The law review article by Clayton Cramer, Joe Olson, and Dave Kopel, arguing that knives are just as much deserving of Second Amendment protection as firearms, has just hit the printers. I’d also throw chemical defensive sprays, tasers, and electric stun guns into that mix eventually as well, but one step at a time. Knives are probably among the oldest arms human beings recognize, and currently have far less legal protection than firearms. I can carry a Glock 19 into the City of Philadelphia and there’s nothing the corrupt politicians can do about it. But they absolutely could pinch for for carrying a 3 inch folding knife. Firearms regulation enjoy statewide preemption. Knives and other weapons? Not so much.
Year: 2013
Hunting is Doomed, Exhibit B
Despite not being a hunter myself, I’ve “unliked” a lot of pages on Facebook this week over the outrage regarding Melissa Bachman’s South African safari. It’s not that I think people can’t have different opinions about hunting, but at least know what it is you’re really opposing before getting worked up and outraged. I’ve also just hit my limit for people who preach tolerance and understanding, but who then turn around and display the opposite out of ignorance. My patience for it has worn out. Continuing on my assertion that hunting is in a lot of trouble, I bring you this from the comments of George Takei’s post joining in the Bachman hate:
This is the old “I’m a gun owner, but ….” just in another context. This kind of attitude is what’s going to kill hunting, because hunters still think it’s OK to argue about what hunting is and isn’t. This guy has just giving close to 6000 people, on a page “liked” by millions, moral cover for their outrage at a fellow hunter. Hunters will sell the animal rights movement the rope they will use to hang them. If you want to understand why in the shooting community, we’re so quick to knife traitors, this is why. Hunting has to develop the same kind of message discipline if they want their pastime to survive.
Hunting pays for the vast majority of wildlife conservation in this world, and hunters have been at the forefront of preserving nature and the environment. It was the famous hunter and president, Teddy Roosevelt, who helped establish the North American model for wildlife conservation. Hunting has a great story to tell. More importantly, it has a great green story to tell. It’s story has great appeal across a broad spectrum of non-hunters. But how can hunting tell its story when hunters are busier throwing other hunters under the bus than they are fighting for hunting’s future?
UPDATE: Why, for instance, did it take a non-hunter to put out a spectacular defense like this?
Petty Tyrants & Nannies
You’ll need to pardon me for venting, but I’m just getting really sick of petty tyrants and nanny staters in all walks of life. It’s not just in the gun issue. It turns out that my newest hobby – genealogy – has some rather extreme examples, as I have recently discovered.
Getting into genealogy, you quickly learn that you will never stop learning and that you’ll never know everything. You have to understand people, families, history, local issues to where everyone was living, etc. The best example of just how complicated it can get just doing the paperwork genealogy is in this summary of a shifting political boundary situation highlighted in a DAR brochure: “Thus, in 1800, a man who had lived on the same land in Mason County for less than a quarter of a century had resided in two states and five counties, and he had not moved an inch!” This doesn’t include the nightmare of different record keeping requirements for different times and states. In other words, you have to be a naturally curious person who is eager to learn in order to effectively and correctly conduct genealogical research.
Now, mix in genetic genealogy. This means taking DNA tests to discover genetic cousins who you might not have found yet doing traditional genealogy. This also means learning even more about science so you know how to use those results, along with everything you need to know about traditional genealogy. In other words, you have to be a seriously inquisitive person to really take up this hobby. Sebastian and I are pretty inquisitive folks, so we’ve been learning quite a lot as we go along.
To supplement our learning, I joined a Facebook group set up by super users of an atDNA comparison tool to learn from the conversations and questions that come up there. It’s administered by a couple of women who are very experienced with genetics, so I have learned some things. (For example, there’s a ~50% chance that any of your given 4th cousins won’t show up as a DNA match, despite the fact that you both likely carry at least some DNA from the people who were your common ancestors.) However, I recently discovered that these women are kind of psychotic gatekeepers. It’s like the worst stereotypes of the church trying to keep the masses uneducated for their own good in that place.
I merely argued that Maryland’s current system that restricts DNA testing through companies like 23andMe is silly because people shouldn’t be given barriers to their own genetic information. Good lord, it’s like I advocated for complete anarchy. “But people might get confused!” “But people might not interpret something correctly!” “What if someone makes a bad decision?” Suggesting that people make poor decisions every day and that there are already many things that confuse many people, and that maybe confusion is what inspires learning got me banned. Yup, banned. (More about the NY & MD restrictions on DNA testing here if you’re interested.)
We’re not talking guns here, folks. We’re talking education. They were appalled that I would suggest opening up the doors of testing that might lead more people to better understand their own personal DNA. I was actually criticized for being possibly more reasonable than other people and daring to assume that others are even capable of being as logical as I might be.
But it didn’t stop there.
Someone posted a link to a genetic genealogy blogger who recently solved a 30-year genealogy mystery through DNA connections and she used thresholds lower than normal to do it. They are normally thresholds of measuring DNA that aren’t worth investigating because they are too small to easily point you in the right direction. However, because this woman has discovered many genetic cousins and identified their common ancestors, she knows how to effectively use these smaller connections and tells people about her success. In the group run by petty tyrants, she was condemned for daring to share her discovery because somewhere, someone might possibly read it and get their hopes up about making connections on these small shared DNA segments.
So, in other words, they are against giving people access to their DNA results since someone might get confused. They are against bloggers blogging about how they have successfully used DNA results to make genealogical discoveries because someone might get confused. They are against allowing conversation on topics which might confuse people, too. (They recently announced a ban in the group on conversations about smaller segment DNA matches since even the conversation might confuse people.) To me, it was like the BS that Chicago initially tried to pull after McDonald – you need training, but we won’t allow ranges where you can learn. The same thing in Boston (assuming they still do this) where you have to shoot a certain score on a target to get your gun license, but you can’t buy your own handgun to practice with until you get the license.
I don’t know how you solve this problem when their ultimate goal is to keep people stupid. Clearly, this is not a new attitude in human history. We’ve seen it repeated over and over. Regardless, it still drives me nuts since I can’t seem to get away from them, even when I take up a new hobby!
NSSF Considered Leaving Newtown
This is interesting. According to an AP interview with NSSF’s CEO, they considered moving their Newtown headquarters where they have been for 20 years in response to the shooting there.
The article says that even though they didn’t get political until the gun control proposals that would hurt the industry were brought up, their employees who were also impacted by the shooting were still bothered by neighbors who complained about their presence.
Looks Gimmicky
SayUncle has a video highlighting a new AR-15 trigger system. It looks to me like a semi-auto trigger, just one where the characteristics of the trigger change if you switch it to the fun setting. My guess is that the switch makes it a hair trigger, which is easier to fire faster. If you look at the video, it looks like the shooter is squeezing for each round fired.
I’m not sure why you wouldn’t just put a good trigger in your AR, though. The primary benefit, that I can see, is that it allow you to look all cool to the other dudes at the range by flipping your selector to the “auto” setting. The marketing seems to suggest this special trigger will make you a total high-speed, low drag, badass. Because of this, I expect it will sell well.
Philadelphia Bans 3D Gun Printing
Which is interesting, because the author of the bill, Kenyatta Johnson, isn’t aware of of any local gun-printing 3-D printers. â€It’s all pre-emptive,†says Johnson’s director of legislation Steve Cobb. “It’s just based upon internet stuff out there.â€
It’s not “preemptive,” it’s just stupid. It’s up there in terms of ignorance with burning witches. It’s not going to preempt anybody, because no one is going to be dissuaded from hitting “Print …” if they are seriously intending to cause harm. It is also quite arguably, and ironically, given Johnson’s quote, preempted by state law banning cities and local communities from regulating firearms.
It is not unusual for people who don’t understand new technology to be frightened by it. That goes double if you’re a politician. The same primitive fears of the unknown were responsible for all manner of laws when the automobile first appeared, or really any new technology first appeared on the scene. Life among the barbarians, I suppose.
New Rules on Lost and Stolen Guns?
Apparently the Obama Administration are drafting new rules, along with ATF, who know a thing or two about losing track of guns, I hear:
Currently, gun dealers with a federal license are required to tell federal agents after they discover a firearm has gone missing, but they aren’t required to do routine checks.
“They can discover a gun missing today and have no idea when it went missing, which really makes that information useless to law enforcement,†said Chelsea Parsons, associate director of crime and firearms policy at the Center for American Progress.
The White House office has 90 days to review the proposed rule before releasing it to the public and allowing them to comment.
My guess is they will require inventory be taken on some ridiculous and burdensome regular interval. Anything to harass more dealers out of the business. What’s interesting it that appropriations riders prevent ATF from implementing such a rule. This is definitely something to keep an eye on.
Using the Ballot
Initiative 594 is gaining in Washington State. This would enact a Schumer-style ban on handing a firearm to someone else for purposes of instruction, etc, without a background check. Ace of Spades had a very astute observation on this phenomena, only in this case in the context of Obamacare:
It has long been my contention that it makes no sense to poll questions simply about the “goodies” of Obamacare, like “do you support free health care for the poor or sick.” Everyone’s in favor of that. Including myself.
Yes, I’m in favor of that, and so are all of you – if we do not ask the question in connection with the costs. Of course I’d like everyone to have free health care; in fact, since we’re asking about things I just want, I’d strongly prefer to live in a disease-free world where no one ever gets sick at all.
But questions of policy are only answerable in consideration of the costs. Do I favor a manned mission to Mars? You bet I do. Do I favor such a mission, if it costs $60 billion over ten years? No, I don’t.
And for a polling company to ask the question without asking about my sensitivity to the cost of it, and then to report me as being in favor of it, is misleading and stupid.
You can only gauge someone’s actual support for a policy by informing that person of the likely costs they’ll be forced to bear to have that policy. But for four years, virtually everyone in a position of responsibility sought to hide those costs from the public.
That’s the problem with this issue as well. Polling on background checks amounts to no more than an affirmation that people don’t want criminals to get their hands on guns. But public polling on this issue never speaks of the costs of doing so, such as not being able to engage in firearms instruction in some circumstances, going to jail if you lend a rifle or shotgun to a friend to go hunting or shooting, or being unable to leave guns with a friend if you’re experiencing some kind of personal crisis. I 594 is likely to pass, because like public polling, the ballot question will never explain the costs.
Federal Ban on Printing Guns?
Chucky Schumer wants to put the cat back in the bag:
“If the legislation is not renewed, individuals will be able to easily carry a 3D plastic gun through a metal detector and gain access to an airplane, school, sporting event, courthouse or other government buildings,” Schumer said in a statement.
And how is this going to stop that? This is about as effective as a “no guns” sign. The cat is out of the bag here, and it’s not going back in.
Schumer raised alarm bells, saying anyone with $1,000 and an internet connection can access those CAD files and make their own guns, making it too easy to bypass security at airports, sporting events or any other venue that relies on metal detectors or x-ray machines for security.
And that will still be true even after you pass a law. So what is this going to do? Other than land people with a little too much curiosity for their own good in prison. Is it really so hard to understand that people intent on bypassing airport screening tend to be what we call “highly motivated” criminals, and are thus the least likely to be dissuaded by the fact that there’s a law against hitting “Print”
h/t Jacob
Wednesday News Dump
It’s a busy week for me, but I still have some news in the tabs:
Just when you think his 15 minutes is over …Â I think I’d consider joining a monastic order if I were him.
They ban lead ammunition, and then tell us the alternatives are ‘armor piercing’. The EPA and lead opponents are also putting the squeeze on copper in addition to lead.
Why are anti-gunners so violent?
Jeff Soyer also has another “I’m a gun owner, but…” story.
Josh Prince has an update on the Erie case in Pennsylvania. This is very important case because if this goes pear shaped, it’ll significantly weaken preemption.
The Pottstown, PA Police Athletic League is raffling off a Tavor. But I thought cops were on their side?
Miguel highlights a proposed 28th Amendment repealing the 2nd. It’s laughable. It says I get to assess a 4% income tax. On who?
Banning private transfers is rearing it’s ugly head in New Mexico. The Dems are going to try to do this in every state they control.
Dave Hardy highlights an interesting study by Yale sociologists.
At least one police chief isn’t so keen on weapon-mounted flashlight. Well, there’s going to be that temptation to use the gun as a flashlight.
Home made submachine guns seized in Australia. Gun Control can never work in a technology environment where you can manufacture things like this out of your garage.
Good to see Michelle Obama helping the NRSC for 2014.
John Stossel rejected for a NYC pistol license.
“I am encouraged to report increasing evidence that gun control is an old white guy’s movement. ”