Apparently this includes the revelation that shooting from a holster is more difficult than carefully aiming your shots. This is also an argument for not allowing police to carry guns. But I forgot police have magical gun powers to anti-gunners that the rest of us can’t possibly have.
Year: 2010
Zero Tolerance
Joe Huffman catches a revelation from a Brady Board member that leads to a logical conclusion:
Zero is not possible as long as people and guns exist.
And even if we could turn every gun into a potted plant, and magically make every human being forget firearms technology, it’s worth noting that life was pretty short and brutal before the advent of this technology. If there’s one thing human beings are particularly good at it’s terrorizing and brutalizing each other.
No Statutory Authority
The ATF may want to regulate long guns by requiring multiple purchases to be reported, but I think it’s almost certain they have no authority to do so. Handguns require this form, but that is because 18 USC Section 923(g) gives ATF that power explicitly:
(3)(A) Each licensee shall prepare a report of multiple sales or other dispositions whenever the licensee sells or otherwise disposes of, at one time or during any five consecutive business days, two or more pistols, or revolvers, or any combination of pistols and revolvers totalling two or more, to an unlicensed person. The report shall be prepared on a form specified by the Attorney General and forwarded to the office specified thereon and to the department of State police or State law enforcement agency of the State or local law enforcement agency of the local jurisdiction in which the sale or other disposition took place, not later than the close of business on the day that the multiple sale or other disposition occurs.
If Congress had intended ATF to have the power to require this form for long guns, they well knew how to do so, but chose to limit the requirement to pistols and revolvers. The fact that shotguns and rifles are not included in this statutory requirement is indicative that ATF does not have the power to require this for long guns at all. This is a power grab by the agency, pure and simple.
Obama’s Move
To stem the flow of guns to Mexico, federal firearms regulators are proposing an emergency requirement that certain gun dealers along the southwestern border report bulk sales of so-called assault weapons beginning as soon as January.
I am sincerely hoping this seals the fate of Jimmy Carter, the Second Coming, in the 2012 election. As I’ve said, I’m willing to do nothing for Mexico.
UPDATE: Also notice Obama is taking his cues from Bloomberg’s Blueprint for screwing gun owners. This reinforces Michael Bloomberg being the biggest threat to gun rights out there today. The Brady organization is a joke at this point. Bloomberg is still someone to watch out for.
What Future for Gun Control?
I keep looking at our opponents, and I see the same ideas turned around and around again on the turntable like a skipping old 78. Calling for “common sense,” calling for “sensible legislation,” to an audience, like that of some washed up rock star that continues to tour, that increasingly just isn’t there, or isn’t listening.
Our opponents are beyond arguing for action, and they don’t even realize it. The philosophical basis for their movement was largely based on the possibility of achieving prohibition, and with prohibition off the table, rather than rebuild their movement around different philosophical assumptions, they keep pushing the same old in the hopes that a some point, maybe someday, the fans will come back and the seats will be filled. Even MAIG, which is certainly ripe with novel tactics, and new ideas, is still no more than a second rate cover band.
The reason they have not rethought their movement is that any new assumptions will be deeply dissatisfying to those who support the gun control agenda. I think being hemmed in by Brady’s post Heller contradictions is driving poor Joan Peterson nuts, because it represents the best they can do, not what she’d ideally like to advocate. I can’t believe she’s an atypical supporter either, because I’ve run into a lot of Joan Peterson’s out there. But how many will keep with the issue in the face of the ever evolving reality working against their viewpoint?
Prohibition, or a near prohibition, was a necessary goal for their movement, and it’s necessary because of the nature of gun control. Gun control only affects criminals at the margins. In a regulatory regime where law abiding people are relatively free to purchase firearms, criminals are going to fairly easily obtain them. I think that’s a fundamental truth against which the gun control proponents have no valid argument. A background check, a form, or rationing is only going to stop an idiot or someone who’s really not determined. Given that there are undetermined idiots out there who want to commit crimes, I have no doubt background checks have stopped some potential crimes, but because this happens at the margin, it doesn’t show up in overall violent crime statistics, and doesn’t really do a whole lot to make society safer.
The only way you can expand the margins is to make guns harder to get for law abiding people, and as we’ve pointed out repeatedly, even total prohibition isn’t going to stop smart, determined criminals. It’s certainly not going to stop gangs and drug dealers who are responsible for most of the violent crime in this country, and who already traffic in contraband. But one could argue with credibility that prohibition would make it harder for certain classes of potential criminals, who don’t have black market connections, to get guns. One could counter that it would also make it much harder for ordinary people to get guns and defend themselves from the criminals, and there will be many, who will still get them anyway. But my point is that when prohibition is the philosophical root, there’s a lot more room to speculate, posture, and debate. It may be an unachievable, Utopian idea, but it’s an idea that’s deeply satisfying to those who blame the gun for societies ills.
I would posit that without prohibition, the gun control movement is nothing. The ironic thing is, from my readings, a lot of the the old school members of the movement to ban handguns understood this. Everything to them was an incremental step designed to break the back of the gun culture in this country so they could get to their eventual goal. The post Heller movement has, on their face, accepted the implications of a real Second Amendment right, but in their souls I don’t believe they have. So they are stuck arguing pointless measures that have no prayer of doing a damned thing to stop people who want to commit crimes from getting guns. Their predecessors understood this stuff to be pointless, if it wasn’t getting them farther to the goal. The remaining gun control supporters cling bitterly to the remnant scraps of what once was. How long before the gig is up, and even the die hards realize it?
New York Times Jumps on Board
They find it hard to believe NRA members would support assault rifles being smuggled to Mexico. Except this is all a manufactured issue. And even if it wasn’t, guns are already illegal in Mexico. The violence happens there, not here where they are largely legal (though not assault rifles). It’s their problem, not ours. You’re not going to disarm criminals who traffic in contraband.
Don’t want contraband smuggled into your country? Work with us to secure the border. It’s quite simple, really.
Great Ironies of Constitutional Interpretation
Dave Hardy points out Sanford Levinson’s “Protestant” and “Catholic” views of the Constitution. The irony being it’s the Catholics on the Court who seem to take the more “Protestant” view of the Constitution. It would be even more ironic of the Protestants on the Court took a more Catholic view as well, but at this point there are no Protestants on the court. It’s basically six Catholics and three Jews. I’m surprised this isn’t driving the tin foil hat crowd completely nuts. It’s a papist conspiracy!
Solutions We Know Won’t Work
There’s one thing I really don’t understand about many in the gun control movement. Â I’m baffled when I read things that show just how unserious they are about pursuing policies that might address problems they perceive in society. Â I’m not just talking about the organized political folks in DC whose job it is to tie every criminal use of a gun to their top policy item of the day. Â I mean the few out there who still support serious gun control and who aren’t paid to promote a specific policy agenda.
I thought of this because of a foreign newspaper editorial that spends 6 of 11 paragraphs talking about a specific drive-by shooting that resulted in the death of a child. Â So, considering the death of this child has caught their attention so deeply, one might assume they would be interested in suggesting specific solutions that would result in fewer child deaths and drive-bys. But no. In fact, they actually admit that their solutions won’t solve the problems illustrated by the case they highlighted.
It would also help in reducing the number of homicide cases associated with the use of licensed firearms. Of course, this measure will not work against those who seek out illegal firearms, as was the case with the Prasongsil brothers.
Also worth considering in a public debate would be the issue of whether the number of guns of a certain calibre permissible for each individual, should be limited or not.
They don’t even pretend that the last suggestion has anything to do with the case of drive-bys!
I also think back to a conversation my grandmother and I had at dinner while Sebastian and I were out in Hawaii. Here’s the cliffnotes version:
Grandmother: So is Sebastian into your little gun hobby?
Bitter: Yes. He’s a competitive shooter, he’s active in a gun club, and he even bought me a gun for Christmas one year.
Grandmother: [attempts to mask her disappointment in having a libertarian gun nut granddaughter] Oh, well that’s good that you have that in common.
Bitter: [probably enjoys breaking stereotypes a little too much] Yeah, we enjoy it quite a bit. He got me into a new shooting sport for a while, but lately things have been so busy that we haven’t had the time.
Grandmother: Well, you know, it wouldn’t be such a problem if we could just fix a few things – like closing the gun shows.
Bitter: [looks at Sebastian] Um, do they even have gun shows in Hawaii?
Sebastian: [recalling what he did know about Hawaii gun laws] I’m not sure that’s an issue out here.
Bitter: [knowing where this is going] I’m pretty sure you guys don’t have a “gun show loophole” out here in Hawaii. In fact, I’m pretty sure your laws are so strict they have put a big damper on lawful gun ownership.
Grandmother: Well, there was this shooting recently, and the gun came from a gun show.
Bitter: You’re sure about that?
Grandmother: Well, I think he may have robbed someone.
Bitter: So, wait, he bought it lawfully at a gun show or he stole it from someone who may or may not have had anything to do with a gun show?
Grandmother: I think he stole it from someone’s house.
Bitter: Wait, you want to close down gun shows and ban private sales which may not even be legal in this state – I can’t remember off the top of my head – based on a crime that appears to have nothing to do with gun shows?
Grandmother: Well, there may have been a gun show involved. But it’s a problem that needs to be solved anyway.
Bitter: [restraining all efforts to keep from beating her head against the table]
Grandmother: If we could just limit the number of guns out there, that would help.
Bitter: [morbidly curious] Just how would you do that?
Grandmother: Well, if we could make sure they are only sold to good people, like you and Sebastian.
Bitter: We’ve passed the same background checks as other people who buy guns from dealers and get concealed carry licenses.
Grandmother: Then don’t you have enough guns.
Bitter: [chuckles] Uh, no. We still have some room to fill in the safe.
Grandmother: [horrified at the notion we’d like to own more guns]
Her solution to a crime that bothered her isn’t to address the criminal who was out on the streets, how he was able to continue his crime spree and steal a gun, or even how to address the details of the killing (which she didn’t explain, and I knew better than to ask). She just parroted the nearest talking point she could find.
I am interested in solving problems. If there’s a crime that bothers me, I want to address the roots of the problem so we don’t have to deal with that problem again, or at least minimize the number of instances in which we have to deal with it. It’s such a waste of energy and, potentially, political capital to focus on non-solutions to specific problems. I can’t comprehend the people who go on believing that ignoring the fundamental problems is the best way to truly reduce violence. How many rap sheets have we posted the show the problem in Philly isn’t about guns, it’s about why these scum of the earth are even walking the streets when they have 10, 15, and 20 page criminal records? At least the professional gun controllers are simply pushing a political agenda. It’s the non-professional ones that really baffle me.
Role Playing: Nanny State Edition
Last night, I pondered what it would be like to become a nanny-stater. Instead of being content to simply not like something, what if I felt the need to call for government to ban these things? Once I started thinking about it, I realized just how much fun this could be.
So here’s my Christmas list of things I would ban if I believed in the nanny state:
- Houses with all blue Christmas lights. They make me feel cold. Therefore, they might make children feel cold. If we can save just one child from feeling cold, it will be worth it.
- Olives. Beyond olive oil, olives serve no purpose other than to make my stomach churn. Â We must close the olive loophole that allows olives to be sold to the public in a form other than olive oil.
- Holiday inflatable yard decorations. One home in our neighborhood has so many of these, they had to cut back their only tree to accomodate a Frosty the size of their house. Â They have a Halloween inflatable that celebrates Death. Â These disgraceful decorations are a waste of energy, and, as our neighbors illustrate, not at all green. Â We must ban them to save the planet.
- Wonderful Christmastime. It’s for the children. Â Seriously, this song is all sorts of wrong, and it’s too easy for little ears to hear the jingle and start repeating it. Â It must be banned so we can allow our children to grow up in a world without Paul McCartney holiday tunes.
This is just the beginning. Â I can already see the ways I can make the world a better place just by using the force of government to ban things I don’t like. Â Have a little fun with your own lists below.
Something I’ve Never Understood Either
Shelly Rae opines on offering the little lady a nice .38 revolver. I’ve noticed, perhaps too anecdotally, that this advise is far more likely to come from older men than it is younger men.