Shall Not Be Questioned – Page 330 – The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State …

Enough Links For a News Dump?

I guess we’ll see:

NRA President: Gun control advocates were ready for Newtown. Once Obama had won re-election, a gun control push was a fore drawn conclusion. Newtown was merely the pretext.

Another illegal mayor?

Mike Bloomberg, best thing to happen to the GOP since Citizen’s United? That all depends on the GOP. Before they can take advantage of the opportunity Bloomberg presents, they have to first stand up for Second Amendment rights. So far, they’ve been doing well, but that needs to hold.

A man breaks into someone’s home, gets shot dead, and his family claims he was a victim. Thirdpower found the guy’s rap sheet.

That .323 caliber Enfield. What’s scary is that it would seem the Connecticut State Police know next to nothing about guns. That check for the C183 I mentioned yesterday came straight from the police report. It was the cops that assumed that was a firearm.

Sean crashed one of Bloomberg’s pressers, talking about what Bloomberg’s “background check” bill would actually do.

Mr. C and Keewee are OK after a big land slide on Whidbey Island. Didn’t happen near them. We’re glad to hear that. Mr. C organizesÂ postal matches for gun bloggersÂ and readers. If you have any ammo to spare, they are fun.

Big Democratic donors are demanding some action on gun control, or screw those Dems who hold office in cousin humping redneck states. Have it your way. I’ll be happy to contain the Democratic Party to the Northeast and West Coast.

The biggest gun banning states have the lowest rates for actually prosecuting crimes involving guns. Pennsylvania bans private transfers, and it’s a well established fact that Philly prosecutors rarely use these laws to go after criminals. So why have them?

Do Background Checks Work?

Clayton takes a look at some of the claims made about background checks working, and is skeptical of the evidence presented. I’ve always thought this BJS survey of criminal gun use, including where criminals were getting their guns, shows pretty clearly that all background checks have accomplished is shifting the source from retail, or lie and buy, to street sources which are more difficult if not impossible to regulate.

We Have the Language of Reid’s Bill, S.649

The latest language of S.649 can be found here. This is the bill that will be bought up for a vote. The “background check” language is identical to the language I analyzed in S.374. The rest of the bill is the same as S.179, Gillibrand’s trafficking bill. It’s essentially those two bills combined together into one bill. Needless to say, this bill is unacceptable and needs to be opposed, unless you want to have it be a felony in many conditions to hand a gun to a friend, such as plinking on your farm.

Attempt to Repeal Castle Doctrine in New Hampshire

Apparently it’s passed the House. The Democrats in New Hampshire I guess are intent on getting as us neanderthals one way or another.

Misplaced Words or True Intent?

It’s not hard to see why tin foil hats are becoming quite the fashion statement in today’s political climate. Whether they started out with a purpose of making as many gun owners as possible into felons, that’s what the current so-called “background check” proposals do.

Today, we have another example of a peculiar choice of words from Obama that makes it appear as though his intent is to effectively shut down gun shows instead of simply pushing a supposed “background check” for gun sales bill. As Great Satan, Inc. highlights, Obama’s speech today called for background checks before a person even enters a gun show. A policy like that would effectively close down some of our biggest gathering places.

It’s not unreasonable to think that this is the goal since Bloomberg has made gun shows a target of such extreme regulation proposals as recently as 2010.

Anti-gun advocates like to say that we’re paranoid to think that they are really trying to go after our entire gun culture, yet it seems to me that we’re just remarkably well-informed and that we pay very close attention to the publicly announce plans of our opponents.

A Question I’ve Wondered About

I’ve heard Nancy Lanza used as a poster child for safe storage by gun control advocates, thinking it was a bit premature to presume the guns were not stored in a safe manner. Now we seem to have a much better picture:

The guns used in the shootings were apparently all purchased by the shooterâ€™s mother. There is currently no indication that the shooter attempted to purchase the guns and was denied. The gun locker at 36 Yogananda St. was open when the police arrived. It was unlocked and there was no indication that it had been broken into.

So we at least know she had a safe, and that it was unlocked when the police arrived. It’s not clear from reading the search warrants where the safe was in the house. Did he shoot her to get the key? If so, is there any “safe storage” law that would help?

Media & Guns

Most folks who read this blog have have probably seen this “Journalist Guide to Firearms” graphic at some point:

MediaGuidetoFirearms

What amuses me about this is that we’ve highlighted when the Associated Press has tried to push journalists into the direction of using the correct language.

Yesterday, AP announced that they are expanding their “weapons” entry. Digital subscribers have full access to their new definitions, but they previewed one on Facebook.

semi-automatic A firearm that fires only once for each pull of the trigger. It reloads after each shot. The form: a semi-automatic rifle, a semi-automatic weapon, a semi-automatic pistol. The hyphen is an exception to general guidance against hyphenating words formed with semi-.

I find this amusing since people who know guns then started a discussion in the comments to improve the language so as to reduce potential confusion with double-action revolvers. We are everywhere, and I love it.

Excuses & Extreme Fear

I do love the new strategy of anti-gun advocates. If their anti-Second Amendment rallies end up being a bust, they already have their excuses lined up.

The primary excuse? They are too afraid of gun owners since anyone who supports the right to own as many firearms as they want is clearly unstable. And since gun owners might be present to peacefully oppose their rally, they must stay home for their own safety. Otherwise, she swears that there would be hundreds and hundreds of anti-gun advocates in attendance.

This excuse comes to us by a woman who says she must be “pressed” to go out in public spaces and worries that she now needs to “wear a flak jacket and helmet” when she is forced to go out. She also willingly accepts the blame that her promotion of anti-gun rallies will in fact alert the crazy gun owners to turn up. (Nevermind that gun owners already knew about the rallies and started talking about peaceful opposition days before her column ever ran. That little fact gets in the way of her “bold” stand for anti-gun policies.) She uses her column to ask those who are too afraid to leave their homes for fear of seeing a gun owner to write their Congressman instead. Perhaps she would do a greater service to suggest that they find a therapist who can help them through their extreme and irrational fears.

Bad Week for Mark Kelly?

First he won’t be getting his AR-15, and then his daughter’s bulldog kills a seal in Laguna Beach, and the whole thing gets caught on someone’s cell phone camera. To be fair, Kelly dealt with the dog correctly. His daughter didn’t seem to have a clue what to do, and seemed pretty upset by the whole ordeal. I’m not sure whoever was playing tug of war with the seal against the dog was really helping things either.

A C183 Firearm? Or C183 Point-and-Shoot Camera?

The media, who know about as much about guns as a squirrel, are jumping all over the story about Adam Lanza having his own gun safe. Maybe he did, or maybe it was Nancy Lanza’s safe. Either way, a big thing they point to is this?

Investigators found more than 1,600 rounds of ammunition in the house, and a holiday card with a check “made out to Adam Lanza for the purchase of a C183 (firearm), authored by Nancy Lanza,” according to a search warrant.

What the hell is a C183? I’ve never heard of a firearm by this model.Â It is a 14 megapixel camera. Did some ignorant journalist see C183 and just assume it was a gun? Who determined a C183 is a gun? I’ve never heard of any gun by this model name, and it’s possible there is one I don’t know about, but it is definitely also a point and shoot made by Kodak.

Thanks to WR2A for the story.

UPDATE: It occurs to me if you misinterpreted a Z as a 1, it could be a CZ83.