September 2012 – Page 7 – Shall Not Be Questioned

I Guess I’m Building Another AR

I’ve been itching to build another AR for a while, but our Friends of the NRA Dinner last night got me the parts to get started, even though I didn’t quite win everything I wanted. The fine folks at Geissele Automatics, who are a local business right down the PA Turnpike in Norristown, donated a few free-float modular AR handguards, and three AR triggers, including one of their match triggers. Those items went to silent auction, except one of the triggers which went to the stretch raffle. I put bids in on all of them, and flooded the stretch raffle with tickets. I also bid on an AR-15 lower in the live auction, but that got Â bit rich for me. So I ended up with the hand guards. The triggers got bid up and I ended up out. I was pleased there were enough AR guys there to keep the bidding going in the right direction for the dinner.

So now that I have a start with the handguards, I guess I should think about a barrel. I’m looking for a 20 inch barrel that will shoot military spec ammo decently, but can also do reasonably well with heavier, longer bullets. I realize these things are tradeoffs, so I’d be looking to trade to shooting lighter, shorter bullets. I’m thinking perhaps that has a Wylde chamber would be beneficial too, though I’m not sure about that yet. I’d probably be best off going with a stainless barrel. I’m not looking for super top of the line, because I don’t want to fork out 400 or more for a barrel. So if anyone has suggestions for how to proceed, I would be grateful for the advice.

Quote of the Day

Sorry for the absence, but we had our Friends of the NRA banquet tonight, and for just our county managed to bring in an order or magnitude more warm bodies than the typical CSGV protest I’ve seen outside the White House, and these people were actually forking over hard earned cash to support youth shooting.

But today’s quote comes from Tam, who comments on New York City actually adopting the Big Gulp Ban, opening up the market for smuggling high-capacity drink containers:

… and best of all, even if you get intercepted crossing the Hudson with your illicit Styrofoam cargo and the NYPD opens up on you, it’s not like they could actually hit you (and the Palisades make a safer backstop for them than Fifth Avenue does…)

Zing!

H&K Distances itself from Recoil Magazines

Maybe you don’t suck, and perhaps we don’t hate you.

Report Release on Florida Stand Your Ground

Via Dave Hardy, who notes “Not too surprising, since as I recall Florida never had a retreat requirement in the first place.” If I recall, Florida followed more closely to common law. Someone committing a felony you could shoot dead, which is going to be most cases in which a citizen defends themselves. You were required to retreat if you could do so safely otherwise.

The article is here, and of course, the best part is:

Gun control advocates immediately criticized the report as “disappointing,” saying it did not go far enough to determine the true impact of the Stand Your Ground law.

“If the state wanted to work with a real data analysis, then fund it. It became pretty clear that they are going to fail to do that,” said Ginny Simmons, director of the Second Chance on Shoot First campaign.

That’s Bloomberg’s group, for those of you wondering. The fact is that Stand Your Ground just doesn’t have much impact. The number of cases where duty to retreat would even have come up in Florida before the law are vanishingly small, and despite the fact that gun control groups lied their way into making SYG and issue in the Trayvon Martin case, it never would have been at issue either before or after the law went into effect.

Gun Polling in New York State

Someone sure wants to know what deep blue states think of gun control. Consider this Quennipiac poll:

52. Do you think the laws covering the sale 
of guns in New York State should be made more strict, 
less strict, or kept as they are now?

                     Tot    Rep    Dem    Ind

More strict          61%    40%    79%    55%
Less strict           8     14      4     11
Kept the same        28     44     16     31
DK/NA                 3      2      2      3

                     Men    Wom    Wht    Blk    Hsp

More strict          50%    72%    56%    83%    78%
Less strict          14      3     10      4      8
Kept the same        34     22     32     13     13
DK/NA                 2      3      3      1      2

Of course, if you want to know where that attitude comes from in New York:

                     UpStat NYC    Sub

More strict          49%    74%    62%
Less strict          12      5      7
Kept the same        35     19     29
DK/NA                 4      2      1

The same poll also shows overwhelming approval for gun rationining, once again, mostly from NYC. I’ll bet if you excluded Long Island and the other downstate counties, New York would look a lot different in terms of its attitude on gun laws.

US v. Rock Island Armory: Not a Loophole in the NFA

In the previous thread about someone trying to foolishly mount a challenge to NFA and all the other federal gun laws, the topic of US v. Rock Island came up. I went searching through my archives, convinced I had done a post about this, but it turns out I hadn’t, and that it was just a long running argument in the comment section. So I figured it was worth a full post just to get better information out there about the impact of this case. There’s a lot of folks on the Internet toutingÂ Rock Island as a case which invalidates the National Firearms Act, and creates some not-widely-known loophole that makes machine guns legal, either broadly, or in the District it was decided in.

But if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.Â United States law regulating machine guns rests on two prongs. The first prong is the National Firearms Act, passed in 1934 as an exercise of Congress’ power to tax. The second is the Gun Control Act of 1968, as amended by the Firearms Owners Protection Act of 1986, which contained the infamous Hughes Amendment. The Gun Control Act is based on Congress’ powers under the commerce clause.

In 1934, when the National Firearms Act was passed, it was believed that outright gun bans would be constitutionally problematic, both from the point of view of the Second Amendment, but also from the point of view of valid exercises of Congress’ powers to regulate interstate commerce. The proponents of the National Firearms Act decided to rely on the Congress’ power to tax, which was used, and upheld, to regulate narcotics under the Harrison Act, and it was relatively less risky than relying on the commerce power. The $200 tax on manufacture and transfer, in 1934 dollars, effectively doubled the price of existing machine guns, and was considered an effective means of discouraging their possession by mere peons like us.

By the time 1968 rolled around, the federal government’s ability to regulate using its interstate commerce power had been greatly expanded. The Gun Control Act of 1968 was purely a criminal provision, and not in any way connected to the taxing power. Additionally, the 1986 inclusion of the Hughes Amendment, codified under 18 USC 922(o), created a special problem for prosecution under the NFA provisions for machine guns manufactured after May 19, 1986.

In Rock Island, the US Attorney simply made the mistake of prosecuting under the wrong section of the United States Code, when they charged someone under the NFA for failing to pay a tax it refused to collect.Â From the case:

The superseding indictment alleges that Defendants committed acts in respect to the making and registration of “firearms,” i.e., machineguns,^[1]Â in the years 1987 and 1988 which violated parts of the National Firearms Act, Chapter 53 of the Internal Revenue Code, 26 U.S.C. Â§Â§ 5801Â et seq.Â Specifically, Count I alleges in part that Defendants conspired “(a) to manufacture firearms in violation of Title 26, United States Code, Sections 5822^[2]Â and 5861(F) [AND] (B)^[3]Â to knowingly deliver into interstate commerce firearms in violation of Title 26, United States Code, Sections 5822 and 5861(j)….”^[4]Â Count 2 alleges that in 1988, Defendants made machineguns “in violation of the registration provisions of Title 26, United States Code, Section 5822,” which is alleged to have violated 26 U.S.C. Â§ 5861(f). Count 3 alleges that Defendants delivered into interstate commerce the same machineguns as in Count 2, and that these machineguns “had not been registered as required by the provisions of Title 26, United States Code, Section 5822,” in violation of 26 U.S.C. Â§ 5861(j).

Since its passage in 1934, the registration, taxation, and other requirements of the National Firearms Act (“NFA”) have been upheld by the courts under the power of Congress to raise revenue.^[5]Â However, 18 U.S.C. Â§ 922(o), which became effective on May 19, 1986, prohibits possession of machineguns, and thereby repealed or rendered unconstitutional the portions of the National Firearms Act which provided for the raising of revenue from the making, possession, and transfer of machineguns made after such date. As the government conceded at oral argument, the United States refuses to register or accept tax payments for the making or transfer of machineguns made after 1986.^[6]Â Thus, Â§ 922(o), as applied to machineguns made after May 19, 1986, left the registration and other requirements of the National Firearms Act without any constitutional basis.

This is where people get confused when they read Rock Island. It’s conventional wisdom among gunnies that machineguns are regulated under the National Firearms Act, and that is true. But lesser understood is the fact that they are also regulated under the Gun Control Act. The GCA is part of the US Criminal Code, unlike the NFA which belongs to the Internal Revenue Code. A lot of folks read “left the registration and other requirements of the National Firearms Act without any constitutional basis,” and assume this to mean the regulations regarding machine guns have been struck down. They have not been. If you manufacture a machine gun without a federal license to do so, you will go to jail.

What Rock Island said was, because 922(o) (Hughes Amendment) prevents the Treasury from accepting any payment of tax under the NFA, for any machine gun not legally possessed or manufactured before May 19, 1986, that the government can then not turn around and charge someone for failing to register the machine gun, and pay any tax, because the government admits that it refuses to collect that tax and accept the registration. That only means that the government may not prosecute this crime under the National Firearms Act. It is still empowered to prosecute individuals under the Gun Control Act, 18 USC 922(o). Since the United States lost theÂ Rock Island case, that’s been standard operating procedure for US Attorneys in cases involving machine guns manufactured after May 19, 1986.

For someone possessing a machine gun legally possessed or manufacturedÂ before May 19, 1986, but not legally transferred, they may still be prosecuted under the National Firearms Act, because the government will accept the tax in that instance. In short, if I buy my friend Jason’s submachine gun from him privately, I’m guilty of violating the National Firearms Act, because the government wouldÂ have accepted that tax for that transfer. If I take my AR-15 and convert it to an M16, I’m guilty of violating the Gun Control Act, Section 922(o), not the National Firearms Act, because that was obsoleted by the Hughes Amendment for guns manufactured after the magic date.

So the courts weren’t creating any loophole. They merely ruled that if the United States wishes to prosecute someone for possession or transfer a machine gun that was not lawfully registered before May 19, 1986, they had to do so under the Gun Control Act, not the National Firearms Act.Â I hope this makes sense. Rock Island does not create any loophole in the machine gun laws, and I thought it was worthwhile to clear this up before someone believes this Internet rumor, tests it, and ends up in federal prison.

More on the Wintenmute Study

Thirdpower has been kind enough to update his post, and provide a link to the actual study. In terms of the study being a flop, I was partially correct. I say partially, because I figured there’d be more surveying of attitudes towards gun policy, and there wasn’t. What there was, beyond what was mentioned in the press release, there wasn’t any red meat to be found. One things is for sure, Wintenmute wasn’t happy that NSSF and NRA broadly alerted on this survey, and discouraged dealers from participating:

Our results may have been affected by external factors, chief among them being efforts to deter subjects from participating. Two days after the first questionnaire was mailed, Larry Keane, general counsel of the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), posted a notice at the organizationâ€™s Web site â€œstrongly discouraging retailers from participating in this survey.â€ Â […]

[…] The National Rifle Association (NRA) issued a notice to retailers at its Web site on June 29, â€œrecommend[ing] that you do not respond to the survey.â€35 The organization also sent its notice as a personalizedÂ E-mail, apparently to the organizationâ€™s entire membership.

What’s good about the interference is it raises doubts about the validity of this survey, which are going to tend to smaller dealers, less connected to the community as a whole, who are difficult to reach with the message. Doubts are also raised, I believe, by the claim that the survey response rates were typical. Is this typical of business surveys?

The survey design required up to three mailings of the questionnaire, with a reminder postcard sent to all subjects between the first and second questionnaire mailings. Taking the mailing date of the first questionnaire as day 0, the postcard was sent on day 7, and subsequent questionnaires were sent to nonrespondents on day 21 and day 42. A cash incentiveâ€”three uncirculated $1 billsâ€”was included inÂ the first mailing. Respondents were also offered the opportunity to request a copy of publications arising from the survey.

It’s interesting to see what they are surveying. It’s actually very little in terms of what they politically support.Â Perhaps they realized polling gun dealers about that would largely be a fool’s errand. I think this is more geared to understand whether certain phenomena in the gun market we claim are really true. Here’s what they are pretty clearly trying to glean:

Do tactical rifles represent a large portion of the market? (evil Assault Weapons)
How large is the market for inexpensive handguns? (evil Saturday Night Specials)
Are sales to women actually high?
How important are gun shows in in the overall sales equation for FFLs?
Is business good?

Fortunately for us, I’m not how much red meat there is here, because this can’t be a representative sample because our interference has essentially denied them that. Nonetheless, you can expect to see this touted as irrefutable evidence that a) EBRs are not commonly owned, and that b) women aren’t buying guns in large numbers, and c) the gun industry is struggling, d) they are selling inexpensive guns to straw purchasers and e) gun dealers support gun control.

Maybe Their First Stop Needs to be ATF Headquarters

Apparently some Mexican Gun Control Activists have been wandering the country to pin their inability to deal with their own problems on the US gun industry. We’ll do what we can to keep guns from heading South, but that gets to be more difficult when our own government has been facilitating that kind of gunrunning for reasons they still have not been willing to explain.

On the Late Conflagration in North Africa

Popehat’s been doing a much better job summing up what’s wrong here than I ever could:

I don’t think anyone’s religion should be above criticism, but there’s criticism, and there’s throwing a match on a gasoline soaked keg of powder, by doing it in a way that is bound to be deeply offensive. Eugene Volokh has a link to the poorly acted, low-budget film that lit the fuse. It is critical, but in a deliberately provocative way. Imagine how strong Christians would react to a depiction of Jesus going down on Mary Magdalene? You can bet the reaction would be non-violent, but I wouldn’t blame them for being just as deeply offended as many Muslims will no doubt be upon seeing this video.

This is not to excuse what’s going on in North Africa; the reaction of the mob is unconscionable. But it seems to me this would be not the way to persuade people to adopt more tolerant and less militant interpretations of Islam. This will just drive fence sitters to the militants.

Polling New Jersey Voters on Gun Control

Looks like someone has been spending money to poll New Jersey residents about gun control. The Garden State has among the lowest rates of gun ownership in the country, and people who don’t exercise their rights aren’t going to generally be that concerned with the rights of others. I think most people only support rights they view as affecting themselves positively, and care not a whit for rights values by others if they themselves don’t value them. The solution is to recruit more gun owners.Â You can see the press release from Rutgers here, which does have some encouraging signs:

Nearly two-thirds of New Jersey voters say controlling gun ownership is more important thanÂ gun owner rights. This represents a decline since 1999, when 73 percent preferred gun control over gunÂ owner rights. Today, 72 percent without guns at home say gun control is more important than ownerÂ rights, 31 points higher than voters in gun owning households.Â â€œThe stereotype is that those with guns want nothing to do with restricting their rights,â€ saidÂ Redlawsk. â€œHere, that also appears mostly true. While many with guns at home say gun ownershipÂ should be controlled, a majority thinks ownersâ€™ rights should trump. Overall weâ€™ve seen a small moveÂ toward the gun owner rights position over time.â€

It’s at least heading in the right direction.

Voters prefer to see the stateâ€™s gun laws tightened: 47 percent want stricter laws while 11 percentÂ want them more lax. Twenty-eight percent prefer the status quo. While a plurality would tighten laws,Â the percentage is down from the 58 percent who wanted stricter laws in 1999. […]

[…] Â â€œWhile New Jersey is less supportive of gun rights than many places, there has been aÂ conservative trend over the past decade,â€ noted Redlawsk. â€œMore people are concerned about violence.Â Most still want gun control, but the number favoring fewer restrictions has clearly grown.â€

Getting some of New Jersey’s laws overturned would probably go a long way to fixing this problem. The poll clearly shows once people are gun owners, their support for restrictions tend to drop. I’d also note that many New Jersey gun owners have little idea that the hell their state puts them through to exercise their right is highly unusual, and is not how things are handled in most other states.