September 2012 – Page 8 – Shall Not Be Questioned

I Think Wintenmute’s Survey Was a Flop

Thirdpower notes that Garen Wintenmute, anti-gun professor and anti-gun activist extraordanire, has released the results of his survey of gun dealers. They note:

The majority of gun dealers and pawnbrokers (54.9 percent) believed it is too easy for criminals to get guns in the U.S. Agreement varied little with age and sex, was somewhat more common among gun dealers than pawnbrokers, and was more common among respondents from corporate/multisite licensees than others.

That’s it? You sent a 12 page questionnaire with 38 questions to gun dealers, and this is the best you can tout, other than some other uncontroversial statistics? Did you ask about any other contentious issues? I’m sure they did. I’m also sure they’d be touting the results of those if the answers had gone the way they wanted them to. I’m going to guess that the results did not go the way they wanted them to.

Raising Money for a Pro-Gun Documentary

Dead Patriot Films is trying to raise 65,000 dollars to finance a new gun rights documentary. Looks to be aimed at the gun control laws in California.

So Here’s a Question: M1 Tank Sales

Why are we selling more tanks to Egypt? I mean, I get that the export variants of the M1 Abrams have hobbled armor options compared to what our boys get to drive, but it’s still a better tank than anything they could buy from the Russians. I don’t see the logic in selling guns to the guy next door who has vowed to shoot you. I mean, not unless you’re suicidal.

It was one thing to sell one of the most advanced tanks in the world to Egypt back when we had a deal with their government for military and humanitarian aid, as long as they acted all nice with the Israelis. But now that the Muslim Brotherhood has taken over the country? Are we really going to keep doing this? Is this that “smart diplomacy” we keep hearing so much about? This is going to either come back to bite us in the ass, or bite the Israelis in the ass. The Administration should have to answer some questions about this, don’t you think?

Time To Boogie Like it’s 1979?

No, seriously.

New Federal 2nd Amendment Challenge?

Been involved in a lengthy bit of Devil’s advocacy with a “Constitutional Historian” involved in “a case in the works right now, well-research, and narrowly tailoredÂ that uses Presser, Miller, Heller AND McDonald to overturn NFA & Hughes Amendment. Brady/GCA areÂ next to get struck down by the Roberts Court.”Â That’s generally enough to set off major alarm bells right there. But when you follow up with, “[Alan Gura]Â lacks complete understanding of the historical premises’ surrounding the 2nd Amendment’s ratification and early case-law,” that really sets off alarm bells.

The diminishment of proven experts, and the elevation of unproven experts, is part and parcel for those who bring bad cases. Additionally, any suit so broad, and depending on cases like Presser v. Illinois, which said precious little about the Second Amendment, and US v. Miller, which was a deeply flawed case to begin with, is pretty much destined to quickly start setting bad precedent the rest of us will have to either live with, or spend a long time waiting to undo.

Taking a machine gun case into the Court system right now is madness. Others have tried it and lost, and now no one in the 8th circuit will ever have machine gun rights. Fincher was convinced he was right, too. That doesn’t win cases.Â What makes cases like this even more aggravating, is if one of the Heller 5 retires or dies, this kind of case would be the perfect opportunity for Justice Ginsberg to get what she wants; a reconsideration of Heller and McDonaldÂ which results in their being reversed, and the Second Amendment being redacted from the Bill of Rights entirely. We are our own worst enemies.

Stay Classy, CSGV

Here I was feeling bad I didn’t really have anything to say about the 11 year 9/11 anniversary, but then I saw this and felt much better. Yes, let’s take attention off the murdered folks at pay attention to their pet cause!

Gun News from Down Under

From an Australian reader, in the comments:

Actually, there have been changes to the gun laws in Oz that could be called “weakening” if you squint the right way.

One example: Some states had a waiting period for both first gun purchase, AND subsequent purchases. Repeatedly pointing out the pointlessness of this resulted in the abolition of the waiting period for those that already held a firearms license.

“Further weakening” may include:
Any handgun with a bore larger than .38 was banned, except for Cowboy Action and Metallic Silhouette competitors – there are moves to repeal that, and allow up to .45 again for IPSC and IDPA.

If the “good reason” for possessing a particular firearm is competition in, say, Metallic Silhouette, you cannot use that firearm in any other competition (eg IPSC) and vice versa – there are moves to remove that restriction.

One other change – license applications are now lodged at the Post Office. This supposedly streamlines things. It didn’t, but it will. In general, the discretionary element available to police has been de facto reduced if not de jure.

Progress is progress, and that’s certainly good news, considering it likely greatly displeases a certain person who we should all enjoy displeasing. We tend to see most of the rest of the world heading away from gun rights, but at least for Canada and Â Australia, it seems they are coming back a bit.

Is The Tea Party Libertarian?

Ilya Somin links to a Cato Paper that says that the Tea Party movement is “functionally libertarian”Â Professor Somin notes:

How much of a libertarian impact the Tea Party will ultimately have remains to be seen. As I noted in my 2011 article, itâ€™s possible the movement will peter out, get coopted by the socially conservative GOP establishment, or simply fail to gain enough political traction to influence policy any more than it already has. But Kirby and Ekins do make a strong case that the Tea Party has a strong libertarian element, and that it has pushed the GOP in a more libertarian direction over the last two years.

I’ve been reluctant to apply any labels to the Tea Party movement, because I think what they stand for varies quite a lot from group to group, and region to region. I went to a few rallies when this phenomena started, to see what it was about, and the best label I could apply to it is grassroots anger. We attended a forum hosted by one of the local groups, after it got a bit more organized, which previewed various contenders for the seat now held by Mike Fitzpatrick. The “Tea Party” candidate, who was younger than me by a few years, was pro-choice and favored drug legalization, which is probably why the county GOP did everything they could to ensure the Tea Party groups had no place at the table. I’ve never been quite sure what to make of the Tea Party movement, and haven’t been active in any groups, but I will admit they piss off and scare the right people, at least around here.

I want to thank reader Harold for pointing me to this article, outlining a scenario for why the Democratic Party is finished, and why the GOP will then move closer to the center and split, with the Tea Party folks forming a party that will eventually replace the Democrats. I like analysis like this, but I think it’s a lot of wishful thinking. People who follow politics closely often overestimate how much people really think about it. Party identification can be strong, and can take a long time to change. People who think of themselves as Democrats aren’t going to transform into Republicans, even if the Republicans move left. It would be like a Red Sox fan having to suddenly become a Yankee’s fan. Without some kind of calamity and major realignment, which I’ll give could happen, parties just don’t fail and get replaced — they adapt. So I would say rumors of either the death of the GOP or the Democrats is greatly exaggerated.

MAIG Realizes a Weakness

It would appear that MAIG has come to realize that having a membership with a higher rate of criminal activity than concealed carry holders is an argument that actually sticks. When they speak, they become the spokesmen for criminals calling for disarming the law-abiding.

When gun bloggers first started pointing out how many criminal mayors they had – mostly around the time one was under a high profile arrest for gun crimes – MAIG kept their names on their website with pride. I guess they felt they needed every supporter they could find, even if the supporter was headed to prison.

Today’s arrest of Trenton’s mayor had MAIG scrubbing their website of their member within a couple of hours. In fact, I saw the post on Days of Our Trailers, but initially couldn’t figure out if Thirdpower was simply assuming that because the guy was a big-city mayor in NJ that he was a member since the MAIG site had him gone. However, a simple search of the mayor’s name and MAIG turned up the evidence.

The only reason that MAIG would want to act quickly on these matters is because they have found that it does actually undermine their credibility to have Bloomberg allying himself with criminals in calling for gun control. I guess MAIG is hoping that by erasing evidence of any relationship within the group, they can minimize the impact.

It’s Called Stealing

Last month we looked at a retailer who listed their policy as being one of confiscating any weapons found on customers. Seems a night club up in Scranton actually tried it, and is now being investigated by police.