November 2016 – Shall Not Be Questioned

More Culture Killing Gun Legislation in New Jersey

New Jersey is going to be so screwed when Christie leaves office, it’s not even funny. DemsÂ are looking to impose onerous regulations on shooting ranges in New Jersey with the aim to prevent suicides. This is not about preventing suicides, it’s about destroying the gun culture in New Jersey.

Every gun owner would be required to present NJ firearms credentials to the owner or operator of a range before being allowed to useÂ their own firearmsÂ on that range, every time they use the range. What if youâ€™re from out of state?Â Sorry.Â What if the club doesnâ€™t have staff to check credentials?Â Too bad.

I won’t take a firearm into New Jersey, even legally. But I know people who compete over there. This will effectively end that if they don’t have a non-resident FID card (which is really a good idea to have if you’re going to be transporting firearms in New Jersey).

Shooting activity could only occur where staff exists to check credentials.Â Unstaffed ranges would lose members (because members wouldnâ€™t be allowed to shoot there), many clubs would be forced to close.

This would essentially close every club in New Jersey. It would make it impossible to bring new shooters into the sports, since they would essentially need to apply for and receive an FID card before they could even try it out. This would destroy the shooting culture in New Jersey, and that’s exactly what it’s intended to do. Suicide prevention is a ruse. Christie has shown a willingness to veto legislation like this, and will probably continue to do so as long as he’s in office, but it’s going to be hell to pay if Christie is replaced with an anti-gun Democrat.

Well, That Didn’t Take Long

Looks like the pendulum has swung back to having to argue, “No, burning the flag is speech protected by the First Amendment, and it ought to be.” Of course, no sooner are conservatives starting the flag burning debate again,Â some folks on the left acting like this is some kind of fringe, extremist position.

Nope. Hate to tell you, the American People like protecting speech they like, and don’t have issues restricting speech they don’t like. Actually, one could argue that the broad protections we have for First Amendment rights now are a product of elite opinion.

Record Black Friday for Guns

I’m starting to wonder if the gun sales were never really so much panic, but actually representative of a greater cultural shift on the issue. Dave Hardy has been saying that for a while. If we don’t see a significant drop in gun sales with the new Administration, there’s a good chance this is a broader cultural shift.

That would be a good thing, even if it’s people on the left stocking up in panic over Trump. This is a very American thing. It would also be good if that shift is the people who are becoming gun owners are doing more shooting, getting more training, and buying more guns. There are way more opportunities for this than when I first bought a gun 16 years ago. A lot more. My only regret for new shooters is that it’s a lot more expensive now than it was back then. I remember buying my first case of 1000 7.62x39mm non-corrosive for 89 bucks.

Weekly Gun News – Edition 51

Hopefully I have enough actual gun news to make this work. I thought we were going to have our first post-election mass shooting first, but it looks to be a dude plowed into students at Ohio State with a car and then began stabbing them. I am not eager to see Trump tested if we were to have another really awful mass shooting.

Rolling Stone: All-American Killer: How the AR-15 Became Mass Shooters’ Weapon of Choice. Actually, the handgun is the weapon of choice for mass shooters. Could have been written by Bloomberg’s people themselves, from the magazine that bought you rape hoaxes.

Tamara Keel: Building a Handgun Starter Kit.

Where has this guy been for the past two decades? “Not everyone who owns a gun is a fan of the NRA. Not everyone who doesn’t own a gun wants to stop others from having them. Now if we could only find a way to get those special-interest groups together for a nice argument.” We’ve been having that argument. Their side is losing it.

Glenn Reynolds in Florida Law Review: “Permissible Negligence and Campaigns to Suppress Rights.” He compares the PLCAA to New York Times v. Sullivan, a landmark Freedom of the Press case.

Pennsylvania Superior Court has vacated its previous decision on carry on Primary and Secondary School Campuses. The case will be reheard.

I thought Trump was going to do this? Troops in US can now carry.

Suddenly it’s minorities who are interested in purchasing guns. As I saw on the Internet: “Come for the panic. Stay for the freedom.”

Background Check Laws May Actually Interfere With Suicide Prevention Efforts. No kidding? We were saying that before Bloomberg start spending millions to get these passed via the ballot and deceptive advertising, but we were told to fuck off. I am really looking forward to carrying legally in New York City.

Andrew Branca:Â The Journal of American Medical Association disgraces itself by publishing a fatally flawed study of Floridaâ€™s â€˜Stand Your Groundâ€™ Law.

Truth Getting Harder to Find These Days

I’ve been seeing the ongoing controversy over Standing Rock and the Dakota Access Pipeline, but this is one of those cases I feel like everyone involved, regardless of the “side” they are on, is lying to me. I’d imagine that, given the intersection of US Tribal Law, rights-of-way, easements, etc, it’s probably a lot more complicated, in which case no one outside of a handful of lawyers really understands the actual issues.

Part of the problem in the return to partisan media is that you can’t count on anyone to give an impartial account of the issue, even if it’s complicated. Sure, the old media had bias, but it was easier to see through that. It’s a lot harder when you’re dealing with media outlets that are willing to outright lie to you to advantage their preferred narrative.

I remember in the golden days of blogging, back when we were all hobbyists thinking we were fighting the man. By that time the media might have been the sick old man, but they were still the man. Well, the man is basically gone, and in those days we never thought all that hard about what would replace us.

Defecting Electors are the System Working

I’m pretty confident that despite a few electors making noises about switching their vote, that Donald Trump will still occupy the Oval Office by the end of January. But people on the left and right are going nuts over this. To the extent that electors are receiving threats, that’s beyond the pale, but I have no problem with trying to influence electors to switch their vote through peaceful means. I also don’t have issues with electors actually switching their vote. While it’s not a popular position today, I’m a huge proponent of the Electoral College, for the following reasons:

It gives a voice to smaller states that would otherwise be completely irrelevant in National Politics. And yes, I’m OK with rural people having outsized influence. Why? Because city folks don’t understand or care about rural folks, and without rural folks, city folks starve. I think protecting their interests from a dismissive and smugÂ majority that doesn’t understand them is important.
It prevents variability in the election system from bringing the results into doubt. There was a lot of “selected, not elected” talk after Bush v. Gore in 2000, but there was never any legal doubt about Bush being a legitimate President because the Electoral College is the lawful body that elects the President. Likewise, a close popular vote count would be far more consequential, bring dozens of state electoral systems under the microscope.
The Electoral College is a final check against the people doing something extremely rash. Given the horrible choices in this election, I don’t feel too bad about a few electors going faithless. That lets me know the Electoral College might not actually rubber stamp a real Hitler or Mussolini. Hillary and Donald Trump were awful candidates, but I don’t believe either of them are potential dictators. I don’t think this election rises to the level of the Electoral College thwarting the will of the people, but a bit of controversy, from my point of view, isn’t unwelcome.

I suspect there’s going to be a lot of call for abandoning the Electoral College, but that would establish a true, national election. In every other instance in federal elections, we vote as states. I don’t think the Electoral College is an anachronism, and it’s an important buffer between the people and the Presidency. It may be that Hillary won the popular vote, but that is relatively meaningless, since the campaign strategy to win in a majority vote system would be very different from the system we have. It’s impossible to know whether Hillary Clinton would have won the popular vote if we were a 50%+1 takes it kind of system. I think we ought to keep the Electoral College in place.

Semi Auto Hunting the Law in Pennsylvania

I thought there might be a good chance that Governor Wolf would sign the bill. There are a lot of hunters in Pennsylvania, and this looked like the kind of fight he might not want to pick. I’m sure Pennsylvania going red in the Presidential race may also have played into Wolf’s thinking.

It’s really not any big deal, since Pennsylvania was one of the few states that everÂ restricted hunting with semi-automatics. I don’t hunt, so it’s not something I’ll personally take advantage of,Â but I’ve heard a few “you can’t hunt with them” arguments for restricting semi-autos, so it’ll be good to see that put to rest.

But Will Stu Greenleaf Get the Message?

Change the states, and this could easily be Republican State Senator Greenleaf’s political epitaph if he doesn’t quit blocking our bills:

A powerful south Florida state senator who repeatedly sidelined popular gun rights legislation lost his seat Tuesday, opening the door for campus carry and open carry in the Sunshine State.

Florida State Sen. Miguel Diaz de la Portilla, R-Miami, chairs the Senate Criminal Justice Committee and in 2015 refused to hold hearings on a bill to allow legal concealed carry on public colleges and universities. Diaz de la Portilla was also a fly in the ointment when it came to derailing an emergency concealed carry bill the year before and in 2016 was key in killing bills on campus carry and open carry, refusing to even meet with advocates.

The Dem replacing him is also rated F, but taking one F and replacing them with a more junior F who doesn’t chair a key committee can be a win overall. Senator Greenleaf, Chairman of the Pennsylvania Senate Judiciary Committee, who is the reason enhanced preemption had to be stuck on another bill, should think about that. Like Florida, the Pennsylvania GOP Senate majority could absorb the loss of one seat, and I’d be happy to donate to or volunteer, even for the most Kumbaya singin’, tree huggingist hippie, if they looked like they had a credible chance of getting him out of our way.

You Used to be Able to Expect Better from Reason

Articles like this are why I haven’t been a Reason subscriber or regular reader since Virginia Postrel left as Editor-in-Chief. As it says in the comments of this article, “Did this guy sleep through Sandy Hook?”

Not that NRA doesn’t sensationalize and scaremonger in its fundraising: it certainly does. So does every other advocacy group. What effect a Trump Administration will have on NRA’s ability to maintain membership at high levels and keep enough money coming in is something I wonder about too. But …

But under President Barack Obama, the NRA has occupied itself sowing groundless panic and fighting imaginary villains.

So Obama didn’t spend his second term promoting gun control? Justice Scalia didn’t die? Hillary Clinton didn’t run a campaign where the centerpiece was gun control and defiance of the NRA? Did I imagine all that?

The NRA insisted he planned to ban all handguns, ban “use of firearms for home defense,” increase federal taxes on guns and ammunition by 500 percent, and require a federal license to buy a gun.

That’s because as a Illinois Senator, he voted for these things, and was an outspoken supporter of Chicago’s handgun ban. This wasn’t a figment of Wayne LaPierre’s imagination, and it wasn’t just lip service. He voted this way.

DOJ Smart Gun Specs are Telling

John Richardson notes that we need to be vigilant about last minute gun control from the Obama Administration, and he’s right. But this DOJ spec for what a smart gun would need to look like in order to be acceptable to law enforcement is telling, in that it rejects much of the gun control groups sacred cows about what citizens do and don’t need for self-defense. Let us look deeper:

Pistols shall be semi-automatic, recoil-operated, magazine-fed, and striker-fired.

I thought semi-automatic weapons only belonged on the battle field?

Class I magazines shall hold a minimum of 14 cartridges.
Class II magazines shall hold a minimum of 16 cartridges.

But I thought these dangerous high-capacity magazines were weapons of war only suitable for mowing down school children, and are thoroughly unnecessary for self-defense? Law enforcement isn’t just demanding a maximum of 10, it’s saying their minimum is 14.

The pistol shall fire with the magazine removed and a live round in the chamber.

Pistols shall not have a magazine disconnect which prevents the firearm from firing when the magazine is removed from the pistol.

Why do law enforcement and military leaders hate their own children?

Pistols shall not have a manual external thumb, finger, or grip-actuated safety device.

But I thought this was good and necessary? Several states laws say this is an unsafe design! But here we get to the “smart” part:

4.18 Security devices

4.18.1 Pistols shall have an integrated â€œlock-outâ€ security device as a permanent part of the pistol that disables the firing mechanism except when in the control of authorized individuals.

4.18.2 The security device shall be understood to include any externally worn items, such as rings, wristbands, or tokens that perform functions associated with the security device

4.18.3 The security device shall include a programmable authorization system that can be set to allow one or more operators to fire the pistol.

4.18.4 The security device shall not inhibit the operator from firing in either hand, one-handed or two-handed, with and without gloves, in any orientation.

4.18.5 The security device shall not alter the normal operation of grasping and firing the pistol as a pistol of the same design that is not equipped with the security device.

4.18.6 The security device shall not increase the time required by the operator to grasp, draw from a holster, and fire the pistol as a pistol of the same design that is not equipped with the security device.

4.18.7 The security device shall not emit audible sounds or visible signals.

4.18.8 If the security device may be susceptible to electromagnetic interference, either intentional or unintentional, the device shall be equipped with countermeasure detection technology that permits the operator to fire the gun when an attempt to block the authorization process is detected.

4.18.9 The security device shall covertly indicate when the pistol is ready to fire.

4.18.10 If the security device uses batteries, the batteries can be rechargeble but shall
be replaceable.

4.18.11 Low power to the security device shall be indicated covertly with sufficient time to safely take action.

4.18.12 If the security device malfunctions, it shall default to a state to allow the pistol to fire.

4.18.13 The security device should be easy for an operator to quickly reset or disengage if there is a malfunction.

They also demand the following in terms of reliability:

5.2 Reliability and durability

5.2.1 Pistols shall exhibit a mean overall malfunction or failure rate of no greater than 1 in 2,000, or shall exhibit a mean rounds between failure of no less than 2,000.

5.2.2 Pistols shall be durable and exhibit no failures due to wear or damage for a total of 10,000 rounds. Parts may be replaced in accordance with the manufacturerâ€™s specification for regular preventative maintenance. The replacement of parts per the manufacturerâ€™s maintenance schedule does not constitute a parts failure. This durability specification also applies to the security device on the pistol as well as any periphery devices that may be required to be used with the security device.

Basically, if it’s not very Glock-like, in terms of design, operation and reliability, law enforcement doesn’t want it. Keep this in mind, folks, when the gun control crowd insists that civilians accept far far less than this. The reason they will insist that we accept less is because this specification is not possible to meet with any existing technology.