Sebastian – Page 57 – Shall Not Be Questioned

The Reaction

Almost immediately upon hearing the news about Bob Owens, I knew three things were certain:

But I’m happy to say, for the most part, people on both sides are being thoroughly decent, and so far it’s just a small, loud contingent being pricks. Even though CSGV published something about it, and some of their folks had vile reactions, the most highly rated post on their Facebook page exhibited decency:

My sympathy goes out to his family. Male suicide by gun is very common after the age of 45 for men. Power doesn’t come from guns, it comes from being connected to our emotions and accepting feelings like sorrow, depression, fear. Lots of older men need healing.

I’ll forgive the straw man embedded there. It is discouraging to have been going at this so long that the reaction was as predicable as day and night. But it is good to see that outside the usual suspects, people are still able to remain decent human beings.

Horrible News

I met Bob Owens at an industry event, and usually saw him at the NRA Annual Meeting and exchanged pleasantries. I knew him, but not well. I was an admirer of his work as an amateur blogger, and also when he became a professional gun writer. I had no idea the demons he must have wrestled with. It seems like not many other people did either. Bob always seemed a jovial, outgoing person to me.

This is absolutely tragic, and a great loss to the community. It’s even more so to his family:Â he leaves behind a wife and two daughters, 10 and 17. I have to be honest, that’s very hard for me to understand and accept. I am fortunate that whatever demons I wrestle with have never driven me to thoughts of suicide. But I know that’s not the same for everyone.

If you’re out there struggling with life to that degree: please seek help. Talk with your friends and family. Even a stranger is better than the alternative. I have a standing order with my family that if for some reason I ever start getting squirrely, they should remove the firearms. There’s no shame in getting help and making arrangements to protect yourself and loved ones.

Someone has set up a Gofundme for his wife and kids. I will be donating. If you were a fan of Bob’s work, I think helping out his family is the least we can do.

The Springfield & Rock River Arms Controversy

I’ve gotten a lot more circumspect since the height of our burning heretic days. After the decline in the national discourse, I’m flat out of enthusiasm for it unless it’s absolutely necessary. I did not wish to enter the debate early, without all the facts.

I do still believe we shouldn’t suffer traitors, and if an organization were to cross us, like I believe the Illinois Firearms Manufacturers Association did, the torches and pitchforks should rightly descend upon them. As it is, both Springfield Armory and Rock River Arms both claim they were not aware of IMFA’s actions, and essentially killed the group. Do I believe it? I’ll be honest, I’m skeptical that the two organizations that seem to be its primary funders didn’t have contact with their lobbyists on a critical bill. But I have no proof that their claim isn’t true. Additionally, they’ve put the heads of those directly responsible on a platter and have presumably learned their lesson. I don’t see any need to burn SA or RRA to the ground over this.

If the bill can be killed somewhere else, which I understand it probably can, I’m OK with snuffing the torches and giving them a chance to show they’ve learned.

A Funny Inside Joke, But …

When you go to a rally, put on their gear, and hold their signs, you’ve um… joined their rally. I don’t blame anyone for going to cover a Mom’s Demand Action rally, watch the inanity, or record it for public consumption, but I’m prettyÂ sure adding to their numbers by putting on their t-shirts and posing for their photo ops is a bad idea. I’m not sure who the joke’s on here, but I have a feeling it’s not on Shannon Watts.

UPDATE:

Thinking about this a bit more, if you really wanted to get a group of people together and screw with Shannon Watts — make sure everyone has a fake but not obviously fake e-mail. If you want to get bold, throw in a few that might not be obvious to an anti, but would be hilarious to anyone in the know. Sign up using the fake e-mail. Get their t-shirt and signs. Get a few more for the kids back home. Then leave the venue, find a trash can, take a picture of their signs and gear in the trash can, and then post the picture somewhere they are sure to see it. Effect?

They will know they were had.
They’ll upload a bunch of false e-mails to their list, which might raise suspicion with their list provider when they bounce.
They’ll get a second “We’ve been had” moment when they get the bounces.
They’ll probably be denied that tactic for subsequent years, since they won’t want to waste a bunch of money on t-shirts knowing gun folks might be around looking to trash them.

If they insist that you put the shirts on to be photographed, the gig is up. Don’t do it. But giving them a fake e-mail is still worth a hoot. I’m sure you guys can think up plenty of funny e-mails in the comments that wouldn’t look obviously fake.

NRA Annual Meeting Attendance 2017

We have the figure, and it is the highest since Houston in 2013:Â 81,836. That beats Louisville last year which wasÂ 80,452. Houston will be a hard record to beat since it was the height of the post-Sandy Hook effort to attack the NRA.

Atlanta was a pretty good convention city. The only thing holding it back from being a great convention city being kind of pricy. But the food and drink were pretty good, and I don’t mind prices when you’re getting what you’re paying for. I don’t think I had one stingy pour when ordering a proper drink.

The convention center relies heavily on escalators, and I remembered what a shit show the escalator situation in Phoenix was. But the convention center people in Atlanta managed the situationÂ much better than Phoenix did and everything went smoothly.

Also, Atlanta has a heaping amount of Southern Hospitality. Everyone is nice. Arriving at Hartsfieldâ€“Jackson, the airport had signage up welcoming NRA. You notice I didn’t do my traditional post about local media saying awful things about NRA and attendees? I didn’t notice anything. This is a sharp contrast to Charlotte, NC, which I use as the poster child for unwelcoming cities.

The last time my family were here, we burned the place to the ground. But I will happily leave Atlanta unmolested, and hope to return with NRA sometime in the future.

NRA Carry Guard

I guess NRA got tired of everyone else making money off “carry insurance” and decided to create their own. They are promoting it very heavily at the convention. I expect at the price level they are charging, it’s going to be a decent source of revenue for NRA. Anything that brings in money and doesn’t require pestering members for donations is probably a good thing.

But I keep thinking “What if George Zimmerman had Carry Guard?” NRA would have gotten dragged into that hot mess. Would that kind of PR nightmare be worth it? I guess at some point that pot of potential money gets big enough it’s worth the risk.

We Protest What We Do Not Understand

Thanks to Miguel for bringing this ignorance to the public light:

Posted by Gail Pepin on Saturday, April 29, 2017

“Oh Say Can You 501(c)”

Massad Ayoob was the last presenter before the lunch break, and he’s a difficult guy to summarize. He’s a very good presenter, and I was more interested in listening than writing about it. So sorry about that. I can see why he’s sought after by defense attorneys.

The first post-lunch topic is relevant to running shooting clubs, and since I’m an officer at mine, it’s relevant. My club is a 501(c)(7), but she covers all the tax exempt options. I didn’t really know that gun clubs could be organized under 501(c)(3) using an educational mission. I’m not sure I’d want to organize under that, because it changes how you’d have to run a club. I think it would be difficult for most clubs to manage without getting themselves in trouble. 501(c)(4) seems a more realistic subsection to organize under, but even that has the issue that the purpose of the organization has to be a public one. That means the club would have to be very open to members of the public. Neither 501(c)(3) or 501(c)(4) allow an organization to have a private benefit.

If you’re a gun club, I think 501(c)(7) is the best non-profit structure around which to organize. I’m learning a whole lot about how to manage (c)(7)s.

Responsibility for Criminal Firearms Violence

The second panel is by James B. Vogts. He is the attorney defending Remington in the case in Connecticut where the plaintiffs argued that selling AR-15s to civilians amounted to negligent entrustment. His talk is almost exclusively on the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA).

I was not aware that PLCAA history goes back to Kelly v. R.G Industries, Inc. in Maryland in 1985. In this case R.G. industries made a cheap revolver, a so-called “Saturday Night Special.” R.G. industries was found strictly liable for a criminal’s use of the firearm. I didn’t become aware of this issue until cases in the 1990s, when Hamilton v. Beretta USA Corp before Judge Weinstein. Weinstein was the one federal judge willing to assign liability to manufacturers for criminal misuse of their product.

There’s some background on Soto v. Bushmaster, which was the beginning of the case after Sandy Hook arguing several things under the PLCAA exceptions, including that selling AR-15s to civilians is negligent entrustment, which is excepted from PLCAA. So far PLCAA has held, but the plaintiffs are appealing their loss to the Connecticut Supreme Court.

Overall, PLCAA has generally worked effectively. There have been some disagreement between courts about whether PLCAA preempts ordinary negligence claims. These problematic courts have allowed all claims against a manufacturer to proceed if only one of the claims was not a “qualified civil liability action” that is preempted.

20th Annual Firearms Seminar

Here we are in Atlanta for the 20th Annual Firearms Seminar. As usual, we’ll be live blogging a summary of the panels. It’s taking me a bit to get used to the humidity. The last time my family was here, we burned the place to the ground.

Jim Porter is kicking things off this year. The first panel is Steve Halbrook and Nelson Lund. I’m always happy when they put Steve early. He’s one of the leading experts on this topic, but he has a very mellow, southern gentlemanlyÂ voice that is good when the coffee is working at its peak.

Second Amendment Litigation: Ongoing Challenges
Steven P. Halbrook

Steve Halbrook recounts how Heller came about. It’s been so long I had almost forgotten what it was like. Everyone believed the case would be 5-4, but no one was sure which way it would go. It was unknown which side Kennedy would come down on until he questioned the D.C. attorneys “Weren’t the founders pioneers, who needed guns to protect themselves from criminals, Indians and grizzly bears?,” which effectively took everyone off the edge of their seats. It looked like we had Kennedy. Heller was delivered the last day of the Court’s session. Everyone was on the edge of their seats again when it was announced Justice Stevens would read the summary of the Opinion of the Court. That would have meant a loss, but it turned out to be a different case. When it was announced Justice Scalia would be read the summary for the very last case, we all knew it was a win.

Interesting trivia about DC gun registration: DC argued in Court that their registration system was important because it allowed police officers to check to see if a gun was present on the scene if they were responding to a call. In fact, DC police never checked the registration system before calls. Why didn’t they? They were actually forbidden from accessing DC’s registry. The Court ended up upholding registration anyway, because of course they did. Though, they did throw out the need to re-register.

Halbrook reviews several other absurdities from the lower courts, such as “arguing that civilianized semi-automatic firearms that are used by no military in the world may be banned because they are weapons of war only suited to military use.”

Halbrook believes thatÂ cert will be sought in the case of Kolbe v. Hogan, where the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Maryland’s assault weapons ban via some absolutely atrocious reasoning. I know there have been more than a few people who have asked about that.

The Right to Bear Arms and the Philosophy of Freedom
Nelson Lund

I am a fan of Professor Lund, because he wrote a law review article about having to look at police use when making determinations about protected arms. His talk today is more broad. He is speaking critically of Scalia’s Heller opinion. I guess we can do this now that he’s dead :) His essential criticism is that while parts of Scalia’s opinion is generally regarded as a great work of originalism, on the core issues relevant to today’s debates it is a weak opinion.

The 5-4 decisions in Heller andÂ McDonald could prove to be littleÂ more than abortive attempts toÂ begin developing a robust SecondÂ Amendment jurisprudence. TheÂ Supreme Court has disinterred theÂ Second Amendment, but it has yet toÂ give it meaningful life.

Lund speaks about this being an issue of elites v. the common citizenry. This is a topic I planned to write more about soon:

When it comes to gun control, it isÂ hard to see much personal benefitÂ for our elites beyond the sheer joyÂ of exercising the will to power overÂ people they regard as intellectually andÂ morally backward.

I wish I could say his outlook on the Second Amendment is optimistic, but it isn’t. I wish I could come up with reasons to disagree with this outlook.

There’s some spare time for Q&A on the first panel. As many of you know if you’ve been around this issue for a while, Q&A means “my chance to be heard before a captive audience.”