Category: Gun Rights

This USA Today article gives a peek inside ATF’s huge storage facility in West Virginia which houses all the 4473 paperwork that comes from defunct FFLs. It sounds like there is an effort to make the records electronic, sorted by dealer. Basically, you would look up the dealer and then go through each record of the FFL looking for the correct 4473. Because the individual buyers are not indexed, this technically does not violate the federal law making a registry illegal.

 

If the out-of-business dealer’s records have been converted to the ATF’s electronic database, examiners can attempt to locate purchasers by tabbing through digital folders organized by former dealer names and then sort through individual sales records to identify individual buyers.

But once those records are electronic, it is exponentially easier to run OCR through every record and compile a registry. There is software out there that do name and address corrections, so even if the OCR doesn’t get everything perfect, you could probably still get a registry that is probably 95% accurate. It wouldn’t be that hard to set up a system that did serial number normalization either. You could get from something perfectly legal to a useful registry in a matter of hours with the right systems in place.

The article mentions the large number of traces the office is getting, increasing year-over-year. A lot of anti-gun politicians have been forcing these “trace every gun” policies on their police departments, whether the trace is really needed for the purposes of an investigation or not. Kind of convenient, isn’t it, that the volume of requests coming into ATF has them crying for more money to digitize more and more records.

Now obviously this registry would not be complete, because it would not include private transfers, but they are doing their level best to work on that side of the equation too.

From a CNN report (link auto plays video, like everything seems to these days):

Gilad Erdan, minister of public security, was contemplating a number of options, police said.

Among security steps were closing off the Palestinian suburbs of east Jerusalem and relaxing gun licensing.

Sounds like a good idea to me. This actually wouldn’t be the first time they’ve eased their gun regulations in response to attacks. This shows that societies facing existential threats, who cannot afford the luxury of magical thinking, seem to agree that firearms in the hands of ordinary good citizens make everyone safer. Israelis are even hitting the range because of the recent attacks. Sadly, things will probably only get worse for Israel since the Obama Administration has abandoned them as allies, and now the whole region is a mess.

Israel’s gun culture really centers around universal military service. It might be tempting to compare it to Switzerland, but the Swiss system is one of universal militia service. Switzerland’s gun laws are relatively permissive, whereas Israel’s are actually pretty strict. Not everyone is happy with that state of affairs, however.

Eugene Volokh has compiled a list of recent events where mass shootings have (in some cases possibly) been prevented by armed intervention by civilians. This might turn out to be useful in your arguments with people who don’t agree with this whole gun thing, and I’m sure many of you have found yourself in that situation after the most recent events.

I’ve noticed left-leaning friends on Facebook have gotten more argumentative after this incident than previous events. Perhaps there is frustration over their side of the debate not advancing, and that’s making people more likely to start asserting their points. I only have maybe two friends on Facebook I would classify as hard core gun control supporters. Most of the rest support UBCs and maybe a few other things. You need to deal with each type differently.

The first type is your typical left-leaning moderate, or your more traditional modern liberals. These people haven’t really bought into the hard core progressive-left shibboleth. While they ain’t voting Republican any time soon, they aren’t necessarily embracing thew worst elements of the far left. A lot of tech geeks fall into this category. A key thing I’ve found with this type is they tend to apply reason very well, but the problem is that in the Venn Diagram of reason and the political process, there isn’t any overlap. People of this type correctly understand that compromise is part of the political process, but often don’t understand how it comes about. The political process is not reasonable people coming together to think their way through problems as is the case in most tech environments. To whatever extent reason plays a role in politics, it’s only as a cudgel with which to bash your opponent with in order to look like the stronger man. Compromise in politics is a result of struggle.

A question you’ll often hear from this type is, “How can anyone oppose Universal Background Checks?” What I would point out that there are significant trust issues with the other side. You can point out plenty of examples of their being duplicitous over UBCs, from trying to ban even temporary transfers, to trying to get other issues to hitchhike along, for dismissing our serious concerns, etc. I would avoid arguments against the concept itself, because then you’ll just get dismissed as a zealot and the conversation will be over. What you want to do is try to make them understand the trust issues at work. This is only from one side, of course. I’m sure our opponents could lay down examples of where they thought our side was being duplicitous, but that’s their argument to make, not your’s.

The greater truth here, which I’d never use on a reasonable type with little exposure to politics, is that it’s generally a bad negotiating tactic to come to the table and immediately serve your opponents one of your key positions on a silver platter. Why would we just give up on the UBC issue? Just because some people think that it’s the “right thing to do?” Hell no. This isn’t afternoon tea. We might be able to use that issue later as leverage if we need to avoid something we really don’t want to have imposed on us.

A smart strategy at the negotiating table is that your opponents shouldn’t get movement any of their issues unless they can force movement. In a democratic republic, that comes down to votes of lawmakers, and right now we control that chessboard. We don’t surrender pieces on the board just because someone else thinks we need to take pity on our opponent. That’s a good way to get checkmated down the road, and make no mistake about it, they do intend to checkmate us.

President Obama pointed to Britain and Australia, two countries that engaged in mass confiscation, as examples of what our country needs. Hillary said the Supreme Court got it wrong when it threw out gun bans in DC and Chicago. The game won’t stop just because they took a few pawns and a bishop. They intend to win the game, and the end goal of that is to see you check mated for real. Reasonable people see a lot of strength on our side, and a lot of weakness on theirs, and don’t understand why we can’t just reach an accommodation if our side would just give a little. Make them understand the duplicity of our opponents.

The second type is the strong gun control advocate. These people are often full of facts and figures they got from the left-wing news sites that feed them that shit. You will never convince this type, but that’s not the point of engagement. In fact, this type will generally start to look down on you for denying the power of their science on the impact of guns on society. The fact of the matter is much of what has been fed to them is either propaganda, half-baked nonsense, or outright fabrication. There is plenty of well-researched data on our side, but we also have our share of these things as well. Learn to tell the difference. But no matter what you have to say, it will boil down to dueling studies. This is probably one reason you don’t see NRA funding a lot of pro-gun research. At the end of the day everyone goes off their gut instinct. Your purpose is not to convince these people, but there are two reasons you should argue with this type.

For one, you want to signal to other gun people they may be friends with that they are not alone, and that there are people who think the same as they do who can hold their own with people regurgitating left-wing shibboleths about gun control. A lot of these folks you’re trying to reach aren’t even gun owners, but they have a gut agreement with the Second Amendment, but maybe they can’t quite articulate it. I was once one of these people. You need to reach them, and stir within them the desire to explore an issue they maybe just can’t quite articulate right now.

The second reason for engaging this second type is to present arguments to people they may be friends with who aren’t necessarily supporters or detractors. Show that our side is the winning side. People are naturally more attracted to the side that sounds like winners, and seldom want to hitch their horse to a card that isn’t going anywhere. I believe at the end of the day we will be the winners. Have the confidence and command of the issue to bring those kinds of folks with us. The only question I have, really, is how long it will take us to get there.

When arguing with people on social media, in all cases, we need to be the ones who are calm, cool, and collected. Don’t fall for people’s desire to escalate. If they keep flinging pooh at you, it’s better to just disengage. There is a point of diminishing returns, and you should always think, “If this debate were to end right now, who would someone with no dog in this fight think the asshole is?” If the answer is you, you’ve taken it too far. Help your opponent keep digging, but when you can’t continue without looking like the bad guy, it’s time to stop.

If we choose our engagements wisely, we can come out ahead after incidents like this. It’s my sincere belief that gun control is less popular now than it was when Democrats were convincing themselves it was a losing issue. Argue politely, but with confidence, and we will continue to ensure they get nothing.

I have no doubt at some point this shoe will drop, but it would appear our Divider-in-Cheif is preparing some more executive orders on gun control. This is kind of like news that Hillary Clinton is, in fact, anti-gun, which, of course, she is. Not even a decade ago, Democrats had convinced themselves this was a loser of an issue, and now they are clamoring to show the world who hates the Second Amendment more. This didn’t work out too well for Al Gore, when he doubled down on Clinton’s legacy on the issue. But the difference today is that Democrats have convinced themselves that shifting demographics has ensured they will win the White House in perpetuity.