Category: Anti-Gun Folks

This bill isn’t meant to be serious, it’s mean to grab headlines. It’s shameful. It doesn’t not have even a single cosponsor as of this writing. It’s so short it’ll take just a minute to read. Basically it converts the offense of selling a gun to a prohibited person into a strict liability offense. That’s all it does. It doesn’t define what measures constitute “reasonable steps to determine that the recipient is not legally barred from possessing firearms or ammunition.” So we have no idea how one complies with this law. It’ll end up being whatever the judge decides it is. If this were a serious bill, and not an epic troll on the part of Senator Kaine, this bill would be a big concern to FFLs.

In actuality, this bill is likely unconstitutional, since it creates a serious felony offense as a strict liability crime. Typically serious offenses require culpability on the part of the accused. That’s even putting aside the Second Amendment issues. This bill is a joke, literally. Kaine thinks so little of your gun rights, he doesn’t even have the decency to take twenty more minutes to make a serious bill. This was about grabbing headlines, and little else.

Hopefully the Virginia GOP gets serious next election and finally puts the Former Senator Macaca out to pasture. Those seats could be up for grabs with a serious candidate.

UPDATE: Link fixed.

Upper Darby top cop Michael Chitwood likes theatrics, but isn’t a big fan of civilians owning guns. The Upper Darby Police Department is cleaning out its evidence room of guns, but rather than transferring them to an FFL to sell them to law-abiding citizens, he’s sending them all to the incinerator. Who knows what kind of historic pieces could be in there. This statement pretty much says it all:

“Our way of addressing the gun issue in America is to destroy them all,” said Michael Chitwood, township police superintendent.

That, friends, isn’t someone who is pro-gun control. Superintendent Chitwood is anti-gun. If there are any readers here from Upper Darby, I would organize a group of gun owners to flood the next Township Supervisor meeting and demand Chitwood be dismissed. Keep the pressure on. A lot of these local government bodies will fold like a cheap deck of cards even at minor pressure from constituents. At the very least you might be able to convince the Board to make him back off all the gun control crap. This isn’t Chicago or New York, and I’m certain there are still a fair number of gun owners in Delaware County. That message should be sent loud enough and clear enough that Chitwood and the Township Supervisors would rather oil the squeaky wheel than ignore it.

The Brady Center is back out with one of the more ridiculous arguments I’ve ever heard for gun control, probably in the hopes that it might bring in some much needed cash:

“A Gun in the home makes a suicide three times more likely.”

There are some areas where statistical analysis is useful, but this is not one of those cases. This would be like arguing that having a gun in the home makes it three times more likely you’ll rob a bank. Or perhaps having a bottle of liquor in the home makes it three times more likely that you’ll die from cirrhosis of the liver. Could be high-speed internet links make it 3x more likely you’ll download kiddie porn. All these things may statistically be true, but they are meaningless when applied to individuals.

I am not and have never been suicidal. If you’re not a bank robber, you’re not going to suddenly decide to rob a bank just because there’s a gun around. If you’re not an alcoholic, that statistic is meaningless to you, regardless of the presence of alcohol in your home. You get the picture.

I would say if you have a tendency to be suicidal, you have a loved one with a tendency toward suicidal behavior, or is just generally troubled, you’ll want to take precautions if you own guns. Perhaps gun ownership itself isn’t a wise thing for you in some circumstances. I have no disagreement with that notion.

But for most of us that isn’t the case, and it’s ridiculous, and frankly more than a bit insulting, to suggest otherwise. I am not suicidal. For me that is a meaningless statistic, and it is for most of you too. I’d be willing to bet if you looked up the statistics, and applied some Brady logic, walking across the Golden Gate bridge increases your risk of suicide by an even greater amount!

Bloomberg is planning a protest on September 10th at Capitol Hill. If any of my readers who live in the area want to go grab a decent wide-angle picture, we’ll see what kind of turnout they can generate with all this new gun control energy the media keeps saying is welling up from the grassroots.

Donna Dees, the person behind the Million Mom March, writes an article over at The Daily Beast about how to organize a march: “Got $3 million? That’s what my march cost in 2000. The bigger the march, the more expensive the march.” Dees seems to believe that with the addition of Social Media, she could have produced a much bigger march than the Million Mom March on Mother Day 2000. I think she discounts that the dynamic of this issue has changed quite fundamentally since 2000. We have more women involved in the shooting sports and armed self-protection than any other time in recent memory. There are other voices, female  voices, out there who will oppose you vigorously. It won’t be as easy this time. Dees article reads like a bit of chest beating to me, almost challenging Bloomberg to do better than she could, knowing he probably won’t.

But Bloomberg certainly has the cash to organize a march on this scale, and you can drive turnout if you’re willing to pay for busses and boxed lunches. Despite the fact that most gun control groups are not doing well, Bloomberg brings more money to the table than the gun control movement has ever had at its disposal. Dees seems to believe, “America is at a rare tipping point now.” I guess Bloomberg’s rally on Capitol Hill will give us an idea of whether or not that’s true.

We wrote a few weeks ago about CSGV’s call for its members to call 911 if they spotted someone carrying a gun concealed or unconcealed, and how it showed the CSGV was really no more than a radical hate group hiding itself behind a cloak of peace and love. Now that story seems to be getting a fair amount of mainstream attention thanks to the issue being highlighted by Fox News. Miguel has a round-up of some of the reaction, including one woman who suggests faking a panic attack so she can later sue for emotional trauma. Yeah, why don’t you try that and tell us how it works out for you.

I’m glad to see Bob Owens joining the call the contact their coalition members and confronting them with some of the hateful and non-peaceable rhetoric they cultivate and promote. Demand to know why they support this. Note there are mainstream churches who are part of CSGV. If you’re a Presbyterian, Methodist, Jewish, Catholic, or any of the other religions represented, you have a right to demand answers over what is done in your name.

It’s not often I’ll get involved in the comments at Raw Story, since they aren’t really much above Gawker in the slime pits of the Internet, but a hit piece they put out on Colion Noir really pissed me off. First, is the misleading headline. He never said that. But some of the comments, including one person pasting a picture of an Oreo cookie, struck me as just outright racist. Others were more couched, but equally racist, such as suggesting this is all being orchestrated by “devious white people,” because Colion can’t be expected to hold his own opinions, you know. You see that theme repeated a couple of times. Colion is “shilling” for the NRA. He can’t possibly have come to his opinions on his own, I guess. Certainly he did not have a highly successful YouTube channel long before NRA even approached him. No sir! He’s a “dancing puppet.” who “sold his soul.” He’s a “token.”

Yeah, right. We’re the racists? Sure. I’m not the one who thinks opinions need to have a color.