Did this guy get fired for taking up David Codrea’s Airsoft Challenge?  Sketchy on details, but if it was the case, do you think the paper would publish the result?   I doubt it.

Still some commenting going on over at Dr. Helen’s.  I thought I’d replicate some of it here for the gun blogosphere, because I think it’s good stuff.   Helen comments:

[…] Notice the politics of how hard or easy it is for certain people to get guns– if there is threat etc. of domestic violence against a woman, a man loses his right to purchase a gun–even if he is accused unfairly. However, if someone stalks women, scares the crap out of university classes and is said to be an imminent danger to himself or others, then neither the courts nor the hospitals have a duty to report this because they might stigmitize the mentally ill. If a man is stigmitized as a domestic abuser, well surely he is guilty without much investigtion! It is one extreme to the other. We must look at the facts logically and think about what should legitimately constitute a reason to deny a person access to a weapon. Surely, we can do that without mass hysteria against the innocent. Or maybe I am being naive.

I think this is a really good point, but I’m a pessimist about resolving it.  I replied:

I think, unfortunately, in this issue, it’s very difficult to have a reasonable discussion. Not among individuals, but in the political space, as far as what would be appropriate public policy on the matter.

We have plenty of people on the pro-gun side who believe “shall not be infringed” means that no federal or state controls on possession of firearms are constitutional. I disagree with this notion, but the issue is full of absolutists.

On the anti-gun side, it’s been pretty clear all along that their goal is to ban most firearms, particularly ones that are useful for self-defense. I have no doubt that many want to see all firearms banned. This precludes any reasonable debate on the issue, because the anti-gun side is always seeing every measure as a baby step towards the eventual goal of prohibition.

There are gun control laws that I am willing to accept and don’t think are that infringing, but I generally won’t say that in the political space because it emboldens the other side. I think there’s quite a lot of us who would be more open to a reasonable discussion if the other side weren’t pushing prohibition.

Of course, they claim to not be pushing it, but the fact is they have never met a gun control law, including the DC ban, that they didn’t like. I don’t think there’s really much reasonable discussion to be had as long as that’s the case.

I’d love to have a reasonable discussion, but because the Brady Campaign, once called Handgun Control Inc., just wants to crap all over the second amendment, rather than have a reasonable discussion, and listen to our concerns, it’s not going to happen.  If the Brady’s are truly interested in keeping guns out of the hands of the criminally irresponsible and mentally incompetent, they need to accept our right to bear arms. As long as they are pushing a disguised prohibitionist agenda, there will be no reasonable discussion.

Dr. Helen brings up the topic of NICS improvements. This started out as a comment over on her blog, but it started getting big, so I figured I’d do a linky-then-comment deal here instead.

The NICS improvement bill was something that has been talked about on the gun blogosphere before. A lot of folks are against it because they are against background checks entirely, largely because they don’t believe in the concept of “prohibited person”. It’s often heard that once you serve your debt to society, you get your rights back.

I am sympathetic to the argument, because I do think the current laws catch way too many non-violent people in its net. There is no compelling reason for denying someone convicted of tax evasion their right to keep and bear arms, and yet it is done. I do oppose a large portion of the current felon in possession law. Felon in possession should only apply to people who have committed violent acts, not to non-violent felonies, which there are many.

I do support laws which prohibit criminals, who commit acts of violence, and are convicted through due process of law, from possessing weapons. It’s accepted in our legal tradition that people can be deprived of their liberties through due process; if part of the sentence can include being thrown in jail for several year, part of it can also include not possessing weapons for whatever amount of time the legislature sees fit. I also support people who are adjudicated mentally incompetent from possessing arms.

That said, I think the current practice of Congress not funding any of the programs that can restore the rights of people is wrong. There should be a path for people who have lead clean lives for years to have their right restored. I’m sympathetic to someone who as an 18 or 19 year old, might have gotten in trouble with the law, but has lead a clean life for years and is now a responsible member of the community. There should be recourse for those people.

But it doesn’t alter the fact that if we’re going to have NICS, and we are, it’s not going away, that it should function effectively. It’s already illegal for the people who have those criminal or mental health record to even touch a firearm, so it doesn’t alter the legal situation to have NICS updated with those records.

So therefore, to the disappointment of many of you, I’m sure, I support making sure NICS has the data it needs on criminal and mental health records. We should accept that, and concentrate on things like getting rid of Lautenberg, getting funding for restoring rights to people who have truly reformed themselves, and modifying felon-in-possession statutes to only cover truly violent and mentally unstable people.