Someone started a petition to Impeach the Mayor of Philadelphia for passing the gun control ordinances. I fully agree with the sentiment here, but since City Council is the body to carry out the proceedings, and they are complicit in passing the bill, I doubt this is going to go anywhere. Also, I would advise anyone starting a petition to make sure they are using the proper spelling of the words “advice” and “break.”  I normally hate to be the spell check guy, but it kind of stood out.
CMP Rationing Ammo
It’s a sign of the time I suppose, from a CMP email:
AMMUNITION PURCHASE LIMIT: During the past 60 days we have experienced a ten-fold increase in orders for HXP .30-06 ammunition. This activity has significantly reduced our inventory. To ensure that the current inventory last another few years, effective immediately we are establishing an individual maximum purchase limit of ten cases of .30-06 HXP item # 407-Case and 10 cases of item # 415 per year.
NEW HXP .30-06 AMMUNITION PRICES:Â New prices are: Item #407-Case – $238 per case; item #407-Can – $60 per can; item #415 – $134 per case; item #415-CN $67 per can. New prices are effective 5 May, 2008. CMP will honor the old price for all orders already received, but not yet processed.
It’s disappointing, but I’m not sure there’s going to be any more cheap .30-06 once the HXP runs out. One thing I think gun owners need to work on changing is the prohibition on the US military selling surplus ammo to civilians. While that won’t help the .30-06 situation any, it might help reduce prices for more modern military calibers. Cutting off military surplus ammo is also one of the chief dangers of international arms control. HXP is of Greek manufacture. Imagine a world where no one can sell anything to civilians. Think about how many of your favorite guns are foreign made, and you see how this becomes a big problem.
Police Assault Rifles
There’s been a lot of talk on the blogosphere this weekend about Mayor Daley of Chicago outfitting police with M4s. While I’m a proponent of a well-armed police force, I will suggest that rifles capable of fully automatic fire have no place in police work. That’s not to say I have a problem with police having AR-15s, and I do believe that the submachine gun has a role to play in tactical units, but issuing military M4s to patrol officers is probably a foolhardy publicity stunt on the part of the mayor.
The only real purpose for automatic weapons is to suppress enemy fire, to allow members of a squad to advance, or to defend against a human wave attack, where there’s a need to take down multiple targets on a battlefield. In police work the object should be well aimed fire, and for that semi-automatic AR-15s should be sufficient for that purpose.
Feel free to disagree with me in the comments, but I’d hate to think what would happen the first time an officer flips off the safety a bit too energetically. I also tend to think what’s prohibited to civilians, because it’s a “military weapon of war,” ought to also be prohibited to police forces.  If the police need it and can use the firearm for self-defense, so can I. If I can’t have it, because it’s not useful for self-defense, then it’s not useful for police self-defense either, right?
This brings me to a thought I’ve had since oral arguments in Heller. Would a good test for the second amendment be any arm that’s in common police use is protected? Keep in mind that the courts, according to every export on this subject that I’ve ever talked to, are going to be completely unwilling to rule that the second amendment is without limit, and are absolutely not going to be willing to rule that it protects explosive ordnance, such as rocket launchers, and anti-tank weapons. A common police use standard, I think, would probably be pretty reasonable. What do you think?
Interesting Article on Heller
I read this paper that Dave Hardy linked to. I agree with Dave that it’s a very good read, in the sense that they outline a lot of the racial overtones that have been part of the history of gun regulation and the gun culture. But I can’t agree with the conclusion, which is that the courts and legislatures should defer greatly to local concerns about restrictiong weapons in urban environments in response to the overwheliming problem of black-on-black violence.
It’s either an individual right, or it isn’t. If it is, we don’t restrict that right in local jurisdictions because inner city communities can’t control their own problems with gangs and violence. Urban blacks, who are not criminals, and who live in these communities that are affected by violence, have every bit as much right to have a firearm to protect themselves from criminals as I do. In fact, their need is more dire than mine. Even if 70% of blacks in inner cities would like to see guns banned, the nature of a right is that the 70% does not have the power to tell the othe 30% they may not have the means to protect themselves.
Maybe it is because I was born after the Civil Rights Movement, it’s difficult for me to view the modern gun rights movement in any way related to the antebellum “gun rights” movement in the south, the racist Jim Crow laws, or the 1967 California law, that pretty clearly had racial motivations. Ultimately, I find the conclusion offered in this paper no better than others that prescribe magic pills, because I think they misunderstand the most important cultural issue that the gun debate is a metaphor for, which is the individual vs. the collective society.
The gun rights proponent ultimately views that his individual right to protect home and hearth trumps any community illusion that security is a collective rather than individual function. At this point in our history, I think it’s time to put these racially tinged debates behind us and get to the root of the issue, which is that every human being has the right to defend home and hearth, regardless of the desires of the political elites to collectivise security. Certainly there’s been enough of that on all sides of the racial debate at this point.
Al Gore Unable to Keep Boomershoot Snow Free
Boomershoot looks to be a snowy event this year, despite Al Gore. I’m glad to hear that they are blowing up a low flush toilet in honor of Dave Barry. Hail Joe, we who are about to poop salute you!
PSH About Workplace Violence
I might actually be able to say I agree with The Brady Campaign that the parking lot laws that are being passed in various states are wrong, but this is just so much PSH that it almost makes me want to support them.
A May 2005 study published in the American Journal of Public Health found that workplaces where guns were permitted were 5 to 7 times more likely to be the site of a workplace homicide compared to workplaces where guns were prohibited.
Reading over the study, it suffers from many of the same flaws the infamous Kellerman study it cites suffers from, namely it allows the reader to jump to a conclusion that because workplace homicide correlates with gun policy, that it must be gun policy that causes workplace homicide. If allowing concealed weapons license holders to carry at work caused homicide in the workplace, then the Brady’s would have us believe that this demographic, which has shown itself to be exceptionally law abiding everywhere else, will suddenly start murdering people when it comes to workplace disagreements.
The study also doesn’t pass the smell test, in that it seems rather absurd to believe that a workplace policy on guns would actually prevent someone intent on mowing down his coworkers. Do derranged and disgruntled sociopaths wake up in the morning, load up the AK-47, and then think “Oh, but damn, the employee handbook says I can’t.” I don’t think even the Brady’s are warped enough to believe that.
Reasonable Gun Laws in Pennsylvania
The fundamental problem is our definition of reasonableness. Mine differs greatly from Walter M. Phillips Jr.:
My suggestion would be to introduce a bill requiring both a license and a detailed background investigation before allowing someone to possess or own a handgun.
Currently, there is no requirement in Pennsylvania to obtain a license in order to own a handgun.
That’s correct, because we don’t license fundamental rights. A background check is already required, and a few minute check on a computer is all it takes; criminal records are computerized.
The current meaningless background check in Pennsylvania, along with the state’s no-license requirement, allows unsavory characters to buy handguns and later sell them on the streets – not just in Philadelphia, but in Reading, York, Scranton, and neighboring states that have more restrictive laws. Ultimately, individuals use them to commit crimes and kill innocent people.
By unsavory character, you mean people who have no criminal record in the State Police’s database, and in the National Crime Information Computer? Because that’s the background check that’s going to be done for the license too. The state uses the same system to run Licenses to Carry. It’s a thorough check.
Someone who has been arrested for multiple robberies, but convicted of none (witnesses might have not shown up, changed their testimony, or been murdered), is not someone who should be allowed to buy one handgun, let alone the 10 he may seek to buy (since there is no one-gun-a-month law in Pennsylvania); neither should the individual who is under investigation by the attorney general for major drug deals (but who never has been convicted of a felony).
We do not deny fundamental rights in this country without due process. Eliminating due process of a fundmental right is under no one’s definition “reasonable”.
To my knowledge, the NRA has not had its members march on state capitols protesting the passage of license- or detailed-background requirement laws, nor has the NRA brought a court action to declare such laws as violating the Second Amendment. In other words, the NRA seems to have slowly come to the realization that these laws are reasonable.
What crack pipe are you hitting pal? Try to pass this crap, and you can bet your rosey red buttcheeks that we’re going to march on Harrisburg.
It can hardly be argued that requiring a license to own a handgun is unreasonable or burdensome. After all, a license is required to drive an automobile. Is not a handgun a far more dangerous instrument than an automobile?
Driving an automobile on public roads is not a right. Keeping a firearm is a right. And you don’t need a license to buy a car, just to drive one on the public highways.
I think it’s high time we wrote our legislators, and found out exactly what the PCCD is doing with out tax dollars. I do not take kindly to government appointees advocating positions that are contrary to the constitution and laws of this commonwealth.
Interesting Thought About Anti-Gunners
I’m late linking to this post by Dr. Helen, since I tend to keep things open in tabs that I mean to blog about, and sometimes I don’t. But I wanted to get back to this one:
I think the point about gun owners being less outraged than non gun owners is an important one. If you listen to many people who are adamant gun control supporters, they often (mistakenly) believe that people simply shoot others because they are impulsive and angry, and a gun is nearby. My guess is that this is projection. This is what they feel they would do because they do not know how to modulate their own anger. They do not trust their own instincts (maybe with good reason!) and project their anger and inability to control themselves onto others.
A question in my mind is whether these people avoid weapons specifically because they consciously believe they could not handle them? Or do their anger issues unconsciously create an aversion toward weapons? Its difficult for me to understand the mindset. Why don’t such angry people fear people with baseballs bats, kitchen knives, or golf clubs? All are pretty deadly weapons in the hands of someone who can’t control their anger. The other curious thing is whether these people, given access to firearms, would actually fly off the handle and kill someone. I suspect they probably would not. I’d imagine these people are probably more frightened of their own temper than anything, which is difficult to understand given that to not be in jail, that person would have had to exercise a considerable degree of self-control if they did have a temper.
AHSA Curiosities
David has uncovered some useful information about our friends at AHSA. Bitter actually has a lot of expeirence professionally in this area of non-profit, so we’ll have to dig too. Typically, it’s not unusual for a group like AHSA, which I’m guessing is organized as a 501(c)(4), to have a 501(c)(3) foundation to cover activities which 501(c)(3)s can do. NRA also does this.
A (c)(3) can advocate for a political position, such as gun control, but it’s more limited in terms of lobbying for legislation. Generally only about 15% of its activities can be used for this purpose. However, a (c)(3) can’t make an endorsement. I suspect what’s happening is that AHSA is not receiving more than $25k annually for its 501(c)(4) because it has no members, and its donors are giving to the foundation, which is tax deductible, and can fund most of the activities that AHSA is undertaking. Their web site, newsletters, etc, so long as they don’t mention candidates or legislation, can be funded through the (c)(3). Any activity associated with, say, endorsing Barack Obama would have to be funded by the (c)(4), though I doubt AHSA actually put anything other than a press release into that endorsement.
That’s not to say these boundaries don’t often get crossed in non-profit, so it’s important to keep an eye on our opponents. The penalty for making a mistake here can include losing your status as a non-profit.