Category: Anti-Gun Folks

It’s probably hard for a cadre of paid activists to believe that folks like myself and W. Scott Lewis do what we do because we value our rights, and not because we’re paid shills for the “gun lobby”

Or perhaps it’s not so hard for them to believe, but in order to paint the big bad NRA, and its 4 million members, in a negative light, it has to claim we’re all paid shills of some nefarious “gun lobby”

From Peter Hamm, of the Brady Campaign:

But Peter Hamm, communication director for the Brady Campaign to Stop Gun Violence, is concerned that the group is the latest tool of the powerful gun lobby.

“We know very clearly that they were organised and they are funded by the gun industry, by the companies that are selling the guns,” he said.

“This is not some spontaneous, grassroots organisation.

“There are more members than there were before Virginia Tech because the gun industry is spending more money to enlist more young people to help them spread the word, that if only we had more guns in America, we’d have less of a gun violence problem.”

So the tens of thousands of people on SFCC’s Facebook group are all paid shills of the “gun lobby” and not real grass roots?  If Peter Hamm wants to know what astroturf looks like, he doesn’t need to look very far.

Peter Hamm offers no facts to back up this assertion, but are we really surprised?

Here’s more duplicity by Ammunition Coding Systems that was brought up on Cam Edward’s show last night.   See the patent for Ammunition Coding, filed by Russell H. Ford:

In general, no governmental agency would be required to supervise the test cartridge firing, and to retain the information in a central repository, or data base. Instead, ammunition having an identifying mark could be conveniently tracked through a chain of supply in a manner similar to ordinary inventory tracking, so that the costs associated with tracking the ownership of the marked ammunition are widely distributed. Furthermore, since the burden associated with identification of the firearm is effectively shifted from the firearm to the ammunition, the identity of a firearm owner or user may be determined without regard to the age of the firearm, so that all firearms currently in existence could be traced.

Emphasis mine.  That last part seems like a pot shot at the microstamping technology, which carries a chief weakness of not applying older firearms.  But this isn’t the duplicity; that is in the first part I bolded.  Take a look at their model legislation (PDF) that’s being pushed on their web site:

Section 4. Authority to establish an Ammunition Coding Database.

1. [AGENCY] shall be responsible for establishing and maintaining an Ammunition Coding  Database (ACD) containing the following information

What kind of information will this database contain?

a. The date of the transaction.
b. The name of the transferee.
c. The purchaser’s driver’s license number or other government issued identification card number
d. The date of birth of the purchaser.
e. The unique identifier of all handgun ammunition or bullets transferred.
f. All other information prescribed by [AGENCY].

It’s basically complete ammunition regulation, down to the last bullet.  No more handloading either, the model legislation outlaws it:

No later than January 1, 2011, all non-coded ammunition for the calibers listed in this chapter, whether owned by private citizens or retail outlets, must be disposed.

You can have my reloading press when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.

There is a bill that’s been introduced in Pennsylvania to implement Ammunition Accountability that we talked about last night.  It’s HB 2228.  I haven’t talked about this yet, because it’s still in committee, and not much of a threat at this moment, but that could change any minute.

The lobbying firm that runs the Ammunition Accountability web site is Gordon Thomas Honeywell, presumably their Governmental Affairs Group.  You will notice that they list ACS as a client.  Important to note that until recently Gordon Thomas Honeywell Governmental Affairs was known as Smith Alling Lane Government Affairs.

Tim Shellberg, who is President of GTH Government Affairs has several times donated to the campaign of  Washington State Representative Allister O’Brien, who is the lead sponsor of the Washington Ammunition encoding bill.  I also notice that Gun Owners Action League of Washington has donated quite a bit to his campaign as well.  Not enough it would seem.  O’Brien failed to win an endorsement from NRA last election.

And to think, Russell Ford said on Cam’s show he wants this whole thing to be as transparent as possible.  Transparent as in we hire a lobbying firm to anonymously set up a web site to push for model legislation, and to lobby key legislators that have been quietly bought off, in order to be able to skim off the top of every one of the eight billion rounds of ammunition produced each year.  You have to admit, that’s quite an ingenious scam, that would make even the most talented con artist jealous.  And it’s all legal.

Be sure to tune into Cam’s show at NRANews.com or on Sirius Patriot 144, Thursday at 10PM to hear the re-broadcast of the interview with this worm.

The web site Ammunition Accountability apparently is administered by the lobbying firm of Ammunition Coding Systems, who ultimately pays for the site, and who conveniently produces the system that does this type of encoding.  I just heard Russ Ford of ACS admitting to this on Cam Edwards’ show.

There’s a per round royalty their company plans to charge for this. Nothing like succeeding in the marketplace by having the .gov force your product on the consumer, whether they want it or not.  Seriously, these guys are hoping to get state legislatures to basically pass a tax on ammunition that gets passed on to them.

UPDATE: Cam comments that the interview with Russ Ford will be re-aired on Thursday.  You can tune in at NRANews.com.  I would highly recommend folks tune in.

David Bernstein has a good bit on Obama’s position on firearms and gun control before he decided to run for President.

SayUncle answers the question about kind of gun control that advocates of such measures might want to think about.

In this case, an idiot who doesn’t think you should be able to have one.

The photograph has pervaded talk radio and cyberspace, creating blog chatter and a forum for public opinion. Many pundits, bloggers and forum-poster took aim at the mayor. The shot was taken at a public unveiling of new additions to the New Orleans Police Department’s arsenal.

“When most saw it, they were horrified,” Loyola University professor of communications Dr. Robert Thomas said. “The way people feel about guns, with the murder rate here, it’s something we have to deal with.”

All the better to arm the NOPD for the next time they unlawfully invade people’s homes and steal their property.  Can’t have the uppity townspeople outgunning the “good guys” can we?

War on Guns has more.

A few things about SayUncle’s quote of the day.  I’ve long beleived that while Brady Campaign (and HCI before the name change) was more strategically savvy, in that they realized that politically, they had a long way to go before a total ban on handguns, and thus decided on an incrimental approach, VPC was much better at tatical political battles.  The Brady Campaign might have realized that assault weapons were a great bit of incrementalism, but it was Sugarmann who understood what “assault weapons” really were, and came up with the strategy to decieve the public make the ban happen.

For the most part, I think the Brady Campaign is often generally clueless about guns and in many cases our guns laws.  I’ve actally always been somewhat impressed by Sugarmann’s depth of understanding of the issue, that I haven’t seen an analouge for on the Brady’s side. Dr. Strangegun is correct; the VPC knows what’s it’s doing, and I’m sure believe that the ends justify the means.

There seems to be a meme going around the VPC is somehow violating its status as a 501(c)(3) organization.  I would encourage everyone to examine the IRS requirements in this regard:

To be tax-exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, an organization must be organized and operated exclusively for exempt purposes set forth in section 501(c)(3), and none of its earnings may inure to any private shareholder or individual. In addition, it may not be an action organization, i.e., it may not attempt to influence legislation as a substantial part of its activities and it may not participate in any campaign activity for or against political candidates.

What are exempt purposes?

The exempt purposes set forth in section 501(c)(3) are charitable, religious, educational, scientific, literary, testing for public safety, fostering national or international amateur sports competition, and preventing cruelty to children or animals.  The term charitable is used in its generally accepted legal sense and includes relief of the poor, the distressed, or the underprivileged; advancement of religion; advancement of education or science; erecting or maintaining public buildings, monuments, or works; lessening the burdens of government; lessening neighborhood tensions; eliminating prejudice and discrimination; defending human and civil rights secured by law; and combating community deterioration and juvenile delinquency.

VPC is in no way jeopardizing it’s tax exempt status by merely holding a Federal Firearms License.  If VPC were selling firearms at retail, which one can be pretty sure they are not, then they would be engaging in a non-exempt activity which would draw their tax status into question.  If they hold a federal firearms license for purposes related to one of the exempted activities, then that is just fine by the IRS.