Sebastian – Page 81 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Weekly Gun News – Edition 42

I hate to start a week with a news links post, but I have too many tabs, and they need a clearin’. This is a mix of old and new news.

NPR is forced to issue a correction that Shannon Watts isn’t just some stay at home mom that decided to stand up and do something about gun control.

Three Strategies to Beat the NRA. None of these will work because they still don’t get what really makes us successful. Hint: it’s not a top down movement.

Why are anti-gun people so violent?Â I hope the good professor here knows that NRA HQ being a gun free zone is a myth perpetrated by gun control groups.

Uber is and remains an anti-gun company.

Hawaii puts gun owners into FBI Database. Expect other states to follow this.

Forbes: “Law Professor Demands Repeal Of ‘Outdated’ Second Amendment, Makes Very Weak Case”

This reporter schools New York Daily News Reporter Gresh Kuntzman.

A way around California’s new AWB.

Gun Control groups target Rubio (R-FL), Ayotte (R-NH), and Johnson (R-WI). Good to see Ayotte’s capitulations paying off for her.

Charleston Church victim sues FBI over gun buy.

Fifth Circuit: No Second Amendment Right to a Machine Gun. In truth, we’ll be lucky to get protections against semi-auto bans.

Jim Geraghty: “We should all be afforded the time and space to mourn, to process, to cope. But itâ€™s hard to take a deep breath and reflect when your Twitter feed blows up with complete strangers insisting â€œYOU HAVE BLOOD ON YOUR HANDS!â€ for the actions of a madman.”

Joe Huffman: Gun Access Makes Women Safer.

York Dispatch: A surprisingly positive article about gun shows.

Slate: “Whatever Happened to Michael Bloombergâ€™s Anti-Gun Crusade?Â It still existsâ€”and itâ€™s starting to work.” They don’t hate money in politics. They just hate your money in politics.

Times Union: “Second Amendment not an unrestrained license to kill.” Who argued that it was? It sure would be nice if they argued about things we actually believed.

Shocker: “Study Learns Chicago Criminals DON’T Buy Their Guns Legally.”

Non Gun:

The New Censorship: “How did Google become the internetâ€™s censor and master manipulator, blocking access to millions of websites?”

City Journal: “Elected on themes of hope and renewal, his very ascendancy a powerful statement about the countryâ€™s racial journey, he chose to use the White House as a vehicle to introduce a new era of racial grievance into our national discourse. Unfortunately, he succeeded in this effortâ€”and failed America.” I’m seeing a lot more articles along these lines, and not just from conservative media.

Why No One Should Trust The Media

This Fox News bit is just rambling ignorance by three people who have no idea what they are talking about. There’s a bit where she talks about getting DNA off the casings. This woman is being sold as a forensics expert:

I’d say she ought to seek out a decent firearms class, but I’m not sure she’s the kind of person who is suitable to have a firearm.

Superior Court Rules No Weapons on School Property

Some unfortunate news from Pennsylvania Superior Court. I believe Superior Courts mean this is now law in the entire state, so currently, it is now illegal to carry weapons on school property. The law states:

Â§ 912. Possession of weapon on school property.

(a) Definition.–Notwithstanding the definition of “weapon”Â in section 907 (relating to possessing instruments of crime),”weapon” for purposes of this section shall include but not beÂ limited to any knife, cutting instrument, cutting tool, nun-chuck stick, firearm, shotgun, rifle and any other tool,Â instrument or implement capable of inflicting serious bodilyÂ injury.

(b) Offense defined.–A person commits a misdemeanor of theÂ first degree if he possesses a weapon in the buildings of, onÂ the grounds of, or in any conveyance providing transportation toÂ or from any elementary or secondary publicly-funded educationalÂ institution, any elementary or secondary private school licensedÂ by the Department of Education or any elementary or secondaryÂ parochial school.

(c) Defense.–It shall be a defense that the weapon isÂ possessed and used in conjunction with a lawful supervisedÂ school activity or course or is possessed for other lawfulÂ purpose.

The Superior Court ruled that “other lawful purpose” needed to have a sanction from the school. In other words, the lunch ladies can have knives in the school, because their purpose is to cook lunch for the kiddies. The janitor can have a screwdriver, but not a student.

Statutes that are vague or unclear are supposed to be interpreted in a light most favorable to the defendant, but this very clear language, which exempts lawful purposes, was read to favor the state. The law already carved out an exception for the lunch ladies when it said “It shall be a defense that the weapon is possessed and used in conjunction with a lawful supervised school activity or course,” but then it went on to create a separate defense, the “other lawful purposes” defense, for the chef dropping his kid off at school on the way to the restaurant with the knives he just got sharpened.

As Josh Prince notes in his article, this appeal was pursued by a pro-se defendant, meaning a guy representing himself. That’s usually an invitation to disaster, as it was here. Nonetheless, the law is clear here, but there is no rule of law. They offer us the illusion, and not even a very good illusion, that there is rule of law, all the while ruling however they damned please.

Some Good News

There’s a fair amount of GOP Congressmen that are defecting from the NRA-backed Coburn style terror watch list proposal, meaning Ryan doesn’t have the votes to pass it. ThisÂ revolt is being lead by the House Freedom Caucus.

â€œIf the bill becomes law, it will mark a massive expansion of the governmentâ€™s ability to restrict gun rights on the basis of precrimeâ€”a crime not yet committed,â€ Freedom Caucus member Justin Amash (R-Mich.) posted in a lengthy diatribe on his Facebook page. This bill â€œis the actualization of dystopian fiction.â€

Added Rep. Dave Brat (R-Va.), another Freedom Caucus member: â€œIf it is a suspected terrorist and we have evidence to that extent, then Logic 101 [suggests] that person should either be in jail or out of the country.â€

And in those two lines, you basically have the “law and order” versus “civil libertarian” division in the GOP. I completely agree that even delaying a sale 72 hours is denying someone due process unconstitutionally. It would seem to me many of the anti-gun Dems want to hold out for a harsher bill, which few Republicans will support. Combine that with the Freedom Caucus opposition to the bill and I don’t see how this passes. Let us hope.

More Evidence Pamela Haag’s Bellesiles Reboot Filled With Holes

This age would seem to be the era of awful reboots in Hollywood, so it would seem fitting that in these times Pamela Haag would reboot an awful Academic book The Gunning of America: Business and the Making of American Gun Culture which is essentially Michael Bellesiles Arming America repackaged.

Clayton Cramer has been looking into this new work and is finding a lot of problems. The latest article of his is a must read, published by the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE). In this article, Clayton refutes Haag’s assertion that the market for firearms in gold rush California was “saturated.”

Coltâ€™s letter (or at least Haagâ€™s characterization of Coltâ€™s letter) is clearly wrong: A strong and vigorous gun culture already existed in California before 1853. Worse, that Haag never questioned the validity of this idea suggests either a gross ignorance of Californiaâ€™s turbulent history during the 1850s or an intentional unwillingness to verify the claim she purports to have found.”

Clayton also found this stunning piece of ignorance:

Throughout her book, Haag uses the word â€œsemiautomaticâ€ to refer to guns that are not. On p.179, she writes, â€œThe family name, which became the rifle name, eventually stood for the genus, becoming a synonym for repeating, semiautomatic rifles.â€ On p.88, she asserts that â€œAs the semiautomatic ancestor of automatic machine guns, the Henry performed â€˜a terrible work of deathâ€¦’â€[emphasis added] Â On p. 204, â€œWinchester had emerged the preeminent name for semiautomatic rifles.â€

Let me just say if you don’t know that the Henry Rifle and Winchester Rifle were lever-action repeating arms and not semiautomatic rifles, you really don’t have any business writing a book about guns. I suspect the rest of Clayton’s findings won’t reveal so much academic fraud as Bellesiles work, but rather stunning ignorance piled upon ignorance, and an unwillingness to apply any real academic rigor.

I’d expect nothing less from someone who believes in speaking with the dead.

Terror Watch List is a Horrible Issue for Us

I’m not entirely certain what kind of games the Republicans are playing here, but it’s looking like there’s going to be a vote on a House equivalent of the Cornyn bill, which would put a hold on people who are on the watch list for up to 72 hours (the current period allowed by the Brady Act). There’s virtually no chance this is going to end up passing since the Dems are pretty much universal in rejecting this proposal, so it’s dead in the Senate even if the House passes it. I think both sides are playing games trying to make a campaign issue.

As I’ve said before, the problem we have is that this does not fall along traditional party lines. The Republican Party has a healthy co-hort of “law and order” types who fall along the authoritarian side of the political spectrum. This part of the GOP coalition has never had much respect for civil liberties.

I don’t believe the NRA should be supporting this type of bill, since it looks to me like there can’t be any agreement, which means nothing passes. Why not let the Cornyn plan die in that case? What are we going to get in return for having a vote on this? What is the strategy here? Is it just disaster mitigation? Can we not hold the GOP together on this, or is there a real risk of losing GOP votes to a worse bill that might pick up Dem support?

The NRA believes that terrorists should not be allowed to purchase or possess firearms, period. Anyone on a terror watchlist who tries to buy a gun should be thoroughly investigated by the FBI and the sale delayed while the investigation is ongoing.

I get that it’s bad optics to support “guns for terrorists,” and that half of the country, more than half of the GOP, and probably an uncomfortable portion of the NRA membership care not a whit about the due process rights and civil liberties of people on the terror watch list. The ACLU opposes using these secretÂ watch lists removing rights from people, as they should, but that’s because your typical ACLU type might be a raging liberal, but they aren’t authoritarians. There’s plenty of authoritarianism on both sides of the aisle, and that’s why I worry about this issue. It’s great for channeling the worst civil liberties instincts of both parties. The Republicans don’t care about civil liberties if it stops terrorists (or at least offers good theater for the public that it does) and Democrats don’t view there are any civil liberties issues when it comes to firearms. In their view it’s not a right: you may only possess arms as a privilege granted by the state.

Happy Independence Day

Fireworks

I hope you all have a great Independence Day. Sadly towns around here that chose to have their fireworks displays today are cancelling because inclement weather is descending upon us.

I went back to the home town yesterday for fireworks. Dude showed up with a sidecar motorcycle with a semi-auto RPK mounted to it. It was too dark to make out the motorcycle model. I wish I could have gotten a picture.

I do have to say that if you’re going to go forth to do some educatin’ of the soccer mommies, it would be awfully nice if you didn’t drive your motorcycle illegally into where the crowd was. But I suppose if you’re going to carry guns at people, you have to go where the people are. At the end of the day, it was too dark for anyone to really notice. Even the cops didn’t notice, or the dude is a known quantity. But you’d think they’d at least want to talk to to him about his parking job, and “hey, can you show me that magazine in your rifle is empty,” if they had. OC is legal in Pennsylvania without a license, but you can’t have a loaded long gun on or in a vehicle with or without a permit.

Brown Vetoes 4 “Gunpocalypse” Bills, Signs 6

California Flag The bills Brown signed were the worst of the bills. From the Firearms Policy Coalition:

The bills Brown signed, which will become law on January 1, 2017, are:

SB 880 (Hall) andÂ AB 1135 (Levine): Bans common and constitutionally protected firearms that have magazine locking devices.

SB 1235 (de Leon): Now competes with Gavin Newsom’s Safety for All Act/Ammo Ban.

SB 1446 (Hancock): Confiscation of lawfully acquired, standard capacity ammunition feeding devices.

AB 1511 (Santiago): Bans the loaning of firearms.

AB 1695 (Bonta): Makes some non-violent misdemeanors punishable by prohibitions on owning firearms.

The bills Brown vetoed are:

AB 1673 (Gipson): Redefines â€œfirearmsâ€ to include items that are not firearms.

AB 1674 (Santiago): Bans buying more than one firearm within a 30-day period.

AB 2607 (Ting): Dramatically expands who can request a Gun Violence Restraining order.

SB 894 (Jackson): Re-victimizes victims by criminalizing the failure to report lost and stolen firearms.

The only thing that’s going to save California is federal preemption.

NRA Worried Members Aren’t Lining Up Behind Trump?

First NRA ad of the season:

Reid Confident on Gun Control Deal

The Washington Times is reporting. Reid noted in a conference about the Zika virus that,Â â€œI think weâ€™ve taken a bite out of the NRA. I think theyâ€™ve done enough damage.â€ The threat is still from the bill the squishy Republican are getting behind, essentially the “no-fly, no-buy.”

The measure by Sen. Susan Collins, Maine Republican, attracted 52 votes of support in a procedural vote last week, yet it fell short of the 60 votes needed to overcome a potential filibuster and advance, leaving the effort in limbo.

That doesn’t seem to fit Reid’s optimism. 52 is a good bit shy of 60. But we shouldn’t get cocky.