I decided I should probably have a consistent name for this feature. Since I tend to do about one link post a week, I’ll call it “Weekly Gun News.” If it’s a particularly good news week, maybe I’ll have “Extra Gun News.” I started doing news links after Sandy Hook, when there was just too much going on to talk about everything, but a lot of stuff I didn’t have time to talk about was important. Since then, I’ve kept up the practice.
How did a Traffic Officer armed with a pistol take out two shooters armed with rifles? Bob Owens has the details.
Miguel: California is learning that gun confiscation is really really expensive. If they think it’s expensive now…
Cheer up Oregon, not all the news is bad: a reciprocity bill is moving along. I guess the Democrats feel like they need to do something for us on the one hand, if they spanked us with the other.
John Richardson has all the details on the Oregon Background Check bill. Clayton Cramer notes that bad ideas spread, and that there’s no evidence background checks accomplish anything, and are probably even harmful. He should know, since he published a paper on it.
John Richardson has a look at Bad Apple Lawyers, a parody on Brady’s “Bad Apple Gun Dealers.” He starts with anti-gun Law Professor David Kaireys. You’ll see him in the media here fairly often, as a reliable go-to guy when a reporter wants a good anti-gun viewpoint couched in the respectability of a professor of law.
What Virginia has in store for it if the state continues to blue. Two factors drive Virginia bluing: out of control growth of the federal government and population loss in the Southwest part of the state. Cuts to the Navy probably don’t help either, since it’s a major industry in the tidewater area.
Constitutional Carry looks to be dead in Maine for now. Maine was always a bit of a stretch goal.
Sadly, I think he’s right: Charles C.W. Cooke doesn’t think the Bill of Rights would pass if it was proposed today.
I like NRA’s new snarky articles, this one mocking Josh Horwitz. Mockery is probably the most effective rhetorical weapon one can employ, and there’s a lot that’s ridiculous and humorous about the gun control movement.
Bloomberg outspent us 5 to 1 in Vermont and got nothing for it. That’s because influencing legislators isn’t a money game. First, lawmakers know astroturf when they see it and second, they know where the passion is on this issue.
I was very surprised to see a balanced article on the ivory ban coming out of the New Bedford newspaper. An ivory ban is a gun ban in some cases, therefore we fight.
Hey, TTAG is seeking out Millennials to appear at a shooting range with NBC’s Ronan Farrow. Getting a bunch of young people you don’t know and who have never spoken to reporters on camera before? What could possibly go wrong? Maybe we’ll luck out and NBC actually has good intentions here *snicker*
Popehat has more on free speech in the wake of the Garland shooting.
IJReview gives NRA HQ the Buzzfeed treatment, in a good way.
The Chattanoogan talks to Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clark, “Instead, what jumped off the pages was the reason the Klu Klux Klan became near-extinct. Once blacks were able to arm themselves to protect against kidnapping and lynching, things really began to change in terms of black freedom.â€
The Masonic Fraternal Police Department? This has to be the strangest thing I’ve read all year.
Slate discovers that Bernie Sanders, despite being an unashamed socialist, may be a bit too gun nutty for the modern progressive, saying gun control is “one issue of overwhelming importance to the Democratic base,” which is pretty laughably naive. Slate is such a joke these days.
Briefs have been filed in the Peruta case. Clayton Cramer notes that one of his papers on VPC’s Concealed Carry Killers, has made it into one of the briefs.
Reason questions why the left wants federal control over policing. Because it’s about the control, and the left has always believed you can run things better with the right people in charge. They being the right people, of course.
That Slate article (and a couple other things), has me asking a question – why is a guy who seems to have voted our way on a lot of the big votes F-Rated? Judge confirmations? Little things that add up?
“Slate discovers that Bernie Sanders, despite being an unashamed socialist, may be a bit too gun nutty for the modern progressive”
The link does not to go Slate. It links to the Masonic article instead.
Thanks for letting me know. Now to see if I can find that slate article again :)
I have fixed the link.
Constitutional Carry is NOT dead in Maine (yet).
The Maine State House Committee vote would have been 7-6 against but three Republicans were not present to vote. This proposal will end up getting FULL House and Senate votes, but it will be very close and contentious. The Maine State Senate should be more receptive than the House.
I’m not sure I’d say VA is turning “blue”. Keep in mind that McAuliffe only won by 2.5% of the vote, in a year when the sitting governor, a Republican, was involved in an ethics scandal that tarred the party by association and eventually resulted in a criminal conviction, and that outside groups spent twice as much on advertising for McAuliffe as on the Republican candidate, with Bloomberg alone spending an amount equal to half of the total amount spent supporting the Republican candidate.
IOW, Bloomberg basically bought the election. But even with Bloomie’s massive spending, and a scandal dragging the Republicans down, McAuliffe barely squeaked into office.
Didn’t the lefties play a third-party shell game in that race too?
There were some allegations to that effect. I’m not sure how true they were – after all, Libertarian Party candidates do naturally draw honest support from those who would normally support the Democrat Party candidate because of social issues, but are fiscally conservative.
But even if it was a shell game, that only reinforces my point – all that in the Democrat’s favour, and he only edged out the Republican by 2.5%. And the Attorney General race was decided by only 165 votes (0.007%) and, in the recount, by about 900 votes, or 0.04%. Certainly not a sign that the state is going blue.
VA is going blue in the same way that PA is going blue: we both have large metro areas that swing big for the left when they can be motivated to turn out, while the more rural areas tend to lean heavily to the right.
These blue-leaning areas tend to require more agitation to get to the polls, and they are also dens of voter fraud; Still, they tend to have enough votes to override the saner suburban/rural voters.
Once again TTAG shoots everyone in the foot because Farago wants mainstream attention.
The shot hasn’t been fired yet, but I agree the direction of aim is worrying.
Farago never misses an opportunity to screw us with his patented combination of plagiarism, self-aggrandizement and incompetence.
Once is happenstance, twice coincidence….
I saw several comments advising TTAG to bring their own cameras to record things. If they go through with this, I hope that someone takes that advice to heart!
Indeed, if they did that, and NBC did the hit piece they are almost certainly planning on doing, it would make for a fun “compare and contrast”….
The problem is, a lot more people are going to see the hit piece than will ever see the “Look, they screwed us!” bit
gotta disagree on the ivory ban being a gun issue. If you bought an ivory gripped gun in the last 30 years thinking you are going to make money on it…you speculated and lost.
This.
Although I’ll go further; I’ve been to Africa and I’ve seen the effects of poaching. You have be wholly obtuse to oppose an ivory ban just because a few old guns have ivory grip – thus “gun issue”.
Poaching is only an issue when/where hunting a species is banned.
Hunters on Safari pump HUGE amounts of money into the local economies of the areas they visit; Since they wouldn’t be there without the animals, it gives the locals a huge incentive to do what they can to protect game animals from poachers.
In the absence of legal hunting, these same big game animals are largely seen as a nuisance to the locals: They destroy crops, the fences put up to protect said crops, and other things besides, from smaller animals. Thus, when/where hunting is outlawed, the locals have no incentive to keep the animals around. In fact, they’re actually incentivized to help poachers (or at least to look the other way).
Thus, the choice is not between hunting the animals or keeping them around; The choice is between NOT having the animals, or hunting them in order to keep them around.
That’s a great story. And it’s clear you’ve never been to Africa.
Managed hunting is not the problem. Poaching is the problem.
See here
No, but I trust people like the late Peter Capstick, or former gunblogger Kim du Toit, both of whom lived there.
How the heck is regulating old ivory going to stop poaching? *That’s* the issue here! We might as well ban elephant guns in the United States in an effort to stop big-game hunting in Africa.
The ivory is already here, and in many cases, it’s clear that it’s been here for decades, and possibly even centuries. Banning this ivory isn’t going to make the world a safer place for elephants! And it may even expose someone who doesn’t even know they have ivory to potential fines and prison time. (Unless you can guarantee that every person who’s acquired a random old piano, knife or pistol is going to be aware that those keys, grips, etc are ivory, and that it is illegal to sell such ivory possessions, it’s a guaranteed “Lawbreaker Generator Law” waiting to ensnare innocent victims.)
Hence, laws like this are arbitrary and capricious. They should be opposed tooth and nail.
I am in no way a fan of ivory bans, largely because I think it’s one of those cases of “prosecution is hard, so make it easier for us to prosecute people.”
Basically, the rationale for the ban is that it’s difficult to determine the provenance of ivory. The idea is by making it totally illegal to trade, transfer or sell, it’ll be easier to prosecute people. Currently, the Lacey Act has a weak mens rea requirement, but it still has one. So they have to prove a) the ivory is illegal and b) prove you knew it was, or through the Lacey Act’s “due care” requirement, prove you weren’t careful enough. BTW, all mens rea weakening was done in a 1981 amendment with the help of a lot of activist environmental and wildlife groups. The hunting groups knew it would be setting a trap for hunters that didn’t have law degrees.
The ivory bans are an assault on personal liberty, pure and simple, because they are trying to get around the notion that the state should have to meet its burden to punish someone for a crime. Any serious crime should have a strong mens rea requirement. But if they ban ivory, the only thing they have to prove is that you possessed ivory, and knowingly transferred it. Also, under the Lacey Act, that property is strict liability on being forfeited to the state.
I’m completely against it, but I don’t particularly believe contraband is an appropriate concept for a free society. Free societies should make very few things illegal to possess. Maybe NBC weapons, and a few other things. That’s about it.
RE: NBC weapons:
Setting aside the obvious pun, I largely agree with you in spirit, but not in practice.
Nukes aren’t a major point of contention: There’s nobody arguing that the second amendment applies, or should apply, to individual possession of nuclear weapons.
Bio/chem gets dicier, especially chemical: There are many chemical compounds that have both industrial and military uses.
Yes… I’m basically talking about Sarin, VX, and other recognized chemical warfare agents. Not necessarily just dangerous chemicals, or precursors to dangerous chemicals.
Improperly secured hazardous materials – and the charge would be improper storage if it hasn’t materially affected anyone else’s person or property.
Some of these things it’s basically impossible to store properly at home, of course.
That’s a specious argument.
Ivory has been used for a wide variety of things for centuries; From musical instruments (piano keys, bagpipes, etc.), to gun parts (grip panels, front sight beads, etc.), to fine art, and beyond. To say that the government can suddenly destroy the primary and secondary markets for these items requires one to have absolutely no understanding of the fifth amendment.
“That’s nonsense, we’ve used lead in paint and fuel forever, the government just can’t come in and destroy the market” bla bla bla.
You have no idea what you are talking about. We are not discussing key manufacturing components, we’re talking about whale blubber. Ivory is inferior to sustainable alternatives. This is not a gun issue or a hunting issue. Get your head out of your ass.
There’s a major difference between lead paint and ivory, though: there’s a well-established link between lead paint making people sick, while there is no such link with ivory.
While it may very well be the case that ivory is “inferior” to more-sustainable materials, there’s still ivory on things like your grandfather’s pocketknife that you inherited when your father died. You might not even be consciously aware that it’s ivory.
Furthermore, there is no harm to elephants in using ivory that’s already been in the market and being recycled. What other uses for ivory from old pianos do you have in mind? How would making that ivory illegal help the elephants in modern-day Africa?
To the extent that this is a gun issue, it’s an attempt to avoid yet another “gotcha” for anyone who is interested in collecting antique guns and knives.
And Sebastian is right: legal, carefully controlled hunting is a key in preserving elephants, and preventing large-scale poaching. Take away that incentive, and elephants become exposed to a greater risk of poaching.
We don’t ban people who have houses with lead paint from selling those houses. They just have to disclose.
Any upcoming thoughts on the candidates looking to fill the three vacant PA Supreme Court seats?
Let me do some investigating. Sometimes it’s hard to know where they stand before you elect them.
“. . .no evidence background checks accomplish anything, and are probably even harmful. . .”
Ahh, nostalgia. I remember when the NRA was all about getting Instant Background Checks implemented ASAP, and our county gun group would gig any candidate who answered that they opposed them, on their candidates’ questionnaire, even though those candidates’ opposition was for reasons to the right of the gunnies.
Because they wanted effective candidates. The NRA “compromises” because they have to, so they can remain effective.