Category: Gun Rights

We didn’t manage to get out a gun news post last week, so I thought I’d start the week off with one. At the beginning of last week, there wasn’t much news, and then at the end a flurry. But I have to admit, almost 7 years into the Obama Administration, news about gun control and Obama bores me; a dog bites man story at this point. It was pretty clear once we dealt him an embarrassing defeat after Sandy Hook he was going to send the rest of his Administration trying to stick it to us any way he could, and he’s performing as expected.

First, the big news: Texas passes licensed open carry and campus carry. There’s no doubt Abbott will sign both. Looks like the campus carry bill still offers flexibility to private institutions. The important thing, in my opinion, is that the “off limits” restriction in the carry law is removed. Anything beyond that is just school policy.

Trouble is afoot in New Jersey today. Looks like Gun Violence Restraining Order again.

Big crowd in Oregon promising to ignore the states new private transfer ban. Seems to be a lot of that going around these days. It’s almost like gun control breeds contempt for the law. Who knew?

The media still does not understand “stand your ground.” Probably because distorting what it really is fits their agenda.

Here’s a map of Salem Oregon, if they were to follow the five mile rule we talked about earlier.

Charles C.W. Cooke: Vince Vaughn is right on guns.

Some gun business needs to take out an ad on a SEPTA bus and then sue them for refusing it. I don’t think they get what content neutral really means.

Clayton Cramer and Joe Olson have a new paper out looking at the commercial history of firearms. Important groundwork for developing court doctrine around what commercial activity with arms is protected by the Second Amendment.

Mapping out networks. Interesting.

Constitutional Carry is dead in South Carolina for now.

Constitutional Carry headed for a House vote in Maine.

The Arizona Republic promotes some common sense when it comes to lead ammunition. Persuasion rather than force? Now there’s a new idea.

We often say that the First Amendment can be more dangerous than the Second. Well, there’s at least one college in Texas that thinks using the First to advocate for the Second is the height of danger. If I were the Republicans, I’d cut any and all federal funding to any school that enacts a speech code.

Speaking of schools and crazy, a New Jersey school suspended a student for having a nerf dart in his pocket.

D.C. fails to get a stay, and will have to start issuing licenses.

Women are driving the shift on gun rights. In my experience, women tend to get more involved than men do in the political fight.

Tomorrow is “wear orange” day. Miguel reminds us that many people who were part of Bloomberg’s last failed group are wearing orange daily.

Bloomberg’s outfit is getting in on the celebrity business. This used to be Brady’s strength, now I guess no longer. It’s hard for me to see how the Brady organization is going to survive, unless Bloomberg chooses to keep it alive to avoid the bad press for gun control as a whole.

Speaking of the Brady Center, looks like more legal trouble. Smacks of desperation to me. I have to believe they are nearing the end of their rope.

Bloomberg News is catching onto the whole abolish ATF meme. They’re all starting to figure out that the FBI would be a far better advocate for more gun control than ATF.

Dog bites man: Vivek Murthy to use his position as Surgeon General to promote gun control. It was a fore-drawn conclusion as soon as he was confirmed.

SayUncle says we need a new catchphrase for people who leave guns in bathrooms: “After you’ve shat, secure your gat.“

You remember that fake gun store that was set up in New York City? David Codrea notes that even the people who went into the store were fake. All actors.

What legal self-defense products can you legally use in Britain? None.

Carolyn Maloney floats her gun control bill that will go nowhere, calling for all gun owners to keep insurance.

Off Topic:

Segregation in the 21st Century? I thought we had tried this once, and all were pretty much agreed it didn’t work out very well.

Just a reminder, New Jersey is an extremely corrupt state with a judiciary that has almost no regard for the rule of law.

Looks like Chuck Schumer is about as intent on useless regulation of drones as he is useless regulations of guns.

The Obama Administration is preparing new gun regulations. This news is all the rage, but the article is short on details, so we don’t really know exactly what’s coming. In my opinion this action by the Administration is about two things. The first is revenge, because we dealt the them a high profile and embarrassing defeat after Sandy Hook. Two, it is about keeping the issue alive into the next Administration. I believe ATF will write new regulations that will be difficult for a future President to reverse without provoking a backlash from the media and gun control advocates (but I repeat myself).

I believe it will be about subtly expanding the pool of prohibited persons and broadening the definition of “adjudicated.” It’ll impose new regulations on FFLs about storage requirements, and reporting requirement. The question is whether it ends up being very audacious, going far beyond what the Gun Control Act allows. I think the smart move would be subtlety, but this Administration is rather unpredictable. If it’s bold regulation that greatly expands the power beyond what the Gun Control Act will allow, we’ll fight it in the courts and probably win.

What Obama should want is new regulations that looks quite reasonable on the surface, but screw us in subtle and not so subtle ways that are hard to explain to the average low-information voter. Regulations that we have to convince another President to re-examine under risk of a media frenzy. If the Administration doesn’t push us back as far as they can, we’ll be on a tear if there’s a Republican in the White House in 2016. Far better, they would think, that we spend all of our capital having to undo the mess the previous Administration made, rather than spending it to move forward.

I’m a strong believer that Black Americans often unjustly draw the short straw from our legal system, and the police are often guilty of systemic bias in their enforcement of the law, but I have to agree with Bob Owens in this particular story which highlights a black v. white open carry encounter. I’ve seen some white guys get treated equally poorly, and sometimes worse, depending on jurisdiction, and how familiar the officers are with handling open carriers. I’m open to the hypothesis that Black Americans will, on average, have more negative experiences, but these two encounters are do necessarily represent an example of such bias.

My purpose in bringing this incident up is to note there seems to be a meme going around. I go over a LOT of news in this issue. You only ever see a fraction of it here, because I don’t often decide to write about a topic until I notice new patterns. This has become a new pattern. There seems to be a concerted effort to convince African-Americans that gun rights are for white people, and white people are only interested in preserving this right for themselves, and blacks can never hope to exercise it on an equal basis with whites.

While I have no doubt in a country of 300 million, you could find people who believe that gun rights are only for white people, it is not even remotely mainstream opinion even among the most gun nutty of gun nuts. Even at my working-class, aging suburban gun club, we have African-American members, and the guy who ran my qualification test for my membership was an African-American. I won’t say there ain’t a racist among us, it’s a 1200 person club, and you can find plenty of assholes among any 1200 people, but I think you’d be hard pressed to find many people who would agree Second Amendment rights are for whites only.

So why would someone try to float this meme? I think this all started with the recent Pew Poll, showing support for gun rights swinging in our favor among Black Americans. Nick Johnson, who’s written a whole book on the topic, has noted that support of African-Americans in favor of gun control seemed to come more from a desire to coalition with progressive-minded whites than out of any deep cultural or historical inclination from within the black community.

It’s not that I believe there’s any overarching or coordinated conspiracy to put meme out there, but if you can plant the idea with a few sympathetic and influential opinion leaders, and then let other influential people chew on it a bit, you can get a meme to spread. Progressive Democrats are completely dependent on owning the black vote. They can’t let any issue drive a wedge, and this one is now threatening to do that, so they need to bring their base back in line. The real solution for Democrats would be to abandon gun control, return to more traditional liberalism, and leave the progressive mouth foamers hung out to dry. But how many traditional liberals are left these days?

I make a brief appearance on Episode 27 of the Gun Blog Variety Cast speaking about the issue of Doctors and Guns. I realized after my post on this topic last Friday that I was remiss in mentioning Doctors for Responsible Gun Ownership. I hope DRGO manages to grow, and hopefully gets powerful enough to someday take on the SJWs who run the various medical societies. We talk about DRGO a bit in the podcast.

I think if you call your podcast “Gun Blog Variety”, gun blogging guests should have to do a dance, bang out a few tunes on the accordion, or sing a few love songs before going on. Maybe sing a few love songs while accompanying on the accordion, and dancing!

Click here to play the episode. My segment starts at 26:25, but listen the whole thing. Looks like Miguel usually occupies that slot, so this week’s segment has 95% less beard!

I’m sorry to report that it appears Dudley Brown was successful in scuttling a Democratic proposal to raise the magazine limit in Colorado from 15 to 30 rounds.

Caldara said Wednesday that he had not yet received the letter, but agreed that it would be impossible to pass a 30-round limit this year with 26 Republicans in opposition. Supporters of the plan would need every House and Senate Republican behind it, plus a few House Democrats.

Years from now, when Coloradans are still living with a 15 round limit, you can thank Brown and all the people who drink the RMGO kool-aid  for it, because I think that’s going to be the result. Colorado’s demographics aren’t going to improve from here for Republicans. Unless there’s a major realignment, it’s hard to see how we’re getting rid of that limit. Maybe we’ll get extraordinarily lucky in the courts.

That said, I don’t want to get into endless bickering over this. It’s time to move on and keep pushing for either full repeal, or whatever we can get out of the Democrats, who are likely to control the Colorado House for some time.

UPDATE: I know I have a few Colorado readers. What two Democrats are potentially vulnerable in 2016 or 2018 in the Colorado House? How likely is the GOP to hold the Colorado Senate in a non-wave year?

The city wanted to put a stop to the lawsuit challenging their illegal gun ordinances while the constitutionality of the bill was fully litigated, but a judge has decided that the suit may move forward, despite the battle over constitutionality. This is very good news, and a welcome contrast with the judge in Pittsburgh who stayed the suit in Pittsburgh early in March.

Yesterday, an appeals court refused to lift the stay on the Pittsburgh case.

Hard to believe that April is almost over. The good news is that my report has been largely delivered, so I have more writing energy to devote to blogging. I was doing a security and infrastructure analysis for a client that turned out to be a good bit lengthier than I had thought, so hence the mad scramble to finish it. When someone is paying you five figures for a report, it has to be written far more carefully and with far greater scrutiny than a blog post. I only wish I could get paid $500 per page here! But here’s some news for free anyway:

With the late situation in Baltimore is just another reminder of what the law ultimately means, and if you’re not willing to see people die to keep sharp, pointy things illegal, you probably shouldn’t have a law. Oh, and good thing O’Malley disarmed everyone before all this, otherwise someone might get hurt.

Harrisburg ordered to release donor information for their legal defense funds.

Civil Rights victory for non-citizens.

Thirdpower noticed something in the Brady Staffer who was plaintiff on the Lucky Gunner suit. Brady keeping a gun owner database? Why? Of course, it could be an epic troll, in which case well-played. Miguel noticed too, and thinks it might be a violation of Florida law if true. Probably other states too.

Remember folks, guns are bad because there might be accidents involving children. But teaching children to stay away from guns is evil. Of course, it makes sense when you figure without tragedies to exploit, the other side doesn’t really have much in the way of arguments.

Oregon State Senator Betsy Johnston: “New Oregon Gun Law Will Accomplish Nothing”

Bloomberg’s Everytown: We’ll debate any expert, anywhere, anytime, as long as they agree with us.

Veto threat coming from the New Hampshire governor on Constitutional Carry.

Miguel asks whether Maryland National Guardsmen are being forced to play security theater in Baltimore.

I had no idea that Albertsons supermarkets banned firearms in their stores. Good thing I don’t shop there. Though, the reason I don’t shop there is because their supermarkets suck.

Here’s hoping Tim McGraw is continuing to Dixie Chick himself.

Senator Tim Kaine loves himself some gun control. I am very alarmed that Virginia is on its way to becoming a solid blue state, thanks to out of control growth of our federal government. This will be very bad for NRA.

Our Congressional seat will be open in 2016. The Dem lining up called for a door-to-door confiscation bill of all semi-automatic firearms after Sandy Hook. This is still a swing district, and our GOP sucks, but this guy can’t win. He’s from New Jersey, originally, which should surprise no one.

Caleb asks about whether the firearms industry should tighten admission standards for media at trade shows. If you just required them to have a business card and have posted something about guns in the past week, that would weed out a huge number of unserious people.

Civil Rights Victory in Illinois. As a gun owner, I would never see a therapist. This is the reason why.

New Jersey is a may-issue state when it comes to gun ownership.

 The Firearm Blog takes a look at the new AK-12.

Hey, maybe if so many people weren’t constantly beating the confiscation drum, this bit at the Daily Beast might actually have some credibility.

Politifact admits handgun waiting period essentially useless. That assumes the goal is public safety, and not frustrating people out of exercising their enumerated constitutional rights. Interesting timing, because Clayton Cramer has a new paper out on this very topic.

Remember, our opponents in the gun control movement are often horrible people.