Category: Anti-Gun Folks

New York City is now cracking down on their policy that allowed empty brass from the NYPD ranges to be sold to companies that reload the ammo to sell again on the civilian market. They put a ban on sales to reloaders, and all buyers must now sign an agreement that they will destroy the brass in such a way that it can never be reloaded.

Interestingly, Bloomberg, who initially defended selling to the reloading company, isn’t publicly taking credit for this move. However, de Blasio’s team says that while they absolutely take pride in having this policy, it’s actually a Bloomberg policy that was put into place very quietly in 2012.

Mens Rea is a basic component of common law. It suggests that for serious offenses, the state must prove that you had a “guilty mind.” In other words, you consciously chose to commit the illegal act. There are exceptions to this, usually for crimes which are not very serious. For instance, speeding is a strict liability offense. It doesn’t matter if you tell the officer you didn’t know you were speeding. But in serious cases, like felonies and high misdemeanors, prosecutors generally have to prove mens rea in addition to actus reus. So along comes our fascist friends at CSGV and VPC, what’s their advice on this important legal matter?

However, gun control advocates told the Star that it is difficult to prove a buyer’s intent to purchase a gun for a felon. “You don’t want to make a prosecutor prove someone’s state of mind,” said Ladd Everitt, a spokesman for the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence. “That’s almost impossible.”

“It’s extremely hard to prove [the straw buyer] lied about their intent when they bought the gun,” said Kristen Rand, a lobbyist for the Violence Policy Center, which seeks stricter regulation on firearm sales.

It may be a tall burden, but having to prove state of mind is a barrier prosecutors should have to climb in order to earn convictions for serious crimes. That’s part of our legal tradition when it comes to the rights of the accused. Perhaps the folks at CSGV and VPC should consider moving to a country where protections for the accused are considerably weaker, and gun laws are very strict. I’d suggest Russia, because if you believe things like this, you don’t belong in America.

Sebastian highlighted John Richardson’s excellent post about the $1 million+ views from the gun controller’s homes.

I just have to add that I think there’s a part of that same way of thinking at work in this series of interviews with gun controllers that’s been making the rounds.

Notice that the question at 1:40 is simply whether a citizen should be able to defend him/herself at all with any weapon in case of attack, and the woman (who probably doesn’t have Mike Bloomberg’s wealth, but probably isn’t hurting in the wealthy Virginia suburbs) simply says, “No.” Later in the video, he uses an example of being in a bad neighborhood, and she simply asks, “Why? … Well, why are you in the bad neighborhood?”

This is someone who can afford to be out-of-touch. It doesn’t take being dirt poor to end up in bad neighborhoods, especially in that area. The apartment I lived in cost a pretty penny in rent each month, and I would go to bed with the sounds of “Stop! Police!” outside my window or walk outside of my building to be passed by running men fleeing authorities. I could simply ask my neighbor not to play music so loud that it knocked pictures off the wall and end up being threatened. It’s not something that most people seek out, it’s something that just happens around them. To her, the notion that a potential victim may not have the financial means to leave just means the person needs to accept the circumstances and take the assault rather than having a tool to fight back should an attack put his or her life at risk. As John so aptly put it:

When you live in a million dollar plus home in a plush neighborhood, your view of the world is just different. You don’t have crime at your doorstep and you really don’t have to worry about home invasions.

The woman I mention in the video is another great example of this kind of thinking. I get the feeling that with the new name and theme of Bloomberg’s group, we’ll see even more of this preaching from the comfort behind the gates of their communities.

Say what he will about his new group, “Everytown for Gun Safety“, I think this is a sign that he knows what he’s been doing isn’t working. Also notice that we’re back to the tired and shopworn term “Gun Saftey” instead of “Gun Control,” or “Illegal Guns.” I guess Bloomie feels like that ship is salvageable after all. But given the article featuring quotes from Bloomberg is so thick with ego and narcissism that you could mortar a brick wall with it …

“I am telling you if there is a God, when I get to heaven I’m not stopping to be interviewed. I am heading straight in. I have earned my place in heaven. It’s not even close.” – Mike Bloomberg

… I’m not surprised he thinks he can salvage the S.S. Gun Safety from the bottom of McKelvey Trench. As much as I am worried that $50 million dollars is a hell of a lot of money for our side, and seat cushion money for Bloomberg, I also think Bloomberg is an excellent enough villain to our people (and to a lot of people honestly) that I don’t worry too much about this latest restructuring of his movement. If we stay engaged, and stay focused, we can beat him. I’d much rather have Mike Bloomberg as an opponent over Jim and Sarah Brady.

It’s also worth noting that this new umbrella group plans to drop gun and magazine bans and focus exclusively on ending private transfers. Perhaps they now are starting to understand that gun bans are out of reach for them, especially if they can’t even score minor victories. In truth, even ending private transfers is likely out of their reach given what they’ve managed to motivate with their latest campaign. In classic anti-gun fashion they have overreached and awoken the sleeping giant. It will be harder for them from here than it would have been if they had played their cards right to begin with.

But $50 million is nothing to sneeze at. Especially to Pennsylvanians, who probably don’t realize we are easily the next Colorado if we lose Corbett and the Republicans get scared enough, or lose control of the House or Senate. We are likely to face the brunt of that $50 million, which is nothing to get cocky about.

VSSA does a great job of taking apart a story that anti-gun groups are trying to push to promote the narrative that they are somehow going to win the battle over the Second Amendment on social media because they are supposedly being so innovative by going to SXSW and hosting sparsely attended panels on social media.

As VSSA points out, NRA hosts its own panel with volunteers doing different types of work, including how to effectively use social media, every year to a crowd many, many, many times the size of what is featured in the story.

Of course, for those who don’t travel all the way to Austin or Indy to attend such lectures from either group, we always have the numbers:

If you are looking for grassroots support, looking strictly at the numbers, Moms Demand Action has 153,000 followers on Facebook. Mayors Against Illegal Guns has 21,000. The NRA destroys both of them with 3.2 million followers on Facebook. Twitter numbers are lower for NRA but they are still about 10 times higher that the numbers for both Moms Demand Action and Demand Action (the only reference I could find on Twitter to MAIG).

Now, the anti-gun groups have stepped up their game on social media, and there’s no doubt about that. But, that doesn’t mean they are likely to be effectively using it to “beat” us politically any time soon.