July 2015 – Page 5 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Charge of the hobbyhorse brigade

The story of the Katie Steinle killing has taken a new direction, with the “breaking news” that the gun used by her killer was stolen from the car of a federal agent; though whether it was a service weapon or personally owned is an open question at this writing. And the right-hand-side of my internet is all about the carelessness of the agent (with gratuitous Project Gunwalker references as well.) I was already somewhat uncomfortable with how this story is being used by the right to saddle up and go after immigration policy, because the drifter who picked up a gun and let his DTs pull the trigger (his own explanation, basically) happened to be an illegal alien – as though only an illegal alien could have committed this tragedy. But if the owner of the firearm hadn’t been a federal agent, the very same people pointing and laughing would instead be pre-emptively defending the firearm owner and waiting for the other side to wave their bloody shirt for the cause of lost-and-stolen, and firearms registration, and strict liability.

Someone was tragically and negligently killed last week, by another person who is, by the accounts I’ve seen, remorseful and at least partially willing to accept responsibility (he appears to have pleaded not guilty in his first court appearance, despite the admission of guilt in the interview). Using it as an example of Something Must Be Done is just as much waving the bloody shirt as what the other side does under other circumstances. I get it, tragedy grabs eyeballs, and it’s tempting to try and use that to advance a cause. But if I don’t like it when the other side does it, I oughtÂ to also not like it when “my” side does it. And I don’t.

Taxing a Civil Right

Seattle is proposing taxing guns and ammunition. The tax would be $25 dollars on firearms, and 5 cents on each round of ammunition. This would probably put every dealer within city limits out of business, which is probably the idea. By all rights, this should be unconstitutional, because in the context of other rights, these kinds of taxes have been held as such, but the courts have shown almost no willingness to protect the Second Amendment as anything other than a second class right, subordinate to all the others.

I think Scalia and Thomas’s dissent in denial of cert forÂ JacksonÂ will act as signal to the lower courts that Heller and McDonald are going to be more like Lopez and Morrison;Â odd, outlying cases rather than landmark rulings which change everything. I hate to be pessimistic, but without change, it’s pretty apparent the Court will not be revisiting the Second Amendment.

That said, I think a pretty good argument could be made in Washington State courts that such a tax violates Washington State’s preemption statute, which has pretty strong language. Surely if a local municipality can’t regulate the sale of firearms and ammunition, it can’t accomplish the same by trying to tax sales out of existence. Washington State also has a RKBA provision, and there’s nothing that prevents Second Amendment claims to be considered by Washington State courts.

More Dumb Lawsuits

Rev. Michael “Snuffy” Pfleger has a problem. He can’t sue gun shops anymore, because they are immune from frivolous lawsuits under PLCAA, and he can’t sue the state or federal government, because they have sovereign immunity. So what’s a radical gun hating Catholic priest to do? Well, sue the town the gun shops are in, of course, under the theory they aren’t keeping a close enough eye on what’s going on in their towns. Our opponents have done very well in the courts, largely because the legal establishment doesn’t think too much of the Second Amendment. I can’t think of any better way of helping change that than by repeated filing of frivolous lawsuits that simple waste the generally very limited time of judges and the court system.

Bernie Sanders Upsetting the Mouth Foamers

Bernie Sanders, the socialist candidate for the Democratic Nomination who’s been eating Hillary’s lunch, is a moderate on guns. He’s not as pro-gun as we would like him to be, but by the standards of the modern Democratic Party, he’s much better on our issue than anyone else in the Democratic field, save maybe Jim Webb (who doesn’t have a chance). Bernie says, “I think I can bring us to the middle.â€ One group that’s having none of that are the mouth foamers over at CSGV, having a conniption over the idea that they shouldn’t be allowed to file frivolous lawsuits against gun manufacturers. Sanders’ says:

Now, the issues that youâ€™re talking about is, if somebody has a gun and it falls into the hands of a murderer, and that murderer kills somebody with the gun, do you hold the gun manufacturer responsible? Not anymore than you would hold a hammer company responsible if somebody beat somebody over the head with a hammer. That is not what a lawsuit should be about.

CSGV is upset because Sanders just exposed to everyone, on the left I might add, how utterly ridiculous and radical groups like CSGV, Brady, and Everytown have become. Even the socialist can’t buy into their “common sense,” and certainly isn’t helping them perpetuate their deception. To make matters even worse for CSGV, you have outfits like MSNBC saying, “Overall, Iâ€™m generally skeptical that gun policy represents a real threat to Sandersâ€™ support from the left.” Could that be because, as we’ve been arguing all along, that no one on the left really cares all that much about gun control?

I’d never vote for Bernie Sanders, but I admire his being up front and honest about his values. At least I know what I’m dealing with. He’s not an empty suit floated on behalf of bomb throwing radicals, trying to sell himself as some sort of moderate by reading a mean speech off a teleprompter. I hope he gives Hillary a run for her money.

Constitutional Carry Update for New England

Governor Hassan has vetoed the Constitutional Carry bill that was passed by the New Hampshire legislature. It’s worth nothing that Constitutional Carry in Maine is still awaiting the signature of Governor LePage, who is now saying he won’t sign it because the age is 21 rather than 18. I can’t find fault with the Governor’s reasoning, but I have to wonder if this is a game, because LePage has been saying he won’t sign anything until the legislature repeals the income tax. This being a way to live up to his promise, while appearing to be more pro-gun than thou.

I’d call his bluff and pass one that’s allows carry for those 18 and older, but I don’t know if we’d still have enough votes. Perhaps we can get this overridden? They’ve certainly been willing to do it for other bills. Constitutional Carry is a difficult issue. It’s been harder to get these bills done and made into law. It’s only going to be continued pressure from our people that will help get this done.

Major Loss for Antis in Court

You remember how Trinity Wall Street church sued Wal-Mart over their selling of AR-15s? The church is a shareholder in Wal-Mart, and they tried to get a proxy ballot put in place that would allow shareholders to vote on whether to tell the Board of Directors to implement standards for gun sales. They had won in district court, but the Third Circuit Court of appeals overturned that decision, arguing that the shareholders were trying to inject themselves directly into Wal-Mart’s business operations, and federal law permits the company to reject attempts to do that. Needless to say, this is good news. If this had been permitted, it would create a template by which anti-gun people could attack all the large FFLs. This ruling is limited to the Third Circuit, but since the Third Circuit encompasses Delaware, and a very large number of businesses incorporate there, this will cover most big companies they might try this with.

Things aren’t going to well for the Brady Center to Cling to Relevance either. A judge has rebuked their complaintÂ against a local FFL, and told them they had 20 days to amend their lawsuit to remove what the judge saidÂ â€œpushes a social agendaâ€ and has nothing to do with the suit. They are not off to a very good start, making a poor impression with the judge.

Homebrew Chiller Update

A few weeks ago I mentioned I was working on a home brew setup to act as a fermentation chamber, and a few people asked for updates, so here’s one. Typically a fermentation chamberÂ is done with a deep freeze or dorm refrigerator using a separate thermostat for temperature control. The gold standard for dorm fridge setups was the Sayno 4912, which sadly has been discontinued, and are now difficult to come by. I’m lucky enough to have one, but it is currently set up as a kegerator. While the 4912 will take a full 6.5 gallon carboy, and works great as a fermentation chamber, as long as I’m using it for fermentation I’m not using it to keep beer on tap, and I consider that to be a big problem.

Continue reading “Homebrew Chiller Update”

Positive Coverage on Gun Culture 2.0

I had expressed skepticism a while back about getting a fair story out of NBC on guns, but despite Newsbusters pooh-poohing piece, I find no fault with how any of the participants handled Farrow’s jabs:

The end result, I think, is a pretty fair piece. I think it’s clear from the lines of questioning, they would have exploited any opportunities here, but the interviewees didn’t give them much to work with.

I’m very torn on the value of speaking to media. With rare exceptions, I’ve ignored media inquires unless the person contacting me is someone known to be fair. But the other side of the coin is getting our message out there.

Weekly Gun News – Edition 6

Pretty clearly I need to do a better job of keeping this feature a weekly one, or I’m going to have to change it to biweekly gun news. So what gun news is there? Let’s clean out the tabs!

A reasonably balanced article in Jezebel about moms and guns.

NRA directly addresses the impact of Obergefell on concealed carry reciprocity. I really hope no one ends up going to jail because they believed this.

CNN’s Lynne Russell: “If you donâ€™t want to carry please donâ€™t. Then, shut the f–k up about it. Make your own decisions.” Good for her. Minding other people’s business has become an epidemic in this country.

Are school shootings contagious? We in the gun blogosphere have been saying for a while that the media attention the killers get are the prime mover for mass slayings. Not that they should, but no one will speak of restricting the media from glorifying the killer, because of the First Amendment. A shame the Second doesn’t draw as much respect.

Jacob Sullum: “‘If Congress had passed some common-sense gun safety reforms after Newtown,’ President ObamaÂ saidÂ on Friday, ‘we don’t know if it would have prevented what happened in Charleston.’ Actually, we do know:”

NRA a hate group? Yes, says gun control group.

A review of the Walther CCP.

Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy is trying to shut down the nation’s largest FFL, arguing that Walmart can’t possibly sell guns responsibility. Remember folks, they aren’t after your guns, only trying to ensure you don’t have anywhere to buy one. Common sense gun laws!

Of course, the gun ban lobby, much like our President, is lately enamored with Australia’s gun laws, which conducted a forced confiscation.

Positive coverage of the gun issue in…. the Boston Globe?

Chris Christie is trying very hard to ease his problems with gun owners, but he’s got a few other bills he’ll be expected to veto coming up. I just don’t see how he’s going to get through the primaries as a blue state Republican governor. But then again, I never would have expected Donald Trump to jump into the number two slot, ever.

Leland Yee takes a plea deal on racketeering charges.

Top three contenders for the XM17 modular handgun program.

Remember,Â gun control groups claim that guns are less regulated than teddy bears.

There is an effort in New Jersey to recall Stephen Sweeney. As a wise man once said: punch back twice as hard.

Hey, Uber, how’s that anti-gun policy working out for ya?

Off Topic:

Greeks vote for free money to fall from the skies. Eventually socialism runs out of other people’s money. The Germans have snatched back their credit card and probably aren’t giving it back. This will not end well. Take a hard look though, because this will be us eventually, if things don’t change. It’s already partly here.

On that George Takai thing calling Justice Thomas a “clown in blackface,” I couldn’t agree more with Ace. I was surprised he apologized. Who was going to force that? Certainly not the media, and certainly not the Social Justice Warriors.

Thom Anderson of SC Morning News Parades Ignorance

YellowJournalism

I was going to place this in the Weekly Gun News, but reviewing it, I couldn’t waste a perfectly good yellow journalism post. Thom Anderson of the South Carolina Morning News doesn’t understand all this icky gun stuff. That’s OK, not everyone does. But a wiser person would leave it at that. Not Mr. Anderson, however:

Really? Can you imagine that guy wading into a crowd and killing nine people with a knife? He quickly would have found the knife shoved exactly where it belonged. A gun is the only thing that would have enabled him to commit this act or enable a weak, cowardly person to do such killing.

I don’t have to imagine it, becauseÂ it happenedÂ with a death toll as high as Virginia Tech, the worst mass shooting in the this country. In fact, knife attacks are not uncommon in China, and the death tolls are higher than you would think, often with far more horrific woundings.

Terrible acts with guns seldom happen in other countries. In the United States, they are frequent because an overly influential right-wing minority sincerely fears that gun confiscation is just around the corner, and many politicians profit from that fear.

Were you asleep or unconscious on 22 July 2011? Worst mass shooting in history, and happened outside the United States.Â This claim, echoed by our President, was too much even for the biased folks at PolitifactÂ toÂ abide by. Seems other DemocratsÂ have been on a rollÂ with this one too. Dave Hardy has even more on this topic. The idea that this seldom happens in other countries is indefensible. He goes on to conclude, “[I]t would be even nicer to see our near-worship of guns decline and the 2nd Amendment brought back to the use The Founders intended.” Oh, what pray tell might that be, Mr. Constitutional scholar? At least with this claim, he managed to follow this sage advice.