Wayne was facing an outright hostile interview — one of the worst I’ve seen in recent memory. I think Wayne does a much better job with this interview than he did in the Press Conference Friday, and under much harder circumstances.
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That said, he still looks flustered and tired. He looks like he even may have a cold sore, I’m guessing stress induced. He has a lot riding on his shoulders, and I’m hoping he’s not getting too old to carry a burden like this, and at this pace. David Keene was on Face the Nation, and got a much fairer interview, which is not to say I think it was fair. Keene is a very good spokesman, but I still wish he would have mentioned CT already has the proposed ban, or talked about how quick it takes to change a magazine versus law enforcement response times to these kinds of incidents.
BTW, Mark Warner and Kay Bailey Hutchison were on afterwards, and (I think, because she was a bit incoherent) she went squishy on the magazine issue. In my opinion, this is the issue we are most vulnerable on, because it’s an easy place for cowardly politicians to split the difference and rally around as a compromise. That’s why we need to get everyone in this fight. If you’re an AR shooter, you need to be in this. You need to get every other AR shooter in this.
Kay is out in Texas and Ted Cruz is in.
Yeah, true. And Thank God. I think Cruz is solid. But it’s more the bellwether she represents that’s scary.
It just means we need to keep the heat on these people.
I watched the Meet The Press interview. Yes it was a hard interview, but it would be ludicrous to expect that it would be any less in the current climate. Gregory’s line of interrogation, that if the NRA is advocating investigating all the possible ways to reduce incidents like Newtown, would the NRA consider investigating if additional gun control measures would be effective was entirely foreseeable, if not absolutely expected. Yes as LaPierre pointed out, enforce the existing laws seriously and we’ll have a significant reduction in the problems, but IMO the NRA’s response has been seriously negligent by not aggressively articulating the core principal: Don’t abridge the rights and freedoms of all because of the 1 out of 10,000 that does wrong.
Thing is, it’s the magazine ban that really stings. At least if the AW ban is like the previous one, allowing a pistol grip and no 2nd feature like a bayonet lug or flash hider.
Meanwhile, there’s plenty of old design magazines around (although not for some newer models like the FN 17S SCAR), but new gun designs will have to live with the magazine length restriction (and people will tend to move up caliber) or shoehorn in old magazine designs, which has got to be limiting for handguns.
And given the nationwide sweep of shall issue regimes, with progress in the courts in at least two cases, a lot of people are going to feel this. This won’t be politically wise (and very bad for the House Republicans), but, yep, it’s the obvious “compromise” for the ignorant, those like Manchin who talk about banning “clips”.
I’d love to help with the fight by making a purchase.Sadly,all the FFL holders are price gouging at a pace that stuns me.Rifles that msrp at $1000 are going for $1800 and up.The dealers are not helping the situation with these price hikes.
Buying a gun isn’t fighting. Write you lawmakers.
It’s supply and demand; when demand insanely outstrips supply, the best way to ration is by price, and the higher prices are a signal upstream to make more of these high demand items, and help provide the money needed to increase production quickly. Also, I’d expect the prices the dealers will have to pay for new stock will go up, they need to increase their prices now.
Note to Sebastian: if someone wasn’t yet set with their’s, these higher prices are money that isn’t going to the NRA-ILA (except of course one might hope some dealers and others upstream will send some of the “windfall profits” to it (hey, these days are a lot like the ’70s)).
I knew of David Keene back when he was the president of the ACU and he was a solid guy, though always a bit stuck in the “conservative movement” machine. He fought lots of successful battles and mobilized a conservative voting base for years. As a recently appointed president he is facing his biggest test here.
The issue I see is going to be the fallback option for the NRA. I know they won’t discuss this publicly at all. If anything manages to make its way through the House, what is the NRA willing to concede during markup? They’d better be thinking of this now, and they probably already have and (I hope) have already been talking to the pro-2A legislators to get a feel. It’s a valid negotiation tactic.
To me the least worst option would be closing what is termed the “gunshow loophole” (which I don’t believe is a loophole, but the lack of instant check makes it so to the public). Yes, it’s another piece of federal legislation that won’t do much of anything, but haven’t we already seen that this debate is more about “feelings” to the anti-gun people?
Second worst would be a mag limit. These two would still uphold 2A in terms of ownership and
I just don’t see any way that the NRA would ever get behind anything that would take guns out of hands or ban the production/sale of very popular and commonly owned firearms.
I see a greater long term problem and it’s this: If the NRA is delaying things while the public sentiment tilts toward gun rights and this whole thing just “goes away” won’t we just be back at the table again when the next tragedy happens? It’s a reactive approach. To me we need a lasting strategy for a new environment. Although we have more pro-gun people than ever before, there is also a new class of politician that now plays off of death and destruction to silence an agenda.
I would prefer a mag ban to closing the gun show loophole.
1) A mag ban will piss a large number of people off. The entire CCW crowd, basically.
2) Closing the private sales “loophole” = 4473s for everyone = effective registration of firearms/licensing of owners is now possible.
Hmmm; perhaps.
There will be massive civil disobedience to 2) if history is any guide. And as long as the gun is not new….
You may be overestimating the effect on the CCW crowd; lots of people carry small single stack handguns, like the Kel-Tec PF-9 George Zimmerman carried. And then there’s those of us who worship John Moses Browning (PBUH) and carry single stack M1911s for whatever reasons (in my case and e.g. Tiger McKee (from an aside in a private communication), above all it fits our hands perfectly).
I don’t see the NRA agreeing to anything but something related to an extension of NICS usage, which has thorny privacy issues. They’ve never supported a AWB, and a magazine ban along would I think also be unsupportable. It would certainly lose my support for them forever if it passed.
Don’t forget that whatever the NRA does, there are Congresscritters sweating bullets as it were over the prospect of anything passing. E.g. Alaskan Mark Begich beat Ted Stevens by a razor thin 1.25%, 3,724 votes, after the latter had been improperly convicted of corruption a week before the election (Steven’s total vindication of course came too late; Holder and company filed for dismissal with prejudice (meaning they could never retry the case) and the prosecutors were found in contempt, but of course never suffered a real penalty for it, their actions were found to be “illegal” but no prosecution was recommended; of course, this was all after “Mission Accomplished”).
Anyway, one point here is that there are a bunch of Democratic Senators who won election in the 2008 Obama wave who will have to face the voters in 2014 after 6 years of Obama in an election where he isn’t running (20 in all, but most are thought to be safe). 2010 and history tells us the results will be ugly. And no amount of NRA blessing of e.g. a magazine ban will save them; as recently as 2007 (VT) the Senate recognized the NRA’s blessing of a bill is not necessarily worth much.
Sorry my mag limit part was cut off…
Second worst would be a mag limit. These two would still uphold 2A in terms of ownership and wouldn’t outright destroy manufacturing and sales like a mag limit would. The best thing would be to only agree to this with a sunset provision.
Wouldn’t “outright” destroy manufacturing but as I’ve noted it would severely limit new handgun design, and inconvenience new rifle designs (especially for those of us not thrilled with STANAG magazines, PMags notwithstanding). Add an import ban and it would be bad for .308/7.56 NATO rifles.
And come to think of it, this would freeze us with 5.56 and 7.62 NATO (well, there’s lots of flexibility with the latter). E.g. 6.8 mm SPC and 6.5 Grendel need their own magazines (don’t know about conversion possibilities or if that would be construed as illegal new manufacturing).
I thought Wayne LaPierre did rather well in the face of outright hostility from David Gregory. He was intent on getting Wayne to admit anything on gun control, while placing some absurd onus on firearms, as if that would somehow alter reality. As indicated, the arbitrary magazine restrictions, could take precedence over something like outright bans, since they don’t have the numbers in the legislature. Gun owners really need to use this time to stay informed and unite.
I agree that a mag capacity limit is what they want, because “no hunter needs 30 rounds to kill a deer, and no one needs more than 10 rounds to protect themselves”.
Of course, what I might do if confronted by some one with an illegal magazine in his illegal gun doesn’t enter their pretty little heads…
Worse scenario is being surrounded with a dozen punks, which 2 do you ask to wait till you re-load?
Here is the thing: the mag limit doesn’t just affect “assault weapon” owners. It affects hand guns too. Glock 17s come with 17 round magazines. Sure maybe handgun owners don’t “care” about an AWB. But let them know that it might affect their mags too.
We need to fight together, not separately.
We need to generate a “THIS IS AN ASSAULT WEAPON” illustration of common handguns like the Glock 17 pointing out why that is so (the magazine capacity) and anything else in common use that’s not a modern sporting rifle. Maybe even one of the tube fed 22LR rifles than New Jersey bans, at the bottom, say.
This. The magazine limit in NJ pisses me right the hell off – I’m stuck with a double-stack grip and a single-stack magazine, and I don’t particularly want to buy a different handgun over it.
If WLP were to explain that low-cap mags can be switched in a second, the antis would pick up on this and demand that all semis be banned. I think this is the reason why he did not state to Gregory that which we all know but most journalists don’t.
By the way, David Gregory sends his kids to a high security school, the same school to which Obama sends his kids.
My heavens, what a small world!!
Per a Weekly Standard article linked to by Drudge, right under a photo and link showing Gregory is a felon (for possession of a 30 round STANAG magazine in D.C.), Sidwell Friends has a security force of 11, many police officers, before you add the Secret Service presence for Obama’s children.
Sad part is how many people believe that AR15’s are machine guns……
Like I’ve said for years, we should call them what they really are, Self Loading Rifles.
Gets completely away from that “Auto” word that no one seems to see the “semi” before.
I really like those Commonwealth (I think) words of art, but I think it’s more than a century too late for us to switch, especially since the media will continue to use “automatic” in all its forms while confounding them, sometimes deliberately.
Too late by 110 years or so, e.g. when the venerable Browning Automatic 5 shotgun was first manufactured by FN. I’ve gotten the impression that before the machine gun became a really big thing “Automatic” was often used for many semi-auto designs and things. E.g. ACP stands for Automatic Colt Pistol.
Politics is about raw power. Like it or not, the NRA is political power.
If your are not a member of the NRA, join it. Get all of your gun own friends to joint it. Even if you don’t like it, join it.
If the politicians see millions suddenly join the NRA, THAT will speak louder than any words.
Sebastian is right. Magazines are the weak link. It’s an easy place to get “compromise”
Why is “Compromise” always us giving up more of our Rights?
Why not a “Compromise” that allows sale of new full auto weapons again?
That’s a compromise I can live with!
Just heard Asa Hutchinson on CBS Monday Morning. He was doing ok until the interviewer asked him “Why does a suburban mother or anyone need a semi-automatic assault rifle?” Asa was flummoxed! He was silent for a few seconds, then stuttered, cleared his throat, and DODGED THE QUESTION by referring to the failure of the Clinton AWB. Not to be denied, the interviewer asked him the same question again, making it obvious Asa had dodged him. Asa mumbled again for a few seconds and them stumbled around mentioning something about freedom and how machine guns are already banned. Frankly, he was pathetic! If that’s the best we can do to answer that question, we are in trouble!
Gentlemen, we MUST answer that question forcefully, or prepare to be disarmed!!!!! Same goes with the magazine capacity.
My factual answer is, “…to resist federal threats to the freedom of the people in my State, as the supreme law of the 2A demands! Until the 2A is repealed under Article V due process, I shall avail myself of its protection of my civil rights and duties!”
If you’re uncomfortable with such a forcible response, you can say something like, “you would have to ask her why she felt she needed an AR-15, but the fact is, those are the very types of arms protected by the Second Amendment, since they would be appropriate to militia service, for which both she and her sons may have been legally eligible (10 USC 311 (b)).”
Those responses will eliminate the emotional/touchy freely aspect of the argument and place the antagonist squarely in opposition to supreme law. They may try to debate the merits of the 2A, but until it is repealed by three-fourths of the States, it is supreme law and guarantees my right to assault weapons and high capacity magazines.
Gentlemen, when they try to claim we don’t need AR-15s to hunt deer, we must educate them that the 2A has nothing to do with hunting deer. Quote the Amenment to them and ask them where hunting is found in it. Then explain that according to the clear wording of the Amendment, any ban on military firearms in the hands of civilians is absolutely in violation of the supreme law pf the land and of our most sacred of CIVIL RIGHTS. That should make even liberals stop and ponder!
My fellow patriots, if we cannot answer THAT question constitutionally, then we have no right to arms. Asa Hutchinson failed. He must do better than he did this morning or we will lose!!!!
Respectfully,
Arnie
Yikes. If he doesn’t have a canned answer for that question, the NRA screwed up big time, either by not briefing him, or by picking someone who forget the answer when on the hot seat. And he should know better on both counts.
Forgive me, I should have specified “federal” ban on assault weapons and magazines. The 2A, indeed the entire Bill of Rights, was originally intended to limit only federal infringements, not State. The 14th Amendment is a seperate discussion.
Arnie
Well, if you take the Constitution and the 2nd as a whole, it’s pretty implicit that there are limits on the states’ weapons regulatory power, e.g. Article I, Section 8:
And of course per Article II, the President is the Commander in Chief of the Militia.
If the states could disarm their people so that they had no militia, they’d be infringing on these explicit and proper (national defense) duties of the Federal government.
The 14th was a “this time we mean it” for the 2nd (quite explicitly so in the legislative history), except of course that part was immediately judicially nullified, a decision which McDonald shows the Supremes are not going to reverse (because they and the lower courts would be clogged with decades of re-litigation of improperly settled law).
You make some very good points, Harold, some of which I had never considered before. I agree with you for the most part.
Regarding Congress’ Article I sec. 8 power over the Militia, both the Militia Act of 1792 and the National Guard bill of 1911(?) relate that power to the Select Militia, or National Guard, so you are correct in that regard. But the unorganized militia of the Second Amendment (defined today in 10 USC 311 (b)), is an instrument of the States to protect their sovereignty and freedom from federal as well as foreign threats. It would compromise its prime duty were its allegiance subject to its potential adversary, rather like the fox having authority over the locksmith for the henhouse. That isn’t to say that in time of declared war or national emergency, the State wouldn’t volunteer their unorganized militia to serve in the Country’s time of need, but defense of State sovereignty and liberty are 2nd Amendment priorities. Madison makes a strong case for this toward the end of his Federalist #46 in a powerful essay on the militia.
Thanks again for your comment, sir!
– Arnie
Yes, Harold, I agree with you 100% on that! Someone needs to get that info to Mr. Hutchinson SOON!
NRA seriously needs to present a younger, hipper face to public.
Sebastian,
Where are Marion Hammer, Sandy Froman, Suzanna Hupp, Julie Golob, Jessie Abbate, and the other VASTLY more effective voices? Why isn’t NRA letting Wayne hang back out of sight (he’s got a face and haircut for radio) and run the lobbying effort? Why aren’t they paying for Massad Ayoob and Tom Gresham and Caleb to travel the country hitting every show there is?
And why, for the love of John Moses Browning, isn’t NRA prepared for these questions after 150 years?!
What experience to Julie Golob or Jessie Duff have for being spokespeople during times such as this? I agree that they ought to be out there, but I don’t think either of those two people have experience working with NRA. The answer for those is pretty clear. Same with Mass Ayoob, Tom Gresham and Caleb; none of these people have worked closely with NRA as spokesmen before.
As for Marion Hammer and Sandy Froman, I think you’re going to see both of them out there as this progresses. The shorter answer is that anything other than Wayne or Keene being out there is going to be spun as weakness and cowardice on the part of NRA. It’s not going to inspire confidence in lawmakers.
Like I said, you go to war with the NRA you have.
As ever, you make sense. I just don’t like it. I do appreciate the necessity of having LaPierre and Keene speak for the organization in certain venues, but they’re screwing up if they can’t leverage the staggeringly telegenic new media stars, especially the female ones, of the past few years to their fullest.
I like to imagine (as if in the mind of a conspiracy-minded anti) black helicopters taking off from HQ and flying to Princeton LA to recruit Kay Miculek to go on the View.
I’ll buy you a case of Sam Adams if you’ll be Sam Adams.
A uniformed and armed security guard at the front door of the school will be the first one shot. Here is a better idea. Those of us that are retired oops, or retired military or even a retired teacher that shoots IDPA IPSC should volunteer to work as custodians (thats the cover, the kids and the shooter don’t knkow) Don’t wait for the police to arrive, have an undercover guy on campus all the time. I am 66 years old but I shoot better than 90% of the cops that bring me their score cards to be signed. For no pay at all I will be there every Thursday. Find four more guys for the other four days and our kids have protection at no cost to the tax payers.
That was suposed to say retired COPS. Too much christmas cheer will harm your typing.