can be a bad thing. One of the biggest issues is the fact that even the most informed voters often know nothing about the judges on the ballot before them. Add to that the fact that these judges are elected in off-year elections with very low turnout, and it’s both an opportunity and an uphill battle if you want to see meaningful change in the justice system.
Consider the case in Erie right now. Erie 4th Ward District Judge Tom Robie isn’t on the ballot again until 2015. He last won in an unchallenged race in 2009 with the support of both parties from the looks of one of the election results pages I found. Unfortunately for the citizens of Erie, that may not be such a good thing if Judge Robie’s reported actions in a recent gun possession case are any indication.
Pennsylvania has a pretty clear preemption law that doesn’t allow local governments to regulate possession of firearms by law-abiding citizens. The City of Erie violated the ban and passed their own ban on possession in city-owned parks. Several men were cited in violation of this illegal ordinance. And, according to social media posts by those involved in the case, the judge decided to find them guilty of violating the illegal ordinance anyway, despite the case law on the subject. I haven’t found a news story about the decision yet, but here is one with better background on the case.
For purposes of legal action, these guys can clearly appeal and hope that, at some level, they get a judge who cares about actually making sure that the laws are followed by both the government agents and citizens. However, even if that happens, the judge who ignored the case law on the issue gets to enjoy the perks of his taxpayer-funded job with few people caring that his cases may end up overturned because he appears to have opted to ignore the state’s preemption law and related established case law.
For election purposes, this is a great opportunity for local gun owners to get involved with local parties and start finding a replacement for Judge Robie on the next ballot. They can find him a primary challenger from either side. So, will local gun owners pick up this cause? It’s a long way to 2015, but since they need to find a candidate willing to take on this judge, the process needs to start early. But, if local gun owners would be willing to take up this cause, then it can send a clear message to many more local politicians – judicial or otherwise.
Who Has to Give and Who Has to Take to Win National Elections?
I’m rather tired of seeing some people in the Republican coalition trotting this out:Â in order to win, libertarians and conservatives must find common ground. This is true of any two factions who want to form a coalition, and that’s obvious. But if you read the article, I read their argument as saying, essentially, that libertarians just need to shut up and vote the way we tell you to. Why? I would say that social conservative aren’t in the position to be dictating terms here. It’s often said Mitt Romney lost for being a weak kneed Massachusetts moderate, but the turnout for 2012 would seem to say he was fine by evangelicals:
“Evangelicals turned out in record numbers and voted as heavily for Mitt Romney yesterday as they did for George W. Bush in 2004,†Reed observed. “That is an astonishing outcome that few would have predicted even a few months ago. But Romney underperformed with younger voters and minorities and that in the end made the difference for Obama.â€
The GOP isn’t having a problem with the evangelical vote, save one. The one issue is that the evangelical vote isn’t enough to win national elections. So when it comes time to finding that common ground, I’m not sure it’s libertarians, however this article wants to define them, who need suck it up and give on some issues.
Political coalitions aren’t built on a great mutual fondness; they are built on bringing together factions who hate “those other people” more than they hate each other. I think the social conservative wing of the party needs to think hard about what they might be willing to give up, if we’re going to avoid another eight years of Hillary. My first suggestion would be to accept that the great culture wars against homosexuality are lost. My second would be to accept that shrinking the size and scope of government is the best way to promote strong families.
Gabby Giffords PAC Caught Accepting Illegal Donations
The Center for Public Integrity took at peek at donations flowing into the Gabby Giffords and Mark Kelly gun control PAC, and they found several thousand dollars in donations from at least two private foundations and a church that cannot legally donate to political action committees.
The PAC’s defense is that they aren’t doing wrong to take the money, but that they are issuing refunds since they have suddenly learned that these illegal donations are “not appropriate” for the donors to make.
The highest profile non-profit to violate these donations laws is Bette Midler’s family foundation. Her publicist says that it was an accounting error, and the Center’s conversation with an accountant at the firm handling the foundation account merely said they needed to research the laws themselves. (Seriously? They handle this stuff for a living, and the staff don’t even know the basic laws on non-profit giving?)
The other non-profit to violate the donor laws is the Rupa and Bharat B. Bhatt Foundation, but neither one is willing to answer questions from the Center about their donations. The New England Congregational Church in New York also submitted an illegal donation, and the office manager merely confirmed that it was returned. It would seem from the article that she didn’t provide any information on why a church was trying to make political donations in the first place.
What’s the Point of Trying to Split the Baby?
Jeff Soyer at Alphecca points out that the anti-gun folks are going ape shit over Christie’s vetoes. But Christie signed a few of the bills. Why? How much middle ground is there really to be had on this issue? It looks like all Christie accomplished was pissing off his base in order to fail to please people who would never vote for you even if personally went around confiscating guns from every single New Jerseyan. So why sign a few bad bills and veto some other worse bills? Why not just veto everything?
This is where I have to detach myself from the fact that I would like Christie to have just vetoed their whole agenda, and try to look at this from the point of view of someone who doesn’t have a pet cause. It’s often thought that politicians are not rational creatures, and often they aren’t when it comes to most things. But most of them are very good at one thing if they have the chops to make a career out of politics: not losing elections. You can say a lot of things about Chris Christie, but not that he lacks political talent. I think he’s an enormously talented politician (which is probably the biggest mixed compliment I think you can ever offer).
So why split the baby? What does Christie gain? I have a theory. To verify my theory, the key thing to watch is what Bloomberg does. If my theory is correct, Bloomberg won’t say much, or anything about Christie’s veto, because he still signed one of their signature pieces of legislation: the “terror watch list” ban. Christie may made that move to keep Bloomberg’s money out of his reelection bid. The risk Bloomberg could spoil Christie’s re-election seems absurd, but generally speaking, when it comes to not losing elections, politicians can be pretty risk averse. Mitt Romney was so risk averse it cost him the election!
It’s often said in politics that the only people who vote in large numbers on the gun issue are us. Even looking objectively, and not as an activist, I think that’s true. If everything just depended on pure grassroots energy, organization, and turnout at the polls, we’d never lose. But this isn’t strictly a battle of grassroots. What Bloomberg (or more specifically his money) can do in a race is not so much get people to vote on his pet issues, but help paint Chris Christie as a right-wing extremist and out of touch with New Jersey voters. That might make you laugh, and it makes me laugh too, but who won’t laugh are the people who don’t pay attention to anything until the week before the election. If all you have is money, your best strategy is to ruin your opponent’s brand with low-information voters.
Cash is powerful in politics, and it’s powerful because it’s the chief tool for swaying the undecideds in the final push before the election. Those undecideds don’t know much more about the candidate they choose to vote for, or the issues the candidates stands for. They vote more on gut feel. Elections do involve grassroots organization, but they also involve political elites (and that would include you all, for the purposes of this discussion) convincing a lot of other less involved people to vote for your guy. I think Bloomberg’s ability to do that prospect is what Christie fears. Otherwise his best course of action, especially given his designs on national office, was to veto everything.
Christie Vetoes Remaining Gun Bills
I have to admit to being surprised. I did not have high hopes for a veto. From ANJRPC:
In a huge blow to anti-gun politicians and the gun ban lobby, today Governor Christie flat-out vetoed the fifty caliber ban (A3659) and conditionally vetoed two other bills – Senate President Stephen Sweeney’s “kitchen sink” F.I.D. card bill (S2723), and a bill that that would have forced the State Police to breach confidentiality of protected gun trace data in violation of federal law (A3797). A fourth bill creating a task force to study school security issues was signed by the Governor (A3583).
A “conditional veto” means that the legislation is dead, unless the legislature reconvenes to resurrect it through amendments that meet strict conditions imposed by the Governor. Whether anti-gun Democrats have the stomach to swallow those conditions (see details below) remains to be seen. Alternatively, the legislature could try to override any veto (conditional or otherwise) by a 2/3 vote of both houses, which is highly unlikely given the current composition of the legislature.
“After 7 months of intense battle over misguided legislation that won’t stop another crime or prevent another tragedy, we are grateful that Governor Christie has finally ended the discussion on the worst of the bills by tossing them onto the scrap heap where they belong,” said ANJRPC Executive Director Scott Bach. “These vetoes put gun-banning politicians on notice that exploiting tragedy to advance an agenda against legal gun owners, instead of punishing violent criminals, will not be entertained.”
Today’s actions come in the wake of last week’s signing of ten gun bills by Governor Christie (two helped gun owners, two were opposed by gun owners, and six were neutralized based on gun owner input but are appropriately very tough on violent criminals). New Jersey already has some of the strictest and most extreme gun laws in the nation.
The bill flat-out vetoed by Governor Christie today was:
A3659Â – the fifty caliber gun ban that would have: prohibited high muzzle-energy guns of any caliber; blocked heirlooms from family members; held grandfathered owners civilly liable for damages if their firearms were ever used in a crime; and forfeited the pending purchase orders of licensed gun owners for these $10,000+ firearms.
The notion that banning any particular tool makes society safer is demonstrably false, and ignores the obvious reality that someone intent on doing evil will not be stopped or deterred if one particular tool becomes unavailable. “If box cutters could take down the World Trade Center, does anyone really believe that banning box cutters will stop the next terrorist?” commented Bach. “The same is true of firearms – banning the fifty caliber or any other firearm will not stop someone bent on doing evil.”
The Governor’s statement on A3659 criticizes the scope of the ban, notes drafting errors that would defeat grandfathering, and observes that rather than combating crime and terror, the bill only serves to threaten law-abiding gun owners with imprisonment for lawful recreation.
The two bills conditionally vetoed by Governor Christie today are:
S2723Â – Senate President Stephen Sweeney’s “kitchen sink” FID card bill, a 42-page monstrosity universally despised by gun owners and sportsmen. The bill, touted by Democrats as the “centerpiece” of their gun bill package and a “national model,” would have: thrown out existing FID cards and replaced them with a privacy-invading driver license endorsement or other form of ID; suspended Second Amendment rights without proof of firearms training; ended firearms sales directly between background-checked licensed gun owners; and had numerous other impacts.
Under Governor Christie’s conditional veto, S2723 could only be resurrected if both houses of the legislature agreed to the following conditions:
- Remove all provisions that would have created a new electronic FID card (keeps the existing permitting system in place);
- Remove all provisions that would have suspended Second Amendment rights without proof of firearms training;
- Remove all provisions that would have ended firearms sales directly between background-checked licensed gun owners; and
- Add a provision requiring the State Police to develop and promulgate literature regarding safe firearms storage and ownership.
It is unknown whether Democratic legislative leadership would accept these conditions. While doing so would salvage what is left of their “centerpiece,” the final bill would be a gutted version, stripped of the most blatant attacks on legal gun owners, and very likely an embarrassment to Democrats.
 If Democrats decided to swallow that bitter pill, other key provisions of the Sweeney bill that would be retained would include: requiring an FID card or other permit for all ammunition purchases; limiting shipment of online ammunition purchases to the address on the FID card; making it a 4th degree crime if injury or death results from the failure to properly secure firearms; making it a 4thdegree crime for someone prohibited from possessing firearms to possess ammunition; requiring mental health screeners to inquire about firearms ownership of those being considered for involuntary commitment for mental health reasons; and revocation of NJ concealed carry permits upon conviction of a crime of the 4th degree or higher.
The Governor’s statement accompanying his conditional veto expressed support in principle for some of these provisions, yet also criticized the legislature as “shortsighted” for focusing on gun control instead of comprehensive violence solutions. The statement also noted the bill’s failure “to directly combat violence,” and the current unavailability of the technology that would be required to implement the digitized FID card.
A3797 – conditionally vetoed because of one section that required the State Police to breach confidentiality of federal gun trace data in direct violation of federal law that limits the data to law enforcement only. This was an attempt by frustrated gun banners to circumvent that federal law, so that idiosyncrasies of the ATF’s trace system could be exploited and manipulated to falsely suggest that law abiding citizens are a source of “crime guns.” ATF has opposed similar efforts to circumvent confidentiality, which could compromise ongoing investigations. If the legislature amends the bill to remove this illegal provision, the amended bill would then return to the Governor’s desk.
PLEASE THANK GOVERNOR CHRISTIE TODAY!Â
Please thank Governor Christie today for his actions on the fifty caliber ban, the Sweeney bill, and the trace data confidentiality bill. You can call the Governor’s office at 609-292-6000, write him at P.O. Box 001, Trenton, N.J. 08625, or send an email using the online contact form (select “law and public safety” from the drop-down menu, then pick any sub-topic).
And thank YOU for weathering this 7-month-long storm of the worst attacks on gun owners in state history along with us. It is because of YOUR actions, YOUR calls and letters, YOUR attendance at hearings, and YOUR refusal to give up no matter what the odds, that today’s outcome was possible.
Although today’s action marks the end of a long and very arduous battle, the fight is far from over. The most oft-repeated statement by anti-gun legislators at hearings over the past 7 months was “these bills are only the beginning.” They will be back after the November elections, and will continue their relentless attacks on legal gun ownership – and it will be up to gun owners to continue to defend freedom.
Please watch for future alerts and updates!
Is He Really Off Base?
In an interview with Talking Points Memo, a top-tier NYC mayoral candidate says that his vision for gun possession policy is this: “We want to see gun use eliminated.”
We may want to chuckle and assume that’s just silly in light of Heller and McDonald, but is it so absurd?
Think about the fact that he only has to wait out any single one of only 5 justices on the Supreme Court, and it’s really not so absurd. The fact that candidates for mayor are still campaigning on the concept that they can eliminate all firearms use is proof that we still have quite a ways to go on even the fundamentals recognizing a right to gun ownership by law-abiding people.
Upcoming Action Day for Gun Control
Most folks have heard that President Obama’s Organizing for Action group has declared August 21 to be their gun control day. But have most of you actually looked at the schedule around you to see who they are targeting?
Here in suburban Philly, we have some highlights. They start tonight with a phone bank in Solebury and tomorrow night in Bethlehem targeting the entire area of Southeast PA.
They really want to cause problems for Rep. Jim Gerlach judging by the Trappeand Exton rallies planned. Most gun owners probably assume that Rep. Joe Pitts has no major election concerns, but they are targeting his district with two rallies and a phone bank effort. Even Rep. Charlie Dent who managed to defeat a MAIG mayor in a recent election will be facing pressure.
If Republicans who signed on to co-sponsor a few bills thought that would make the left go away, they were sorely mistaken. Rep. Patrick Meehan will be subject to two rallies attempting to keep gun control the issue alive in his district. Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick is also slated for a rally to keep the divisive issue on the front pages.
Gun owners need to make sure that gun control voices aren’t the only ones that these lawmakers hear from next week. Even if some have already signed on to bills we don’t like, don’t give up. If they hear silence from our people, they’ll think it’s okay to sign on to even more extreme gun control.
A Right Unused …
Tell me if you’ve heard this one before?
Much like a muscle that atrophies with disuse, any right that goes unexercised for many years devolves into a privilege, and eventually can even be redefined as a crime.
Is this really true? I haven’t exercised my Third Amendment rights ever in my lifetime. I don’t know too many other folks who have either. Yet the Third Amendment is doing so well, the government hardly ever violates it. Additionally, despite a dearth of case law, those which have come up ruled pretty decisively in favor of the right of the citizen. Further, no one seriously argues that the Third Amendment is wrong and ought to be repealed. The Third Amendment is doing pretty well despite falling into disuse!
Now, let’s take a look from the other side. People exercise the right of home ownership pretty regularly, and we trek about with our persons, papers and personal effects on a regular basis. Yet it takes the barest of any pretext for the police to search the ever loving crap out of your personage and vicinity, because most searches have been deemed “reasonable” by the courts. If the Second Amendment ends up being in as poor a shape as the 4th Amendment, by the time all this is said and done, I’ll cry.
I think this is a eloquent way to simply a complex issue to the point where it’s a pleasing thing to think, but doesn’t reflect reality. The answer is the loss of rights is a lot more complex than whether you use it or not, and our community shouldn’t delude itself into thinking otherwise.
Colorado Recall Elections Get Complicated & Weird
The recall elections targeting anti-gun state senators in Colorado just got a little more interesting for the major parties because the courts are forcing a change to allow Libertarians on the ballots. A judge ruled that the timelines the government set for gathering signatures violated the state’s constitutional provisions.
On one hand, this makes it more likely that elections will be held in person and that’s bad for the Democratic incumbents. On the other hand, with at least one of those seats being held by a guy who won because of a split vote, it could make it tougher to actually unseat them with one candidate. To make the election nice and messy, hundreds of ballots have already been mailed that are now likely incorrect.
For the weird factor, a former candidate in the recall races is demanding $54 million from various Republican officials and committees in Colorado and a gun shop owner because she seems to claim that breaking the news that she writes dirty books was slander – even though she admits writing the books. Her rambling accusations against party members also say they are capable of hurting her pets and committing terrorism, which is almost weirder than the claim that they owe her tens of millions of dollars. The claim also appears to accuse these folks of election fraud for the acts of trying to influence opinions of who might make a better candidate.