Shall Not Be Questioned – Page 162 – The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State …

Gun Control is for “Wealthy, White Individuals”

Wow. Just wow. One of the former city officials who backed the Bloomberg/CeasefirePA effort to enact local gun control laws said that his city needs to fight on behalf of gun control because he wants to keep the city safe for “white, wealthy individuals.”

Michael Donovan, a former member of city council who supported the lost and stolen gun law, said Allentown should be joining other prominent Pennsylvania cities in their fight against the state law.

“Allentown is the third largest city in the state,” he said. “It is claiming a renaissance for wealthy, white individuals who wish to be safe. I believe the mayor has a responsibility to join the fight against this law.”

No, I’m not kidding. The gun control ally really did say that out loud to a reporter. But, it got buried at the bottom of the story. Do you think if he was a Republican that this would be at the very bottom of the story?

Norway Looking to Repeal Lead Ammo Ban

They banned lead shot in 2005, now they are re-examining it:

The organisation criticised the ban on the grounds that it lacked a solid evidential basis and that the use of alternative ammunition posed animal welfare risks. Non-lead ammunition does not kill as cleanly or as efficiently as lead, and therefore causes unnecessary suffering to quarry, the JI has argued. It also maintains that the potential adverse effects of such substitute materials on health and the environment have not been studied in sufficient detail.

The typical substitute for lead is bismuth, which is nearly as dense as malleable as lead. The problem is that almost all the bismuth production is the world today is a byproduct of lead production. It’s only about twice as common as gold is. There is essentially no way for the shooting sports to function solely on lead substitutes. While Norway may be poised to repeal its law, we’re going backwards here, with Oregon considering a ban on lead ammunition.

Training for the Hoosier Carry Permit?

At least one Indiana lawmaker thinks this is necessary. Currently, Indiana does not require training for their carry permits. I think it’s always hard for our opponents in the gun control movement to wrap their heads around our assertion that, “Yes, training is a good idea. Everyone who carries a gun should seek training,” and “No, the government should not mandate training.” Part of the disconnect is they don’t realize what we mean by “training.”

I’ve used this analogy before, but for the sake of new readers, I’ll repeat it; mandating a training class to carry a gun in the name of public safety is like mandating a violin lesson before playing a violin in the name of the public’s ears. Sure, someone who’s taken an violin lesson might, on average, be off to a better start than someone hasn’t, but let’s not pretend one lesson is going to turn anyone into Itzhak Perlman.

The kind of people who will benefit from a training class probably aren’t the kind of people you really need to be worried about. They are likely the kind of person who would have sought training on their own anyway, will pay attention in class, and be committed to regular practice thereafter. The Cletuses of the world aren’t going to get much of anything out of the training,Â in the same manner aÂ kid forced to take violin lessons by his parents, and never practices, probably isn’t ever going to rise above a level of playing that makes everyone in earshot want to stab out their own eardrum.

Overall, I don’t think the amount of benefit derived from a training requirement is high enough to justify the not insubstantial costs it places on the exercising of a fundamental right. This equation also doesn’t change if you just require more training, as the burden scales with the amount of training mandated.

The standard is so good, we should double it

An article in Slate is just fine with saddling gun owners with hefty legal fees to get a charge based on an unlawful ordinance thrown out, but not with making the towns pay legal fees to defend them. And the article even links to an analysis (and judgement) that the harassment laws are “unenforceable.” But the laws are still on the books, because there’s no real cost to the municipalities. To be fair to the author (though not to the headline writers) the article references a couple of real incidents where law-abiding gun owners were harmed. On the other hand, it takes uncritically and without support statements by the anti-gun side that the laws are effective, unused, and harmless.

These kinds of municipal ordinances designed to harass gun owners are primarily signalling mechanisms, intended to show that the municipality doesn’t want “those kind” of people here, and were expected to be risk-free; because they would only be used against those not able to defend themselves either in the courtroom of law or public opinion. Funny how laws violating civil rights work out that way. But now that the state is making them put up or shut up, most are folding.

It’s a bit of a shame that the enabling language had to be tacked onto a different bill, giving the deep-pocket municipalities a chance to strike down on the “germaneness” grounds. Sebastian probably has a better idea of how that’s going to fly in PA courts than I do.

Incidentally, the article claims the NRA refused requests for an interview. Good for them, there’s not a chance in the world that an interview with a Slate reporter with an axe to grind would have helped. And as usual, the comments section is rather more pro-gun than not, which is another indication of how little grass-root the other side has left.

Local NPR Debate Over Enhanced Preemption

On one side, the attorney representing the NRA in its suits against Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, Jonathan Goldstein. On the other, Shira Goodman, Executive Director of CeaseFirePA.

I’m Sure This Will Help to Get Open Carry Passed in Texas

Treason! You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means:

â€œWe should demanding these people give us our rights back or itâ€™s punishable by death. Treason. Do you understand how serious this is Texas?â€ Watkins asks. â€œThis is treason against the American people. You donâ€™t sell my right back to me. Youâ€™re going to find trouble.â€

But wait, it gets even better:

â€œI donâ€™t think they want to mess around with us too much longer. They better start giving us our rights or this peaceful non-cooperation stuff is going to be gamed up. We are going to step it up a notch. I think here in Texas we are tired of jacking around with people in suits,â€ Watkins said.

Apparently all the videos are getting pulled down, including the one linked to in the article. Now he’s saying he meant nothing violent by his statements, but the damage has already been done.

UPDATE: More commentary here, though it’s important to note that this is OCTC, and not OCT behind this. OCT has condemned stuff like this.

UPDATE: Bearing Arms has the video back, and this: “At this moment, I think that there is an argument to be made that Kory Watkins is the single most effective advocate for gun control in the United States. I hope heâ€™s smart enough to ask Mike Bloomberg for a check.”

Evaluating Smart Guns

Joe Huffman: “Today I attended the Seattle â€œSmart Gunâ€ Gun Symposium presented by Washington Technology Industry Association in association with Washington CeaseFire,” and so he begins his multi-part series where he covers the conference. Joe has done biometric authentication in his career, so it’s safe to say his is not a layman’s opinion. You can see his final post here, which contains a link to all the other parts. Based on what I’ve read, I think the grip recognition technology is likely dangerous based on the description. End consumers not likely to truly understand the limitations of the technology, which could give owners of these firearms a false sense of security. A false negative identification in some situations can be potentially deadly, but false positive identification would defeat the entire purpose of the technology, and is very concerning.

Joe’s article has a lot of detail in it, and well worth a read if you want to understand the technological and political dynamics of this technology. I had meant to post this sooner, but I needed to find time myself to read through the whole thing in detail. One thing I will say is that it does appear that some folks working on this technology are genuinely interestedÂ in bringing something to market they think will be a benefit to people, rather than forcing it on the market because they have alternate agendas. That is not universally the case, however, and as you would expect, there were people who wanted to force smart gun technology on us, because it’s pretty apparent they are out to get gun owners and want to frustrate us out of exercising our right.

MDA Shot Down Again

Bearing Arms breaks the story that Raising Cain’s Chicken Fingers has told Mom’s Demand Action to take a hike. I attribute this to two factors. First, Kroger has shown that it’s possible for a mass market brand to stand up to Mom’s Demand Action without suffering any real consequences. Second, as Bearing Arms mentions, Open Carry Texas has realized the problems with that kind of protesting and effectively stopped doing it. MDA has been forced to go through years old pictures on the Internet in order to find some pretext for putting pressure on a new chain, and it hasn’t been working. I think it’s safe to say, if this car MDA is driving hasn’t run completely out of gas yet, the engine is definitely starting to sputter. I think MDA is find out how hopeless they really are if they don’t have help from our side.

“Your Brain on Guns”

My first impression of this story in Mother Nature News is that TTAG’s Charlie Hebdo simulation continues to pay off in spades, but a closer look reveals this to be perhaps the biggest piece of tripe I’ve seen in a while on the topic of guns. The media’s narrative on that simulation has already been dismantled by people far more expert than I. But this article promotes the idea that the mere presence of firearms drives aggressive behavior. Most of us, who actually own firearms, know this is patent nonsense. So what is it based on? It’s partially based on a 2006 study that showed that 30 men who interacted with guns as opposed to children’s toys would add more hot sauce to water that they thought someone else would drink. I shit you not.Â Too small a sample size, and insufficient control. Maybe just sitting there raises testosterone levels even more? Did you test that? What about interacting with a power tool? Or solving a puzzle? You’d need to do that to show whether there was really anything special about a weapon, or whether other objects or tasks affect testosterone levels in the same way. Did you control for weapons phobia? Perhaps the subject feared them, and I would imagine in men that fear drives testosterone levels.

The other major factor that this article relies on is the controversial “Weapons Effect,” which has never been reliably reproduced under controlled conditions. I suspect the 2006 study was an attempt to show replication, but the 2006 study is likewise scientifically flawed. Of course, the scientific problem with these studies doesn’t stop people and reporters who don’t like us, and don’t like what we do, to use this pseudoscientific nonsense to smear us.

h/t to Thirdpower

Why Do Teachers Need Special Self-Defense Standards?

Our community is often upset, rightly so in my opinion, when police are given special powers that ordinary citizens lack. For the most part, the justification standards for use of force and deadly force is the same for an ordinary citizen as it is for the police officer. Police officers, of course, sometimes have different powers to apprehend, and also have qualified immunity (which is why a citizens arrest is never a smart idea). I think it’s an important tenet of our Republic that all citizens are equal before the law, regardless of whether they are agents of the state or not. I know we don’t often live up to that, but I think that is an ideal to strive for.

So that leads me to question why other people, people who are often agents of the state, need special powers to protect themselves? I could see a bill that prevented a teacher who exercises their right to lawful self-defense from being fired. That’s really just employment law. But it appears the bill says:

… an educator is justified in using force or deadly force on school property, on a school bus or at a school-sponsored event in defense of the educatorâ€™s person or in defense of students of the school that employs the educator if, under the circumstances as the educator reasonably believes them to be, the educator would be justifiedâ€¦in using force or deadly force, as applicable, in defense of the educator or students.

I’m not really certain what this even accomplishes, but I admit to being ignorant of any detailed knowledge of Texas self-defense law. The rest of the article leads me to believe that the sponsor of this legislation, Rep. Dan Flynn, is Texas’ very own version of our Daryl Metcalfe. Thinking of it that way puts this in an understandable context.