Shall Not Be Questioned – Page 227 – The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State …

Moms Demand Working in Virginia

They are trying to get a bill passed that would bar anyone convicted of misdemeanor stalking, sexual battery or domestic violence from owning a firearm for five years.

The group moms demand action for gun sense in America flood the general assembly building holding what’s called a stroller jam.

With their kids in tow, these women lobby for legislation protecting domestic violence victims like Lisette Johnson, a Midlothian mother herself, who was shot several times by her husband in 2009, before he took his own life.

In order to cause a jam, doesn’t that imply you have reasonable numbers? They must not have, because that bill was tabled in the HouseÂ [Originally this mentioned it was defeated in the Senate. This was in error.] Looking at the bill, I’m actually rather surprised sexual battery is a misdemeanor. It’s worth noting that Virginia’s definition of “family or household member” for the purposes of “domestic violence” is far broader than under the federal Lautenberg definition, and it’s relatively easy under Virginia law to convict a severe abuser or serial abuser of felony domestic violence, which would be federally prohibiting.

But it’s interesting that Moms Demand are taking the “tough on crime” approach. What’s the end game? Probably to make gun ownership a legal tightrope. There are no minor mistakes in this issue already, and my guess is their aim is to make it worse. Walk the tightrope. It’s a felony if you make any mistakes.

Here’s a summary of other bills in Virginia.

Missouri Legislative Problem Solved

It looks like the problem of having anti-gun language tied on to a nullification bill in Missouri may now be resolved with a few phone calls from unhappy voters.

Deaths in the Gun Movement

Most of the time that I spot an obituary in my Google alerts that reference a pro-gun organization, I almost always take a look at the site. I don’t know these people, but they stand out to me as someone I probably would have liked to know because they cared about the Second Amendment and did enough to stand up and defend their rights that their family thought that it deserved recognition in the few sentences granted to sum up an entire life of achievements. I respect that about those men and women.

I also think it’s important when membership in a pro-gun group is mentioned because it drives home a narrative that normal people are gun owners who will defend their rights. This isn’t about a bunch of unknown lobbyists in some far off corner of the country, it’s about real Americans who are your neighbors whether you live in New York or Arizona. People who don’t talk to many moderates who don’t really have strong opinions on the issue don’t realize how much that makes a difference.

I just thought about that final chance to send a positive message about gun ownership one last time with last night’s news that Dick Cabela died and also a google alert hit today for a father named Rick Daily. You’ve probably heard of one and haven’t heard of the other. Regardless, both men were clearly very big supporters of the cause.

Remington Heads to Alabama

It’s kind of old news now about the Remington shift to Alabama. It is great that it’s causing Andrew Cuomo all sorts of political headaches in New York with the head of the union piling on that it’s the fault of anti-gunners that those jobs aren’t coming to New York.

However, I just had to link to this photo of the press conference attendance. Look at how many cameras are eager to be there so they can get coverage for their stations. Look at how many people are standing around waiting to take seats blocked by cameras so eager to cover the news. I can’t think of too many “we’re opening a new factory” announcements that get this much attention.

It must really frustrate the anti-gunners to see just how many people are excited by this news and that it’s really just causing headaches for their allies who pushed the extreme gun control bills.

Monday News Links

Greetings and Happy Monday. I wish I could say we were going to have a week without any more snow, but there’s some strong possibilities in the forecast. We have to change our expectations to hope we will have a week with just an inch or so, and wouldn’t that be nice? I’m pleased March is coming, but we’ve been known to have major March snowstorms around these parts, and it just seems like such a thing would be the icing on the cake for this winter.

But now for the news:

Weaponization of government: all the non-profits audited by the IRS were conservative. Maybe getting rid of the IRS isn’t looking like such a crazy libertarian pipe dream these days?

Who are the enemy? We are. (h/t Instapundit)

How the DEA launders classified information.

Mass shootings, it turns out, aren’t very good pretexts for gun control.

A disabled man is suing over Connecticut’s new gun control laws. His disability means that only pistol grips are comfortable for him.

Home made bump fire stock.

Uncle has more thoughts on the 9mm takeover we talked about a few weeks ago.

Some animals are more equal than others.

Going postal.

When MAIG membership becomes a liability. It has to be toxic for political ambitions for higher office. It must be why they had lost 15% of members before they decided to stop keeping track.

The case challenging the new Connecticut gun laws, which lost in district court, will be appealed.

We must close the gun theft loophole! I agree. It should be illegal to steal guns!

The latest hand wringing out of Chicago: Anti-gun folks don’t like the “no guns” signs, so they want businesses to have to post that guns are allowed. They want this because they are having no luck getting them to post “no guns” signs.

Former New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin goes down. Unfortunately, neither stealing guns nor violating the civil rights of residents by stealing their guns was not among the charges he was convicted on. Nagin was a case where prosecutors couldÂ have usedÂ 18 U.S.C. 242. Anyone surprised they didn’t?

Tam on opening pocket knives.

A Massachusetts panel recommends more gun control, because they don’t have enough or something. They are proud of their low gun ownership rate, whereas to me it’s something they should have to explain in court to a judge deciding whether or not to strike their laws from the books. h/t Jeff Soyer

Danger to the grid. It would take a large coordinated attack to cause real widespread and long-lasting disruption, but it’s scary how vulnerable it is. How much damage could even a small team do? What if they just keep moving on from substation to substation? How long before authorities catch them?

They’re Just After “Common Sense” Gun Laws

The Hartford Courant is just fine with the idea of sending hundreds of thousands of fellow citizens to the gulags. In fact, they embrace the idea:

But the bottom line is that the state must try to enforce the law. Authorities should use the background check database as a way to find assault weapon purchasers who might not have registered those guns in compliance with the new law.

A Class D felony calls for a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a $5,000 fine. Even much lesser penalties or probation would mar a heretofore clean record and could adversely affect, say, the ability to have a pistol permit.

If you want to disobey the law, you should be prepared to face the consequences.

If you’re a gun owner in the Courant’s market, and you still subscribe, you’re part of the problem. They want you in prison.

A Look at What’s Next for Peruta

Dave Hardy talks about the next steps. There’s an interesting dynamic at work here. Our opponents have started to wise up a bit, in the sense that they realize taking cases forward when the Heller majority is still in place is probably not the wisest of moves. Dave Hardy notes that there are twice as many Democratic appointees on the 9th Circuit as Republican appointees, so this would, in my view, make the panel much more likely to reverse than uphold the three-judge ruling in Peruta. But that would put the decision to appeal to SCOTUS back in the NRA’s hands. Will San Diego County want to risk rolling the dice? Â Will Bloomberg and other gun control groups pressure San Diego not to appeal?

Remington Leaving New York for Alabama?

According to a local source, Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley is reportedly going to announce on Monday that Remington plans to move most of the jobs currently in New York to the southern state.

They claim that the historic Ilion plant will remain open, but with a reduced workforce.

Guns in European Schools

The next time you hear an anti-gun advocate promoting gun laws around Europe, let them know that Italy has an official program that allows gun owners to promote the shooting sports to school children.

Perazzi posted photos of a lecture from a program organized by the Italian Olympic Committee.

Perazzi shooter Maria Sole Santasilia and Sergio Carella, FITAV representative for sports in schools, have lectured a delighted audience of young students about shooting sports at the Municipal Teatre at Sant’Oreste, today.

The photo set not only shows her lecturing to the room full of students, but she also had her shotgun there and allowed students to pose with it, too. Yes, the children were allowed to handle her shotgun. It also appears that some of the girls lined up to get an autograph from the female world champion shooter.

Don’t Call Your Friends, Call the Cops

Not making any commentary on OC v. CC, I think in this specific situation it was pretty much guaranteed to lead to trouble. Unrelated to the method of carry, the trouble started here:

Simonsmeier; Danny Price, 32; Shannon Wheeler, 25; and Amanda Zastrow, 26, were arrested at a Turner Street home after they were called to help with a dispute between roommates, said Capt. Greg Hagenbucher of the Wausau Police Department. The incident began when a woman living in the home asked a man, also living in the home, to leave, Hagenbucher said. When he refused, the woman called friends to help.

If a friend called me needing this kind of “help,” I’m going to tell her to call the cops. As armed citizens, we ought to be nobody’s “muscle.” If you have a domestic dispute, that’s a job for the guys who come, as Tam likes to say, dripping with qualified immunity. I mean, you can take guns out of this situation entirely and it’s still just a bad idea. Guns just make things more likely to go from misdemeanor to felony in a hurry.

Though, I will say, I’m not sure that the shotgun was among the equipment OC’d, but anyone showing up to my door wielding a shotgun I’m going to assume is a deadly threat and act accordingly. Just saying.