Month: June 2009

Doug Pennington of the Brady Campaign says:

Doug Pennington, with the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, finds it curious when gun-rights supporters rail against federal gun-control measures, considering how few such measures there are.

“What people don’t realize, at the national level, at least, is that I can count the federal gun laws on the books on one hand. I don’t even need all five fingers to do it,” he says, quickly rattling off the 1934 ban on machine guns, the Gun Control Act of 1968 prohibiting gun sales to felons, and the Brady Law, which requires licensed gun dealers to perform criminal background checks.

Smart rhetoric, since most people don’t know better, but very misleading.  Anyone’s who’s ever had to deal with the maze of regulations that is our federal gun laws knows better.  It underplays just how significant GCA ’68 really was.  Let’s look.  The relevant parts of the United States Code, which is Title 18, Part I, Chapter 44.  Load that, and keep scrolling.  Does that look like a handful?  Easy to understand because it’s so trivial?  And yet, that is only part of our federal gun law.  Let us not forget, also, that the National Firearms Act is to be found in the Internal Revenue Code, Title 26, Chapter 53.  Keep scrolling there too.   But wait!  We’re not finished.  We haven’t looked at the Code of Federal Regulations yet!

• 27 CFR Part 53 – Excise taxes on firearms and ammunition
• 27 CFR Part 447 – Importation of Arms, Ammunition, and Implements of War
• 27 CFR Part 478 – Commerce in Firearms and Ammunition
• 27 CFR Part 479 – Machine Guns, Destructive Devices, and Certain Other Firearms

And this isn’t even comprehensive, as I’m leaving out the various federal codes and regulations that do things like, regulate firearms on aircraft, or on certain federal lands.  Does Doug Pennington still want to argue that he “can count the federal gun laws on the books on one hand?”  Could you understand all this without having a lawyer explain it to you?   Even the lawyers get it wrong sometimes.

Hat Tip to Joe Huffman, who takes a similar line of reasoning.  I thought it would be useful to see visually exactly how large this body of law is.   Do the gun control people still want to argue guns are less regulated than teddy bears?

This article in CQ politics, about the Sotomayor confirmation, has some more fun quotes from gun control advocates:

“Gun rights groups have exploited the fact that Obama has an agenda that he wants to move quickly,” Helmke said, citing the president’s plans for the economy, health care and energy while prosecuting two wars. “Until the president weighs in, it’s going to be tough to advance any [gun control] agenda. It’s not the issue they want to take up right now.”

What Helmke is hoping for is Obama to do what Bill Clinton did in 1994.  In the 103rd Congress, it looked like the votes wouldn’t be there to pass an assault weapons ban either, until Clinton started twisting arms and promising Congressmen the moon if they’d just go along with his agenda.

I don’t think Obama will have it as easy, because the gains the Democrats have made are largely on the backs of pro-gun candidates who remember what Clinton’s promises were worth when the 1994 elections came around.  Again, I think Helmke is barking up the wrong tree with Obama.  If they don’t change Congress, it’s probably not going to happen.