June 2010 – Page 11 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Single Issue

NRA is a single issue organization. Let me repeat that, lest people in the conservative movement forget. NRA is a single issue organization. Red State lists it as selling out, and Instapundit joins in. National Review is echoing that language as well.

Campaign Finance and other such First Amendment issues are typically not the kind of things NRA involves itself in. It did in this case, because it directly affects their ability to communicate with members in order to coordinate to have an impact on the political process. That has been their soul concern.Â Their opposition to DISCLOSE was a real problem for the Democrats, so the Democrats exempted them from it. Whether that pleases the conservative movement or not, that eliminated NRA’s reason from diverting attention to their primary mission of focusing on Second Amendment issues. To further continue opposition here would move NRA into the realm of First Amendment advocacy, which is a distraction from their primary mission.

Now, that’s not to say I agree with exempting NRA from the bill in an attempt to ram this through Congress. It’s dirty. But this dirt firmly on the hands of the Democratic leadership, who did the carving. I am not agreeing with arguments, such as Erick Erickson from Red State who notes:

In fact, these days I cringe when I see good conservatives with their lifetime member sticker from the NRA on the back of their cars. I supportÂ Gun Owners of America, which is a consistent and uncompromising defender of the second amendment, not a weak little girl of an organization protecting itself while throwing everyone else under the bus.

You have an overwhelmingly Democratic Congress here that’s so afraid to be on the wrong side of the “weak little girl of an organization” that it had to find some way, any way, to get them out of the issue. How many other right leaning groups can claim this kind of a track record for their issue? I’ll tell you — none.

With NRA out of the way, the “consistent and uncompromising defenders of the Second Amendment”, GOA, will be utterly powerless to stop this bill, or to get an exemption carved out for themselves. So, by the way, will be the Brady Campaign, Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, end Mayors Against Illegal Guns, who you can expect to hear much hewing and hawing from over the next few days. In fact, the Brady Campaign is already starting.

Granted, my solution to all this would be to simply not pass the DISCLOSE act entirely, and everyone could be happy, but that’s not what the Dems want. I get tired of people on the right, and particularly Republicans, thinking that NRA is a foil on their mantle to be used at will to spar with their opponents on pet issues. I get this in local politics too, with the GOP getting huffy when we won’t get in line, and get with the program. That’s not how we roll, and before people on the right criticize, I’d point to our success on the issue doing things this way. Every other right leaning group has gotten steam rolled by this Congress, then backed up over, and steam rolled again. Except NRA. They ought to be the model for issue advocacy, on things like taxes, smaller government, and sound fiscal policy. It’s a shame no one seems to be listening, or learning.

UPDATE: Over at RedState, from Moe Lane:

Yes.Â YouÂ have heard this one before: it was a popular brag among the National Right To Life folks, too.Â And look howÂ that turned out for them.

Except that the pro-life issue held up the health care monstrosity for a long time and nearly derailed it. Yes, they got steamrolled in the end, but they put up a good fight on what was the top issue for the Democratic leadership. There are plenty of Democrats who both fear and court the pro-life lobby as well, especially in Pennsylvania. Dan Onorato, who is about as left as they come, has felt the need to at least pay lip service to pro-life concerns, and Bob Casey famously ran as a pro-life Democrat, much like his father. So I wouldn’t say that the pro-life advocacy groups have fared all that poorly in the 111th Congress. I think it’s unfair to suggest their bipartisan strategy has been unsuccessful.

NRA Gets Exempted from DISCLOSE Act

Looks like the Dems didn’t want to get graded on the Campaign Finance issue by NRA:

After the NRA threatened to oppose the legislation, which would require companies, unions and other parties to disclose the donors behind political ads, House Democrats negotiated with the NRA to find common ground. Under the agreement, the bill would exempt from the disclosure requirements, non-profit organizations that have over one million members, that have been in existence for more than 10 years, that have members in all 50 states, and that raise 15 percent or less of their funds from corporations. The NRA falls under that category.

I’m glad they got themselves an exemption, but by no means does that let the Democrats off the hook for trying to stifle free speech like this. Campaign Finance laws protect incumbents, which is why I’m sure the Democratic leadership in Congress is pushing this hard before November.

Top Shot Update

We still don’t really know who Caleb is, but I still think that’s because we don’t need to really know who Caleb is yet. My speculation is that he probably did pretty decently. When they start featuring him, is when I’ll start to worry he’s going to get voted off the show.

Last night Bitter’s mom was up, who is a fan of Surviver, and likes Colby. She really liked the show, but noticed Caleb had a tear in his shorts when he was lounging outside.Â Sorry Caleb, you’re HDTV’s bitch:

I thought the challenge at the end, shooting while on a zip line, was pretty good. I definitely would have difficulty with something like that. Most of us have some shooting and moving experience, but not that kind of shooting and moving experience. I feel like the wrong guy was eliminated, however. So far I think the Red Team has a lot of talkers, while the Blue Team is working better together. The exception to that, so far, is Kelly, who I am rooting for on the Red Team.

Bold Criminals in Wisconsin

I tend to agree with Uncle and Tam on the story about a Wisconsin open carrier who had his gun robbed from him. He lives in Wisconsin. It’s open carry or no carry there. This incident is part of the reason we need a concealed carry law in the Badger State.

At first I thought it was pretty ballsy to try to pull something like this, but if you think about it, it’s not really. All you have to do is get the drop on him. Feel confident enough to draw on a guy pointing a gun at your head? I don’t either. The great trick is not getting into a situation you get a gun pointed at your head. Everyone will make mistakes though, and if you’re targeted for robbery, and the robber is talented, you’re probably going to be screwed.

I wouldn’t be surprised, honestly, if the robber saw it as a challenge. Now he’s the criminals in the neighborhood who robbed the guy with the gun, of his gun. I’m sure that has to get you some street creds.

Open Borders for the Educated and Skilled?

I am not a fan of completely open borders, because if we did, then everyone who lived in a crappy country would come here all at once, and the institutions of the country would be overwhelmed. But it’s hard for me to see why we’re not letting people like this into the country. It seems to me we could take Europe’s best and brightest, given opportunity on that continent is fast diminishing. Plus, what better way to solve the housing problem than low interest rates combined with people with high paying jobs who suddenly need a place to live in their new country. It’s hard to see the downside of this.

Myths of the Washington Post

Any time you see a major newspaper talking about myths and gun control, you can bet there’s going to be a lot of uneducated crap in the article. This one from Washington Post is no exception. Let me just talk briefly, or perhaps not so briefly, about some of their major points.

1. Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.

This anti-gun-control slogan, a perfect fit for bumper stickers, has infected the public imagination with the mistaken belief that it’s just criminals, not weapons, that lead to deadly violence. The key question is, really, whether guns make violent events more lethal.

This is the argument the media likes to throw at us every time, acting like it’s the only argument we’ve ever floated when arguing against the effectiveness of gun control in fighting crime. You have to wonder if the authors on this article have ever actually had to argue with someone who is an opponent of gun control, because they argue a point no one makes. Our primary argument has never been that guns don’t make criminals more dangerous. WeÂ acknowledgeÂ that. The argument is that criminals will find ways to get guns. It’s the criminal you have to get off the streets, not the gun. By myopically focusing on guns, which is a favorite of many inner city politicians, the bigger issue of getting criminals off the street falls by the wayside. It’s easy to see why. Prisons are overcrowded, and many big cities have a revolving door justice system. For big city politicians, gun control is a way to act like they are doing something, without actually doing anything.

2. Gun laws affect only law-abiding citizens.

Teenagers and convicted felons can’t buy guns — that’s against the law already — so the only people affected by firearm regulations are the “good guys” who just want a weapon for self defense. At least that’s one line of reasoning against gun control. But law enforcement benefits from stronger gun laws across the board. Records on gun transactions can help solve crimes and track potentially dangerous individuals. Illinois law requires that all gun owners have a state ID card and that transactions be recorded, allowing police to potentially link a gun used in a crime to its owner.

This is all rank speculation, with no data to back it up. If this were true, we’d see a correlation here, but we don’t. We’d also have lists of crimes that the Canadian Gun Registry has solved for the Canadian police, but they don’t. Then you have Maryland, which keeps a ballistic database. You’d think that ballistic database would be great for solving crimes, yet the Maryland State Police want it disbanded because it’s useless. Some “myth” eh? I think their statement here is the myth.

3. When more households have guns for self-defense, crime goes down.

[…]Â The key question is whether the self-defense benefits of owning a gun outweigh the costs of having more guns in circulation. And the costs can be high: more and cheaper guns available to criminals in the “secondary market” — including gun shows and online sales — which is almost totally unregulated under federal laws, and increased risk of a child or a spouse misusing a gun at home. Our research suggests that as many as 500,000 guns are stolen each year in the United States, going directly into the hands of people who are, by definition, criminals.

Wow… I did not know that online sales were totally unregulated under federal law. I could swear that shipping a gun in interstate commerce without an FFL was a felony. I’m also surprised to find gun shows totally unregulated! I guess all the regulations that apply to FFLs somehow disappear at a gun show. I’m glad the Washington Post is on top of these things. And of course they drag out the notion that your spouse is an idiot, and kids are too. No possibility your spouse could also know what he or she is doing. But to me the implication here is that you can’t trust women with guns.

In the next myth, they claim guns are actually pretty hard to get in Chicago, despite the fact that the City of Chicago has one of the highest murder rates in the country. Compare it to other big cities without much gun control. Phoenix, Arizona? Almost half the murder rate of Chicago. Houston, Texas? Surely Texas has out of control gun crime in its largest city. Nope. About 30% lower than Chicago. Same for Dallas, Texas. But what about Los Angeles? If it’s actually hard for criminals in Chicago to get guns, it doesn’t play out in the crime statistics.

5. Repealing Chicago’s handgun ban will dramatically increase gun crimes.

[…] Local officials from Dodge City to Chicago have understood that some regulation of firearms within city limits is in the public’s interest, and that regulation and law enforcement are important complements in the effort to reduce gun violence.

Dodge City. Ah yes. But how much do these two authors actually know about Dodge City? You see, guns were not prohibited within all of Dodge City. In the ordinary parts of town, you could carry a gun strapped to your hip just fine. No licenses in those days either. The only part of Dodge City you couldn’t carry a gun was past the “deadline.” north of the railroad tracks. This just happened to be where all the saloons, whorehouses, and gambling establishments were located in town. It should also be noted that if you were a cowboy coming into town after a long cattle drive up from Texas, and you wanted to go get liquored up, you could check your gun.Â So Dodge City’s gun prohibition, in only one part of town, was really to deal with the problem of drinking and carrying, which most of us understand the state has an interest in regulating. Personally, if every red light and saloon district had law enforcement willing to accept checked firearms, few of us would have a problem.

This is a terrible article. Poorly researched and easily challenged. If academic types want to make arguments for Chicago’s gun prohibition, they are going to have to do better than nonsense like this. The sad part is, an editor at the Washington Post was willing to go along with this. There are myths in this article all right, but they are not of our making.

Multiple Victim Shootings in Europe

John Lott takes a look over at National Review, and notices that it’s not all that uncommon over there too. What surprises me is how many of these I never heard of.

Repeal the 17th Amendment!

Count me with Ilya Somin as someone who has never really agreed thatÂ eliminatingÂ the 17th Amendment is going to rebalance our federal system away from federal power. Professor Somin writes:

The claim that senators chosen by state legislatures would act to curb the feds relies on the assumption that state governments oppose federal power. In reality, however, they often have a strong interest in supporting it, a point John McGinnis and I drive home inthis article. For example, state governments love federal grants that go to them and constantly lobby for additional federal funds. They also like federal regulations and spending programs that reduce competition between state governments and benefit interest groups that have influence at the stateÂ level.

I think there’s a tendency among folks to wish there was a simple, clean fix to the problem. “We just have to change this one thing, then everything would be fine.” or to retrospectively look back on history and say “Ah ha! Here’s where we went wrong.”

But political systems are really only as good as the people who participate in them. If the history of freedom and liberty in this world has taught us anything, it’s that the struggle to preserve it is unending and relentless. There is no easy fix. No magic cure that can automatically rebalance everything for us. If we want small government, we have to struggle for small government, and never stop. More importantly, and this is where Libertarians have fallen down, we have to struggle for it in a serious way that recognizes the reality of the system we’re working in.

The fundamental reason we got big government is the people stopped believing in small government. You won’t get small government back until you recognize that’s your starting point.

Pittsburgh Papers Cover the Supreme Court Ruling

They do a much better job than the Philly papers, by actually explaining the issues, you know, like they believe the people who read their paper are literate individuals capable of thinking for themselves. This is in contrast to the Philly papers whoÂ parrotedÂ CeaseFirePAÂ propagandaÂ which was not even correct.

Month: June 2010