March 2013 – Page 7 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Living with Private Transfer Prohibitions

Pennsylvania has long prohibited private transfers of “firearms,” which are defined legally in our Uniform Firearms Act as:

Any pistol or revolver with a barrel length less than 15 inches, any shotgun with a barrel length less than 18 inches or any rifle with a barrel length less than 16 inches, or any pistol, revolver, rifle or shotgun with an overall length of less than 26 inches.

Our transfer prohibition is not quite as draconian as what the folks in Colorado will have to endure, and nor is it nearly as bad as what Chuck Schumer has proposed federally. But nonetheless, when it comes to living under such a prohibition, lax enforcement and prosecutorial discretion is what makes it possible to live with, because the truth is that Pennsylvanians are violating the state’s transfer prohibition on a regular basis without even knowing it. That prohibition can be found here:

(c) Â Duty of other persons.–Any person who is not a licensed importer, manufacturer or dealer and who desires to sell or transfer a firearm to another unlicensed person shall do so only upon the place of business of a licensed importer, manufacturer, dealer or county sheriff’s office, the latter of whom shall follow the procedure set forth in this section as if he were the seller of the firearm. The provisions of this section shall not apply to transfers between spouses or to transfers between a parent and child or to transfers between grandparent and grandchild.

Additionally, Pennsylvania prohibits “lending or giving” a “firearm,”Â with the following exceptions:

The person who receives the firearm is Licensed to Carry Firearms
The person who receives the firearm is exempt from licensing (e.g. cops)
People engaged in hunter safety, a firearm training program or competition sanctioned by the NRA.
Persons under 18, directly supervised by someone over 21 who is not prohibited.
To a person lawfully hunting.
Any transfer occurring only in the home or place of business.
Any bequest or inheritance

This was a blanket prohibition until 1995, when this admittedly weak set of exceptions was added.Â It’s unclear whether any firearm training program is exempted or only training programs sanctioned by NRA are exempted. What constitutes loaning is pretty well defined, but the law also prohibits giving, which is less well defined. Presumably handing a pistol to a fellow IHMSA (not an NRA competition) competitor who’s pistol went down might constitute illegal giving if he doesn’t have an LTC. Our law is still not very clear, despite far broader exceptions than federal and other state proposals currently. The exception for LTCs, which most Pennsylvanians who shoot have, at least removes quite a bit of ordinary legal hazard.

The big problem with “Universal Background Checks,” or more accurately, banning private transfers, is that you have to define transfers. Our opponents clearly want to define this as broadly as possible, to include even handing a gun to someone to shoot. Even with our exceptions, Pennsylvania law is only tolerable because of lax enforcement. For instance, I bought Bitter a little .22 revolver for Christmas one year. The “gift” is really just sort of an agreement. Legally, it’s my gun. She can take it shooting because she has an LTC. She can also carry my guns, again, because she has an LTC. If she did not, she can handle it in the house, but not take it outside the house. If she and I split, I’d have to formally transfer the gun into her name before she could remove it from my possession on a permanent basis. Many Pennsylvanians are unaware this is the law, and routinely commit serious crimes without realizing it.

If the anti-gunners have it their way in other states, and at the federal level, routine criminal acts will be in your future too, only worse, because the anti-gun folks have shown they aren’t willing to accept exceptions even as narrow as ours.

Sarah Brady: We Don’t Want to Prosecute Criminals

It’s interesting, NPR interviewed Sarah Brady to talk about current push for control.

They asked her about the argument that current gun laws are not actually being enforced. She didn’t answer and said that the problem is that gun control didn’t go far enough. So they directed her back to the actual question and asked a second time.

I think it’s very telling that she flat out says that they have no interest in actually seeing the prohibited people prosecuted.

SIMON: But again, let me get you to address the reservation some people have, that we really have good common sense gun control laws on the books now and they’re only sporadically successfully enforced.

BRADY: Well, in the first place, I don’t think many people feel that way unless you’re talking about are people prosecuted. I have heard complaints from the gun lobby about that. Because if they’re trying to purchase a gun and they were not able to, what the law does now – as far as it enforces it – is to not allow them to get a gun. And our main concern is not to prosecute these people as much as it is to have their complete background checked, so that anybody cannot buy a gun if they’re not qualified. (emphasis added)

So that means that The Brady Campaign isn’t concerned that a felon who tries to buy a gun may go out and steal one. By the logic put forth by their Chair, they think that’s just cause for another law on the gun owner who may be victimized by the felon instead of actually putting the felon behind bars again so that he will not try to steal a gun in the first place.

Fight Shaping up in Minnesota

A House committee is scheduled to debate a gun bill tomorrowÂ on background checks. The Senate in Minnesota is, meanwhile, reporting gun control out of committee. Now, as we well know by now, they might claim the issue is background checks, but that’s not the case at all. It’s really about changing the definition of transfer in an attempt to make gun ownership legally risky. Colorado’s bill is very similar to the federal bill. You can find the Senate bill here. I note this bill also redefines transfer to include temporary possession as well, and what’s even more pathetic is they failed to exempt spouses, and this time, you can’t leave home for even a day without affecting a transfer. It removes the exclusion for antique firearms. Also, it would seem you can’t even leave home for more than a day under this law without effectively affecting a transfer.

I currently live under a regime similar to the one Minnesota is proposing, and I don’t recommend it. First, it won’t work. They’ll be back for more gun control.

Would You Like Some MAIG on Your Wiener?

The Mayorship of New York has been the key MAIG Mayorship during the reign of King Bloomberg. But with his lordship’s term of office about to expire, who will it be to take the helm? Who will be the new, if perhaps symbolic leader of MAIG? Oh please, let it be him.

Headline of the Day

Feinstein Resigns

Unfortunately, as you read the article, it’s only from a subcommittee. Why? Because as Miguel notes, she seems to be her own military-industrial complex. Given she has previously held a concealed carry permit, and carried a firearm, it’s already pretty well established she’s a world class hypocrite. This just adds some icing to the cake.

More on Ammo Shortage

Some have speculated that the ammo shortage is a result of market manipulation by the government. I think the shortage is a social phenomena largely the same as a run on banks. All it takes is an initial panic to get it started, like say, the government threatening to steal 10% of deposits, in the case of banks, or the government threatening a rash of new, draconian gun laws, in the case of ammo. Once the initial panic buyers clear the shelves, then other people start to join the panic because the shelves are bare. Most gun owners don’t shoot all that often, and tend to buy ammo as they go rather than stockpile. If all those people decide they need to stockpile, because they don’t know when they’ll see another box of .223, the panic feeds on itself. Add to that the fact that you hear a lot of talk of coming civil wars in gun circles these days, and you have a recipe for bare shelves for quite some time. Are the huge government orders affecting the supply? I don’t know enough about the ammo business to speak to that, but it’s certainly not helping the panic.

How Bad is the Ammo Shortage?

It looks like it’s frustrating people who are in a rush to kill themselves.Â Bitter and I were following this story last night,Â of a guy in a standoff at our local Dick’s, who held up the counter with a handgun, stole a shotgun, some shotgun ammo, and headed into the bathroom.Â I told her:

“He’s probably suicidal. I’ll bet he offed himself in the bathroom. Moreover, how much do you want to bet he obtained the 9mm pistol to do the deed, and has been driving around looking for ammo. Frustrated he couldn’t find any, he ends up at Dick’s, who doesn’t have any 9mm ammo either, but they have shotgun shells. Out of options, he uses the empty pistol to hold up the Dick’s to get a shotgun, grabbed some shells from the shelves, and headed to the bathroom to kill himself.”

It’s looking like I was right. I could have saved the cops a lot of trouble. I was going to blog this last night, but Bitter talked me out of it, thinking it was a reaching conclusion. I said “I’ll bet you they find out he had no ammo for that pistol. If they find that, I’m posting it.” What makes this a real tragedy is that someone else is going to have to clean that mess up. To me, if someone wants to off themselves, that’s their business. But please, don’t do it somewhere that someone else gets stuck with the mess. That’s just inconsiderate.

MAIG Mayor Holds Hostage with a Gun

Mayor James Schiliro of Marcus Hook, Pennsylvania, a member of Michael Bloomberg’s MAIG coalition, is in some hot water. Charges haven’t been filed yet, but that’s because police have been rounding up evidence and executing search warrants to fully investigate him for using a city police officer to shuttle a friend to his house, providing alcohol to that minor friend upon arrival, and then holding that underage friend hostage – with three handguns – in his home while his teenage daughter was in the house. He also fired off a round that, fortunately, didn’t hit anyone. (Part of the evidence recovered included a spent casing and what sounds like a section of that floor.)

Interestingly, MAIG has already scrubbed his name from their public lists. They are getting faster at trying to hide their role as a network of criminal mayors.

Getting Into Their Culture – College Edition

The Northwestern Chronicle, a conservative/libertarian paper at Northwestern University, has started a gun blog. Their first post? Their argument for why the AR-15 is a great gun:

The question should be what canâ€™t you do with it. Would you like to hunt? Get a nice scope and a 6.8 mm SPC conversion kit with some 5 round magazines. Just switch out the bolt assembly, barrel, and magazine and it fires a whole new bullet. Way cheaper than buying a different gun. How about target shooting? Put the .223 Remington parts back in, load up some 30 round magazines and ping steel targets to your heartâ€™s content. Want to shoot in competitions? Buy some cool looking sights, lasers, or grips. Speed shoot in the 3-gun circuit. Donâ€™t want to buy any fancy bells and whistles for the rifle? Shoot with iron sights in Service Rifle competitions.

Friday Mini News Dump

I hate to do this two days in a row, but with a quarterly meeting today, and a busy day yesterday, my mind is elsewhere right now:

Great moments in police gun handling. Newsflash for the anti-gunners: police are drawn from the gun culture, generally, and to the extent that they aren’t, they benefit from it. Notice all these stories come out of New York? What doesn’t New York have? Oh yeah, a legal gun culture.

Dave Hardy, who is an attorney and gun law expert, has taken a look at the background check bill, S.374, and largely verified my conclusions from earlier. Second Amendment attorney beats snarky hill staffer who showed up in the comments tell me I was crazy and paranoid.

The Wicked Witch of the West’s assault weapons ban destined for legislative limbo? Let’s hope so, but keep communicating with lawmakers.

Anti-gun protesters apparently got a bit disruptive at NRA headquarters.Â â€œToday, the NRA has demonstrated that they donâ€™t want to listen, that they donâ€™t want to hear from families, and that they donâ€™t want to have a productive conversation to make Americaâ€™s families safer.” I think the problem is that we have vastly different ideas about how to accomplish that. You don’t make me or anyone else safer by disarming me.

We’ve beaten them back in Washington State. This is very welcome news. Great show for those in the Evergreen State. This blue state would have been a welcome prize for Obama and Bloomberg.

Newtown parents pushing Silicon Valley to make guns safer. I hate to tell these folks, but there’s no safe gun. Guns are inherently dangerous. The way to make guns safer is to make people safer. You know who’s been doing that for years? NRA. The reason we don’t have smart guns is because no one wants them. And why would you? Guns are a lot more reliable than any electronic gadget I’ve ever used, and they need to be.

Obama is continuing to have trouble in the polls. This is great news for the Second Amendment. The more unpopular he becomes, the less pull he’s going to have convincing wavering Democrats to take the plunge and vote for gun control.

Diane Feinstein’s gun policy a product of PTSD? Certainly seems that way.

A right deserves a single, uniform standard. I agree this is a core value. To Bloomberg and his ilk: It’s worth noting that Congress has Section 5 powers under the 14th Amendment to protect fundamental constitutional rights. It’s also worth noting that gun owners are mobilized for action like I’ve never seen them. Â I’d lastly note that paybacks are hell. You started this fight. We will finish it. That’s a promise. A single uniform standard, and one I can promise you will not like.