There are tabs to clear, and things to be done! But walking outside ain’t one of them, because it’s too effin hot.
Guidance issued by State Department on ITAR regulations and FFLs. This will require gunsmiths to register, which costs thousands of dollars a year, since the Administration has decided to label them “manufacturers.”
No, next question: are AR-15s assault rifles (warning, auto play video).
Gun club memberships in coastal New Hampshire on the rise. Note that the coastal areas are where a lot of fleeing Massachusetts people choose to settle, so a good sign.
“Knife Rights: The Unseen Side of the Second Amendment” This part of the movement has been enjoying a lot of quiet success.
This is not good news. The cause? Bloomberg’s money, pretty much.
You don’t say? New York Times argues that there might be a copycat effect in regards to mass shootings.
Joe Huffman on “proportional force.” This is found in a lot of other places, and it’s bunk. Deadly force is deadly force, and you should be allowed to defend yourself with deadly force.
Yes, there are still gun owners out there who are ignorant as hell,a n don’t mind advertising it to the world. They usually tend to be old fogies who don’t feel comfortable with changing technology and culture.
Derpwagon operators still in jail.
More women are viewing gun rights as a top issue.
Speaking of Dems and Guns, support for the Second Amendment has been erased from the Democratic Platform.
Chris Cox: “Clinton Supreme Court means ‘your right to own a firearm is gone’” I’ve seen lefty sites mocking this, but it’s absolutely true. Ginsburg has been pretty up front about her desire to overturn Heller and McDonald.
Gun cartoon of the day. The internet, for the most part, is becoming a wasteland. Especially social media.
Twitter plummets! We’re probably going to be removing our presence on Twitter in the near future. Their censorship of conservative views is becoming blatant, and it just plain sucks. I don’t care what they are censoring, a social media platform needs to be neutral if it is to be useful.
Why the NRA isn’t talking about guns. The real truth is that a few years ago, when NRA experienced a backlash from its membership over their past endorsement of Harry Reid, they discovered their members didn’t really give a shit about gun rights, so much as making sure NRA is on the “right side” of conservative issues.
The Guardian: “Hillary Clinton’s focus on guns is politically bold. Her solutions are old school.” Well, she’s an old white woman, the gun control crowd’s core base.
I have to agree with SayUncle that Trump played the Russian e-mail leak well. The best comment I’ve ever heard about Trump was “It’s like the comment sections of the Internet came to life as Donald Trump and decided to run for President.”
The Knife Rights story links to the Germany Mass Shooting story from July 22?
Fixed.
I wonder if the State Dept will accept the “didn’t mean to” defense to violating ITAR and not recommend fines or prosecution. The FBI accepted it for Hillary and her emails.
The State Dept would accept that for Hillary (as she is the former Sec. of State, and “didn’t mean to”), but the rest of us would be hosed.
Comey even indicated as much when he said that someone else in similar circumstances should not expect that leniency.
The DDTC’s new ITAR guidelines seem to be circumspectly aimed at “home builders” working on “80% complete” AR receivers, as that would require drilling and machining to complete.
Case in point:
Finishing an “80%” receiver would fall under that clause, wouldn’t it?
That the new guidelines might also put small gunsmiths out of business is, I’m sure, a happy side effect.
It says “engaged in the business” which is the same language as the Gun Control Act. So it would not appear to cover if you do your own building or gun smithing.
True, but the current administration has made it clear that they would prefer to interpret this language…loosely. And I wouldn’t trust the courts not to let them get by with this.
Trump is the first guy to run for president as a Twitter troll, and it’s going to make for amazingly entertaining debates. I imagine it will be like a pit bull shaking a rag doll…
RE: The NRA’s platform, I feel like this is something we end up discussing monthly now. While they occasionally foraged into other issues, I feel like the 2014 midterms marked the shift from them going against anti-gunners strictly from a 2A angle to one where they are labeled as hypocritical “elites”. A lot of the NRA’s ads now have that feel to them.
2008:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkYMWy_r3-s
2016:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Y0b0WhOOZY
Aside from the (thankfully) ridiculous upgrade in production quality, count how many times the word “elite(s)” is used. And also count how many times you hear anything to describe guns or the 2A.
With all that said, the one takeaway from the Politico article that I haven’t thought of until now, is maybe that the NRA is going to run on this message knowing that the establishment donors and PACs aren’t going to line up behind Trump. Is the NRA trying to fill that void by hitting Hillary on other issues?
” a backlash from its membership over their past endorsement of Harry Reid, they discovered their members didn’t really give a shit about gun rights, ”
Or maybe, just maybe, the membership figured out that supporting someone who will cheerfully confirm Administration flunkies and judges who will take away your Second Amendment rights with no accountability or recourse was a losing proposition even if he voted against actual laws to do so.
^ This ^
Reid is a leftard tool who never met a gun grabbing judge he didn’t like. The membership determined that support for transferring federal land to the county for a spiffy new gun range doesn’t really equate to supporting the 2nd Amendment.
Saying Putin should give us Hillary’s emails was gold. Coming back and claiming that suggestion was all sarcasm was pure platinum – it kept Trump and the emails in front of news watchers (even – especially – on liberal TV) all week.
So basically, Trump headlined both conventions and lived rent-free in progressive heads for two weeks, with the help of the progressive media.
Well played, Sir. Well played.
“Well, she’s an old white woman, the gun control crowd’s core base.”
On the race part, the latest demographic cross-cut that I’ve seen from Pew disagrees. It finds that both Hispanics and Blacks are more in favor of gun control than whites.
It also shows that younger women (and younger men) are more in favor of gun control than older women (and, similarly, older men)
The only part of your statement there that lines up with polling is that women are more in favor of gun control than men.
Source – http://www.pewresearch.org/files/old-assets/pdf/gun-control-2011.pdf
That poll is six years old.
You’re right, though for that to be a valid argument you’d have to present data that shows that opinions between demographic subsets has significantly shifted relative to each other in those 6 years.
Regardless, here’s one from 2015. http://www.people-press.org/2015/08/13/continued-bipartisan-support-for-expanded-background-checks-on-gun-sales/8-12-2015-3-59-05-pm/
It shows much the same thing from a race perspective. There do not appear to be age crosstabs on the question of whether it’s more important to protect gun rights or control gun ownership. If you click to the left (Image 6), there are more crosstabs on individual policy decisions. Blacks and young people favor federal registries as compared to the general population, and blacks also favor AWBs.
That’s not too surprising. The kids don’t share the same privacy concerns as older people, though I notice they are less likely to support bans.
In the post it was “Well, she’s an old white woman, the gun control crowd’s core base.”
But now it’s not surprising that minorities and younger people favor gun control?
I was just hoping for a bit more data-driven support rather than baseless claims. Misunderstanding the motivations and even demographics of our biggest opponents can lead to really bad decisions in terms of how we in the gun community communicate our points and effect change.
Have you ever been to a gun control rally and looked around?
I think what’s left unstated here, and what Sebastian has written extensively about, is the enthusiasm gap. How many gun rights supporters will vote 2A as compared to those who support gun control in this poll? That’s always where gun control has petered out.
The old white woman demographic who shows up at a gun control rally as compared to minority demographic is not even close. The folks who show up enthusiastically for gun control are mostly 60+ year old white women. That was what I gleaned from Sebastian’s post.
I also see a pretty sizable uptick in minority (mostly black) gun owners in other polls as of late.
“I am a supporter of the Second Amendment but I do not agree with the NRA in keeping the use of assault rifles legal and easily accessible.”
“I am a supporter of the Second Amendment except that I’m not because I don’t support exactly the thing it was written to protect.”