Their version of the intolerable act failed to pass by several votes. Hopefully the rest of their agenda suffers the same fate, but this is quite promising. Why would Democrats want to jump on the sinking ship?

Shumer had kept the bogus “background check” bill under wraps, only putting forth a shell bill with no specifics. Well, he applied the text through an amendment at the last minute, before it passed. John Richardson has the details, including the text. I’ve only skimmed the details, but here’s the key problems:

• If you left town for more than 7 days, and left your gay partner, or unrelated roommate at home with the guns, you’d be committing a felony. This should be called the “denying gun rights to gays act.” Remember that the federal government does not recognize gay marriage, even if you’re state does, thanks to DOMA. 5 years in prison.
• Actually, even married couples are questionably legal, because the exemption between family only applies to gifts, not to temporary transfers. The 7 day implication is if you leave your spouse at home for more than 7 days, it’s an unlawful transfer, and you’re a 5 year felon. I suppose you could gift them to your spouse, or related co-habitant, and then have them gift them back when you arrive back home. Maybe the Attorney General will decide to create a form for that.
• It would be illegal to lend a gun to a friend to take shooting. That would be a transfer. 5 years in federal prison.
• Steals the livelihood of gun dealers by setting a fixed fee to conduct transfers. The fee is fixed by the Attorney General. What’s to prevent him from setting it at $1000?
• Enacts defacto universal gun registration, because of record keeping requirements.
• All lost and stolen guns must be reported to the federal and local government. This means everyone will have to fill out the theft/loss form, and not just FFLs. You only have 24 hours to comply. If you lose a gun on a hunting trip deep in the woods, and can’t get back home to fill out the form in 24 hours, you’re a felon and will spend 5 years in federal prison.
• Want to lend a gun to a friend to go hunting? It’s a 5 year in prison felony.
• No exception for state permits. All transfers must go through a dealer or 5 years in federal prison.
• UPDATE: Teaching someone to shoot on your own land is a felony, 5 years, if you hand them the gun. Not an exempted transfer.

We will go thermonuclear on anyone who votes for this crap, and that goes double for Republicans. It’s nothing more than an attempt to put more gun owners in prison. Schumer was wise to keep this under wraps, because his bill is truly draconian.  I not only expect the GOP to vote against this piece of crap bill, I expect them to filibuster it. Let’s see if the Democrats can get to 60 without any Republican support, and let’s see how many of them want to lose their seats in 2014.

This bill has nothing to do with ensuring people who are getting guns are law-abiding, and everything to do with getting backdoor registration, and creating a patchwork of rules and laws that will land anyone who uses guns, and isn’t a lawyer, in federal prison for a long time. Lots of otherwise law-abiding people are going to federal prison if this ends up passing, and I’m convinced that’s the whole idea.

The AR-15 represents 60% of civilian rifle sales. It’s funny, because for a second I thought the Courant was defending Dave Hardy, but it’s a different Hardy. The Court opened the door to a particular standard for dealing with gun bans, and I’m sincerely hoping they are willing to actually walk through it when these issues get to the Supreme Court.

This was to be expected, given the makeup of the committee. Passed with all 10 Democrats voting in favor, and all 8 Republicans voting against. These do not look to me like the votes of a party planning to sell us out. I think if we keep the pressure on, we can stop this crap. Most of those Democrats are very safe, though it still amazes Vermonters tolerate Leahy. Given the level of gun ownership in that state, can’t they find some gun-loving, whacky, anti-corporatist anarcho-lefty to run against him in a primary? Vermont is a strange, strange place, with strange, strange politics, but I think you should be able to gin up some anti-establishment sentiment among their voting public.

Also, it looks like the Feinstein gun ban is pushed off until Thursday.

We’ve been sort of joking about high-capacity soda cups, but a commenter pointed me to this piece by John Hinderaker of PowerLine that actually makes a serious case that the two are very similar. I agree, and I think it’s no coincidence that the architect of the high capacity soda cup ban is also putting his money and capital behind gun magazines he deems to be too large. It’s the same nanny instinct, the same conceit, and the same cultural condescension at work.

Not that I trust the House GOP leadership any farther than I can throw them, but the late stories coming out of Ammoland, Ammoland again, and Breitbart haven’t passed the smell test on further investigation. NAGR and VGOC, the groups highlighted by Ammoland, seem more interested in attacking NRA these days than attacking the gun control crowd, so I give no credibility to anything they say. Ammoland will reprint anyone’s press releases, no matter how poorly sourced. In other words, they don’t do their homework, and they are (or were) run by a PR company in New Jersey, out to make a buck. I wouldn’t, personally, trust any source that is in it for the SEO.

I’m not saying the House GOP definitely has our back, which is why we need to keep writing, but I think what happened here is that the Breitbart article by Ben Shapiro offered a pretext for the other two groups to attack NRA, and bring them into the sellout narrative. Part of the Breitbart article is sourced from this article at The Hill:

House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Sunday would not rule out passage of bills without the support of a majority of the chamber’s Republicans, saying only that Speaker Boehner (R-Ohio) was committed to finding GOP support for major legislation.

Every context they’ve violated the Hastert Rule so far as been a fiscal context. McCarthy was directly asked about other bills like immigration and gun control, and he chose not to answer directly, referring instead to Boehner’s earlier comments. I think that’s weak tea. Could they end up violating the Hastert Rule to pass gun control? Sure they could. Are they planning to do so actively? I think it’s a stretch, quite a stretch, to draw that conclusion from the statements made by McCarthy.

Keep writing your federal Senators (most important) and federal representatives (next most important). My big fear is that stories like this encourage the fatalistic among us, who will then fail to act because they think this is already a done deal, and nothing they do or say will matter. Let’s be focused on the real threats, and not rumors of threats, created by people who are drawing, to be charitable, questionable conclusions.